There's Officially a CRISIS at Mount Rainier National Park.

This episode is brought to you by TXU Energy. If you're looking for a better way to save on electricity, both night and day, look no further than TXU Energy Free Nights and Cool Summer. It gives you free energy all night, every night, all year long, plus a 25% bonus toward your daytime use every summer. It's the only plan that lets you use free energy to get more savings. So while nights are always free, summer days are now always discounted. With savings like that, you'll never look at a free nights plan the same way again. Learn more at TXU.com, rep number 10004. Today I'm going to tell you four of the most disturbing stories to ever come out of Mount Rainier National Park. And then I'm going to tell you about the most suspicious hiker disappearance in history, though it's not suspicious for the reasons you might think. If you're enjoying the show, please leave us a five-star review and hit the follow button right now. I have a goal of reaching 1,000 five-star reviews and we're starting to get a little close. And so please help us out. And when you hit the follow button, you'll also be showing Spotify that our show is worth listening to. And so please do it right now and listen on if you dare. Listen to me. Something very strange is going on in Mount Rainier National Park. Nobody's talking about it and you deserve to know the truth. Some sources say that over 400 people have vanished just on this one mountain. And while I can't confirm that number, I can show you why many insiders believe it. Take what happened in 2010, for example, when search crews found something that absolutely shocked them right along the summit of Mount Rainier itself. The search team had been climbing for hours, in brutal whiteout conditions. The wind and snow had been punishing them up on the summit. And just when they were ready to turn back and call it a day, one of them spotted a small opening in the snow. As the climber approached this mysterious hole on the side of the mountain, it was obvious that this hole was there on purpose. It was almost like he was meant to find it. The climber dropped to his knees and decided to look inside of the hole, expecting to find something horrific like blood, abandoned gear, or even a body. But what he actually found in the hole was arguably far worse, and certainly far more baffling. I need to introduce you to a man named Eric Lewis. Eric was an experienced mountaineer from Duval, Washington, which isn't too far from Mount Rainier National Park. He was 57 years old, and he had been up and down Mount Rainier multiple times. He was comfortable and skilled in the mountains, but even the most experienced climber, he wasn't invincible. On July 1st, 2010, Eric joined two of his friends, Don Storm and Trevor Lane, to climb the Gibraltar Ledges route, a historic and demanding way to get up Mount Rainier that has been guiding climbers to the summit for ages. By the early afternoon, the team had almost reached 14,000 feet of elevation, which would put them just a few hundred feet from the mountain summit of 14,410 feet. By the early afternoon, the team had almost reached 14,000 feet of elevation, which would put them just a few hundred feet from the mountain summit of 14,410 feet of elevation, At this altitude, the winds gradually began to kick up, visibility was decreasing, and as Eric and his friends started looking around, their world started to turn whiter and whiter with snow. And you might be thinking, didn't Kyle just say that this took place in July? Well, yes it did, but the truth is that whiteouts and snow on a mountain this high, especially on Rainier, all that stuff's common even in the warmest months of the year. Whiteouts on Mount Rainier aren't anything new or unnatural either, but that doesn't take away from the fact that they are absolutely disorienting. Have you ever tried catching snowflakes on your tongue in the winter? You know, should I demonstrate? You know, you go like this. Don't clip that, please. You know, when you're doing this and you look up, you can usually see each individual flake kind of slowly falling down and even track them right into your mouth. But in a bad whiteout like this, you can't even see six inches in front of you. And good luck if you're trying to catch those snowflakes on your tongue. It would kind of be like drinking out of a frozen fire hose. That was not my best explanation, was it? So in this moment, Eric's friend Don was lead climbing, but he was essentially just kind of guessing with every step and hoping that his experience on the mountain would come in handy. Sometimes that's just how it goes on these kinds of expeditions. Don stopped for a moment and he was soon joined by Lane. They had literally just been with Eric moments earlier. And, you know, they had felt the steady tension of his weight through the rope right behind them. But still, as they waited a little bit longer for Eric to catch up, they began to worry. And maybe he was right next to them and they just couldn't see him through all the snow. That was certainly plausible. And they reached their arms into the air. They called out his name, but still nothing. And so Lane finally decided to pull on the slack in Eric's rope. But as he did this, he started. He started to realize that he couldn't feel any resistance on the line anymore. One pull after another, his fear began to grow until his hand grabbed onto something that he couldn't quite recognize right away. Again, his vision was blurred in the whiteout conditions, but he pulled the mystery object closer to his face to see the dark truth of what he was holding. It wasn't his friend Eric on the other side of the line. It was just a coil of rope that had been neatly tied off with a bug. Lane and Don began calling out Eric's name louder and louder off into the snowy abyss, but of course they didn't get any responses. The two men immediately searched the slope below, scanning the snowfields and ledges for any sign of their friend. But they couldn't find any tracks. Zero footprints in the snow. And more concerningly, or I should say bafflingly, is that a word? There were no signs of a slip or a slide. They kept looking and they went to check. They went to check the summit ridge above them just in case Eric had somehow moved around them in the whiteout and they didn't see him. But he wasn't up there either. They were exhausted at this point from the climb, the search, all the stress of the situation, and the brutal conditions. And they knew that they had to turn back soon. As they descended to base camp below, they knew that they had no choice at this point but to alert the park rangers of the dark truth, which was that Eric was missing on Mount Rainier. And. From that point. The search was on climbing rangers, professional guides and volunteer rescue teams spread out all over the mountain. Helicopters swept the area around the Gibraltar shoots as well as the surrounding glaciers conditions at that altitude were still extremely sketchy. And so every hour that was spent searching came with increasing danger to the search teams themselves. But of course, I mean, everyone knew that time was. Of the essence here, if Eric was all alone up there trapped, well, he obviously didn't have much time, but the search dragged on into the night and by the next morning, July 2nd, ground teams were still searching the mountain at around 13,600 feet just below where Lane and Don first realized that Eric was no longer right behind them. One of those search and rescue climbers was trudging through the deep snow when he stepped on something that. Didn't quite feel like the normal snow ice or rock that he had grown accustomed to. He got chills as he wondered what might be sitting below his boots. Like, what is that? He quickly pushed away the snow, grabbed this unknown object and pulled on it to get a little bit of a better look. Turns out it was a backpack. As they opened up this pack, they pulled out a climbing harness, a snow shovel and a couple of full frozen water bottles. Based on all of the background information they had gotten from Don and Lane, the searchers knew that this backpack obviously belonged to Eric. Folks, this was the clue that they had been praying for. And so they kept searching all around that same area. I mean, could Eric be literally right around the next corner? Was there some other sign of tracks or of life nearby? They climbed about 200 feet or roughly 60 meters further up the mountain where they found another clue. And this one was by far the most unsettling clue of this entire story. So the search crews were high on Mount Rainier. They're looking for Eric when all of a sudden they found what looked like a carefully constructed hole in the ground. And as they kind of got down to try to peer inside the hole, they started to prepare themselves for the possible horrors that they might find inside. But as they peered their heads inside of the hole. It was completely empty. It was in this moment that they also realized that the hole was actually a carefully constructed man-made snow cave. And if you're not familiar, a snow cave is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It's a cave dug into the snow that's meant to trap body heat and create a safe haven from blizzards and wind. It's a structure that requires time, strength, and clear judgment to create. And of course, given the fact that the hole was found very close to where Eric's backpack was found, the search crews assumed that this snow cave must have been built by Eric to protect himself from the harsh conditions. And yet, there was zero sign of Eric anywhere. The cave was completely abandoned. Crews of more than 40 people searched for multiple days after finding Eric's backpack and that mysterious snow cave. But conditions on Mount Rainier were just not getting any better. After filming, to find any additional clues the search for eric was eventually scaled back now park rangers did say that they'd continue doing normal patrols but the official like full-scale search was basically coming to an end leaving so many unanswered questions many of which i'm sure you're running through in your heads right now first of all why had eric unclipped himself from the rope i mean that's a big question and some theories around the time suggested that he had possibly become confused due to the cold and of course possible hypothermia and then somehow untied unclipped and then retied his rope into that mysterious butterfly knot that his friends kind of reeled in and i guess i can see how that's possible especially because from making these videos i know plenty of examples of how hypothermia makes very rational and smart people do some very unrational things and i think that's a very good example of how hypothermia makes very rational rational and smart people do some very unrational things and i think that's a very good example of how hypothermia makes very rational and smart people do some very unrational and sometimes crazy things but then again this episode is brought to you by txu energy if you're looking for a better way to save on electricity both night and day look no further than txu energy free nights and cool summer it gives you free energy all night every night all year long plus a 25 bonus toward your daytime use every summer it's the only plan that lets you use free energy to get more savings so all nights are always free summer days are now always discounted with savings like that you'll never look at a free night's plan the same way again learn more at at txu.com rep number one zero zero zero four that just seems like a lot of steps that eric would have had to go through i don't know now there's something i haven't really emphasized as much as i think i should have up to this point and that's the butterfly knot that is a very weird part of this story because ropes don't just tie themselves up into butterfly knots all by themselves obviously someone had to stop they had to use their hands and they had to focus to make this happen it feels like to me that it would have been almost impossible for me to do that almost impossible for eric to tie that knot in in these whiteout conditions that were so bad that he he basically couldn't even see his own boots and so i don't know what to make of that it just seems really weird to me but then again it wouldn't be the first time that i read a story on this channel where something impossible happened so maybe eric had badly injured himself while he was in the back of the group's climbing line maybe he called out to his friends to try to you know have them help him but the the whiteout conditions the wind the chaos everything made it impossible for him to actually get their attention and then rather than slowing down and endangering the rest of his climbing party perhaps eric simply unclipped himself in secret and decided to save his friends for making a dangerous and impossible decision to try to carry him back down the mountain which like man talk about a tough position to be in that theory sounds noble of course but it also sounds straight out of a hollywood movie at least to me and in my experience these stories usually have much darker and scarier endings than that and of course if eric had built the mysterious snow cave then why wasn't he in there and why was his backpack his shovel and his climbing harness found in a different spot than the snow cave they were you know relatively close together but like you would think that they would be found right next to each other or all that gear would even be in the cave i mean did something go wrong while he was digging the cave that forced him to like abandon it in a hurry now there were no signs of a struggle anywhere near the cave or his backpack and so there's no way to know if someone or something had interrupted eric as he was attempting to save his own life my gut is telling me that this more nefarious explanation probably isn't true but in a park like renear you just never know now as time stretched on dawn lane and all of eric's loved ones hoped for a miracle maybe eric would just kind of emerge from the mountain alive somehow you know freezing cold but alive folks this miracle you know obviously never came and to this day eric's story still doesn't have an official end no one has ever found his body and frankly there haven't been any new clues at least that i'm aware of just complete and total silence echoing from the side of mount renear and as much as it pains me to say this i kind of feel like this is one of those mysteries that might not ever be solved and i don't always say that about these stories i cover but this one just given how high up he was given how harsh that environment is how hard it is to search there i don't know it sucks to say but i just don't have a good feeling that this one's ever gonna have any closure i mean eric's case is just so chill uh the mountain didn't just take him i mean it showed that he was desperate to survive and yet still presumably he failed and the next story proves something even worse which is that on mount renear danger can strike you know up on the summit like it did for eric or it can strike way down in altitude on just an ordinary hike like what happened with 70 year old karen sykes now don't let karen's story be a mystery to you because it's a mystery to me because it's a mystery to me because karen's old age fool you she was actually a legendary writer photographer and guidebook expert who had spent decades exploring trails across washington and the pacific northwest some of her friends even called her the guru of trails and being from seattle karen especially loved mount renear on june 18th 2014 she and her boyfriend bob set out on a hike around the owy high lakes trail on the east side of the park it wasn't a super ambitious summit attempt or like an extremely technical climb no it was just a research hike for an article that karen was planning to write it was supposed to be safe and simple however she was about to find out the hard way that nature isn't really known for being safe or simple at least not always as the trail climbed to about 5 000 feet or roughly 1524 meters karen and bob reached a little bit faster than bob and she told him that she was going to hike ahead briefly and you know that she would be right back and bob knew that she was the trail expert and so he had zero problems with this and you have to understand that bob didn't see karen like leave the trail or climb away into dense brush she simply kind of just speed walked up the same trail that they'd been following all day as she drifted around the next corner bob had no clue that his greatest nightmare had just begun after the two had been separated for a short while bob was expecting to catch up to karen he hiked from one switchback to the next checking around tree after tree but karen was nowhere to be found and at first bob wondered if she had stepped off the trail for a quick detour and this wouldn't have been like her but then again karen really loved to spot tiny details that would help add color and value to her outdoor writing so maybe she spotted a unique tree or a rock formation that she just needed to get a little bit of a closer look at well after several minutes of calling out her name looking up and down the trail bob started to panic he probably started to think of any logical explanation for why he couldn't find karen i mean he was literally just hiking with her just a few minutes ago like what the hell could have happened the sun wasn't going to be up forever and bob was realizing that he could keep searching all by himself at this point he had retraced his steps hiked up and down the trail but of course he had found no sign of tracks or any evidence that karen had maybe fallen off the trail or that something had happened and so bob finally rushed back to the trailhead and notified park rangers of the disturbing truth which was that karen sykes was missing the large search effort began almost immediately six ground crews two dog teams and a helicopter crew combed the area around owy high lakes and one of the most puzzling parts of this entire disappearance something that i'm sure all the searchers were were thinking about is that it happened on a well-marked trail in a heavily visited part of the national park i mean it is a national park after all but as we all know certain parts of certain parks do get a lot of visitors if karen had like wandered off or been injured or collapsed nearby crews would have assumed that she'd be found very quickly and yet that just wasn't the case here by the next day there were still no clues no gear no torn clothing and no obvious signs of struggle or distress and it's also worth noting that the temperatures that day weren't exactly brutal by any stretch of the imagination at least for mount rainier standards right it was just about 40 degrees fahrenheit in the area i have a buddy from the pacific northwest and he says that you know those temperatures are like teens and in sweatshirt kind of weather if you're from the pacific northwest you can let me know if that's what you think as well hell my buddy says he's even worn shorts in those temperatures and you know being from vermont i got to admit i've probably done the same thing if you're from florida or southern arizona then this might shock you a little bit but my point here is that it's not like karen and bob had been ignoring the forecast or failing to pay attention to big weather shifts for an experienced hiker this day was just about as normal as it could possibly get as the search went on people began to wonder more and more what could have happened to karen i mean did she into wildlife when she ventured up the trail all by herself and kind of left her partner behind now mountaineer national park is home to a few predators like mountain lions coyotes and black bears i feel like mountain lions would be the biggest threat of those three but if she had somehow been attacked well they didn't find any blood any tattered clothing or any other sign of some sort of attack along the trail mountain lions are very stealthy obviously but i don't know i just feel like they most likely would have found something and you also might be thinking that her disappearance could be linked to foul play somehow that always comes up but i do want to note that again this was a very popular trail and there were apparently a lot of people hiking it that day and since crews didn't find any tracks of any kind it was very hard for them to even begin to wonder if someone had hurt karen despite the fact that there were no signs of a struggle theory after theory was thrown around as bob prayed that he'd find his girlfriend and as locals desperately searched for their beloved guru of trails i've covered so many wilderness hiking disappearances on this channel and not always but often we'll say these disappearances happen when people kind of push their limits and go way out on the edge of civilization but again karen wasn't doing any of that it seemed like she was an expert and she knew her limits really well but the wilderness clearly doesn't discriminate when it decides to strike this episode is brought to you by txu energy if you're looking for a better way to save on electricity both night and day look no further than txu energy free nights and cool summer it gives you free energy all night every night all year long plus a 25 bonus toward your daytime use every summer it's the only plan that lets you use free energy to get more savings so all nights are always free summer days are now always discounted with savings like that you'll never look at a free night's plan the same way again learn more at txu.com rep number one zero zero zero four and with that said on the third day of searching a crew was retracing karen's steps along the trail when they peered down a steep rough slope just off the side of the trail the slope looked like it was difficult to access and definitely not a part of the official trail but by this point crews felt like they had searched all of the normal places and it was time to start thinking outside of the box and as they looked down this rugged slope something down there just looked out of place the crew members decided to slowly walk down the slope navigating through brush and rock and as they approached this unknown object their hearts completely sank as they realized exactly what they had found it was as you probably guessed a woman's body they notified authorities immediately and they were able to extract the body and send it in for autopsy the pierce county medical examiner's office determined that the woman had died of hypothermia and they of course tragically identified the body as the guru of the trails herself karen sykes now the hypothermia part might be a little weird to some of you you might think that it only happens in extreme conditions you know up on mount everest or whatever but the truth is that with the strong winds at karen's altitude and also karen's age exposure was a real possibility here her death was ultimately ruled accidental although questions still remain did hypothermia cloud her judgment after maybe she took a wrong turn is that what happened uh did a medical event slow her down or did one wrong step send her down that steep slope trapping her where rescuers couldn't reach her and then eventually she died you know from exposure to the elements karen's story is super tragic but it is at least somewhat explainable however my next story is basically the complete opposite we've actually talked about sheila kearns and the paradise in a long time ago but to this day i still find myself thinking about this case and i'm sure that most of you didn't watch that video or don't remember it it's been a while and honestly i feel like this is one of the like least talked about national park mysteries out there and so i don't know i don't think i'd be doing you guys justice or the story justice if i made a video about mount rainier mysteries and didn't mention this story and so by the summer of 1996 sheila kearns was 43 years old and she had just come out of a painful chapter of her life one that reportedly included supporting her husband through medical school only for him to then leave her once all the bills were paid off i mean that's brutal friends and co-workers said that sheila didn't dwell on on these hardships very much but she also clearly wanted a fresh slate and that's why she went to work at the paradise inn at mount rainier national park after sheila's first summer working at the inn she was one of just a few employees who stayed behind for the winter season but before she settled in for the winter she attended an end of the season staff party on october 4th 1996. sheila apparently had a good time at the party that night and by the time that she left none of her friends or co-workers suspected that it would be the last time they would ever see her alive two days later sheila failed to show up for work and the whole winter staff was immediately on high alert now if you've ever worked a seasonal gig like this then you know that everyone gets very used to seeing the same faces doing the same things every single day and so when someone dependable like sheila doesn't show up for work well you immediately know that something is wrong but when they went to check her room they didn't find her there and they also didn't find any notes any explanation or any sign of a struggle the room looks completely normal like sheila was fully planning on coming back to it oh and that's the state they found her car in as well everything was completely undisturbed and in hindsight it's it's very creepy that everything from her room to her car that everything looked okay that everything looked normal because as we're about to find out everything was absolutely not okay or normal in this case after her co-workers couldn't find her anywhere they of course reported her missing to the authorities rangers and search dogs combed the area initially assuming that sheila who was an avid hiker after all had just gotten lost on a nearby trail however after three days of searching without finding any trace of her investigators began to fear something far worse and so if she didn't just get lost on a hike then what the hell happened to sheila kearns was she the victim of an animal attack did she decide to just drop everything and run away to start over maybe in like a more extreme fashion than she had done after her husband left her or was the eerie state of her room and her car were those indications that she was the victim of something much more horrifying those questions would just keep hanging in the air because search crews fail to find any answers anything at all and so just like that the initial search for sheila was scaled back after a few weeks as the winter weather rolled over mount rainier and just like that the case literally went cold but when the snow finally melted the following spring the park opened back up to reveal what it had been hiding for months on may 10 1997 a park volunteer was walking around the longmire campground less than a mile from the paradise inn that volunteer thought they were enjoying just a regular spring day in one of america's nicest national parks but everything changed when they spotted something strange on the ground it was off-whites and it stood out next to all the brush and sticks that that usually covered the ground especially this time of year and as this volunteer bent over to inspect the mystery object their heart sank in their chest because it was a piece of a human skeleton the volunteer notified authorities immediately and after crews searched the whole longmire campground they ended up finding multiple pieces of skeletal remains scattered all over the place and so from there the obvious question was who do these remains belong to now you probably know where i'm going with this but you have to remember that so many people have disappeared in mount rainier national park over the years that it was not going to be immediately obvious that these remains belong to sheila they'd only truly be able to get the answers if the remains were brought into a lab and then science was allowed to give them the final piece of the puzzle and after those dental and lab records were poured over the remains of course were tragically confirmed to belong to sheila kearns now the discovery of sheila's remains was both heartbreaking and also improbable given how many people go missing here but it was also extremely scary and i say that because despite the initial assumptions that her her death was an accident well authorities would soon announce that her death was definitely not an accident at all they believed it was the result of homicide once they announced this as their leading theory the fbi took over the investigation because it had occurred within a national park federal land multiple people were interviewed but no one was charged throughout the entire investigation and once again even after the huge breakthrough of finding the remains in the first place sheila's case slipped into total silence and nearly three decades later the unanswered questions still haunt this story how did sheila's remains go undiscovered during the initial search that's a question that i have especially because they were found so close to the paradise inn at a well-used campground and well-used park buildings that's something that's always stuck out to me about this case like it's not like they found her miles and miles into the backcountry where nobody goes they found her pretty close to the place that she she worked like one of the first places they would have searched right and so do we think that the authorities were correct and that sheila truly was the victim of a crime or could an animal attack explain the way that her remains were scattered all around and maybe hidden for a while um and if not if it was foul play then how did someone manage to commit this this horrible crime in such a popular national park and then get away with it i'm telling you guys not that many people talk about this case and it's just so strange and tragic um i think more people need to hear it and so my heart goes out to sheila and her family and if somehow you have any information about this case please contact the fbi as soon as you possibly can now sheila's story is very underreported in my opinion but this next story is actually even more underreported in fact i didn't find any other videos about this story on youtube i definitely could have missed something but at least when i looked it seems like this might be the first time that it's ever been discussed at least at length on youtube in 1999 william trey's t-gen was 28 years old and he was ready to take on the world he had just become a doctor and was now days away from starting his residency in internal medicine at harborview medical center in seattle washington adventure had always been a part of trey's life he loved to kayak through raging rift and he was the first person to take part in that adventure he was he loved to climb 19 000 foot peaks and he bragged that he once survived a bandit attack while hiking in ecuador and so by any measure trey's was basically half cowboy and half superhero on june 20th he traveled to mount rainier to snowboard near camp mirror which is a high elevation hub at roughly 10 000 feet in elevation or that's around 3 000 meters and this hub attracts climbers and winter-ish story that took place in the summer now trey's plan was to hike up to camp mirror with his snowboard in hand and when he left the trailhead in the afternoon conditions were already less than ideal not like abysmal but you know overcast skies temperatures around 42 degrees fahrenheit and a light drizzle of cold rain however trey's wasn't gonna let a little bad weather get in the way of a really good adventure but i do wonder if he'd change his mind if he had known what was about to happen after trudging up the mountain trey's finally reached the public shelter at camp mirror right around 5 15 p.m it had been a long hike up but he was excited to finally get to you know the real reason he did this to snowboard back down when he was at camp mirror a ranger actually talked to him and warned him that the fog was starting to roll in tracks around the shelter were starting to disappear and this ranger thought that the snow was going to get worse and so he actually invited trey's to join a group of hikers that were about to head back down so that they could all go down together just in case the storm were to get any more dangerous however trey's reportedly wasn't interested in this and so after spending about 15 minutes at the shelter he hopped onto his snowboard and he started to shred down all by himself now again trey's was an avid outdoorsman he definitely had a lot of experience but i do need to note here that he was not an avid outdoorsman he definitely had a lot of experience but i do need to note here that he wasn't that familiar with rainier's terrain and to add another scary part to this whole story well trey's had only been snowboarding for about a year and on top of that he wasn't really carrying that much gear with him he didn't have a down jacket or extra cold layers or a tent or sleeping bag or crampons he basically didn't have any of the gear that you'd hope an inexperienced snowboarder would have when the weather starts to turn bad when you're high on a mountain like this from camp mirror the mountain naturally slopes down west toward the nisqually glacier and local rangers have said that it can be a real challenge whenever someone is skiing or snowboarding down from there it's hard for me to describe this because i've never done it all i did was read about it but apparently you would need to angle east almost like you're going uphill to avoid being pulled towards cliffs and ice falls i don't know i think the simplest way to describe it would be the mountain is trying to pull you towards danger and you have to do something about it and you have to do something about it and you have to do something to do everything in your power to go the opposite way and in foggy conditions that can be a challenge even for the most experienced snowboarders which trey's was definitely not just before this adventure trey's parents had actually driven with him to seattle however they didn't join him on the mountain and they instead decided to go explore vancouver british columbia and while they enjoyed this fun international west coast trip they assumed that their son was out there having a great time on the mountain they would have had no idea that what was happening on those slopes was about to change their lives forever as the sun went down over mount rainier rangers at the paradise ranger station kept expecting trey's to check back in with them at the bottom of the mountain but the weather was only getting worse and trey's never showed up the ranger who spoke with trey's up at camp muir remembered wanting him to just hike down safely with the rest of the group and this ranger began to worry if that was going to be one of the last conversations that trey's would ever have and so once trey's failed to make it to the bottom of the mountain like for good search and rescue teams were dispatched and they were dispatched almost immediately and yet despite this quick response weather conditions were obviously very hazardous and crews searched more than 12 square miles of terrain over the course of several days without making much progress at all and while all of this was happening you can probably imagine that the theories began to change and the weather conditions began to run wild now it was pretty unlikely that trey's would have run into some kind of wildlife out there since this was like a steep ski slope and most animals would probably prefer to hunker down and wait out bad weather but then again at this point i've covered so many of these stories that i can't ever like rule out 100 that animals weren't involved trey's had also gotten a very late start that day and again it was the summer and so the sun wouldn't go down until later on in the winter season so it's pretty unlikely that trey's would have been able to make it to the top of the mountain but you know he didn't leave camp mirror until a little after 5 p.m and that didn't leave much daylight out there for him at all and so did he get lost out there in the dark certainly a possibility and then there was the fact that trey's wasn't actually that experienced of a snowboarder and we know that the route down the mountain was a little trickier and included some treacherous cliffs so maybe the mountain pulled him in the wrong direction and he injured himself or worse there's also the very real possibility that he experienced just a normal fall or injury while snowboarding in the first place i mean that's not exactly uncommon even on like the easiest green runs at the easiest ski resorts let alone on a place like mount rainier in the backcountry and so if this did happen god forbid then he would have been all alone in the dark in bad weather and definitely could have suffered from exposure the search crews were just kind of running through different scenarios in their heads and as hard as it is to say this the same thing was happening for trey's parents they worked tirelessly to try to find their son or any possible clue along the side of the mountain but by the time that the search was starting to wind down they had found absolutely nothing and this is strange right they didn't find any snowboard or any tracks certainly no body and also no clear indication of where trey's had gone eventually with worsening weather and no new leads the search was suspended as always happens at some point in these cases and when this happened william trey's t-gen was added to the long list of people who had disappeared on mount rainier without any solid explanation snow kept falling on the mountain as 1999 was an unusually intense winter it seemed like if there were any answers left on the mountain they were almost certainly buried under layers and layers of ice and snow by this point trey's parents held a memorial service two years later basically having accepted that the mountain had taken their son and his bright future however that very same year 2001 at this point something unbelievable happened two climbers had just recently disappeared near the edge of the nisqually glacier and when rangers were out searching for them they noticed something strange the search team was currently at about 5 800 feet or 17 1800 meters of elevation when one of the crew members had been taking a moment to observe a nearby waterfall that was running out of the glacier he looked from the top of the waterfall and his eyes followed the flow all the way down to the water below and that's when he saw an unknown object at the bottom of the waterfall now again they're out here searching for an unrelated case and so at first it seemed like this might be a clue that could lead to the two missing climbers or maybe it was something else entirely and so this crew member looked down to the bottom of this glacial waterfall he found something horrifying human remains you need to understand though that as unsettling as this discovery might sound it was actually like even more unsettling for this particular crew member because the remains didn't appear to belong to the two climbers that they were out there searching for instead the ice had seemed to have been holding on to these remains for far longer maybe even like years longer and so sensing that this discovery pointed to a much older mystery the search crews started looking around the site for any more clues and that's when they uncovered a single piece of equipment half buried nearby and this changed everything it was a snowboard it took nearly a dozen rangers more than three hours to remove the waterlogged remains and all of the gear out of the ice and snow and finally deliver it to the pierce county medical examiner office from there the autopsy would eventually help identify the body as belonging to william trey's t-gen as unlikely as it seems uh it turns out that the glacier had held on to trey's body for two years and it took a little bit of movement melting and a waterfall to finally move things around enough to reveal the secrets that had been buried within the mountain frozen in time essentially and thankfully the two climbers that the rangers were originally searching for out there were later found alive and well which is awesome but it's just tragic that trey's wasn't as lucky as they were trey's had survived some wild places but on that fateful solo snowboarding trip the icy mountain got the last word and it pretty much always will my heart goes out to trey's as well as everyone else that i talked about in this video please show all of them some love in the comments comment below and i'll see you in the next video guys and i just appreciate all of you i mean it's just it's just such a blessing to be able to tell you these stories to help people stay safer on their adventures it's not always easy like these stories are very very sad and hard to tell sometimes honestly but i don't know i think we're doing a good thing here and it wouldn't be possible without all of you all right so our next story is very controversial and i'm gonna do my best to tell it fairly and so if you have any strong feelings about it all i ask is that you share it with me and i'll see you in the next one you just remain respectful in the comments because i can see this one getting a little bit out of hand this episode is brought to you by txu energy if you're looking for a better way to save on electricity both night and day look no further than txu energy free nights and cool summer it gives you free energy all night every night all year long plus a 25 bonus toward your daytime use every summer it's the only plan that lets you use free energy to get more savings so all nights are always free summer days are now always discounted with savings like that you'll never look at a free night's plan the same way again learn more at txu.com rep number one zero zero zero four on an ordinary wednesday morning in may of 2019 amanda eller decided to go for a short hike she was working and living on the hawaiian island of maui which is a place with no shortage of outdoor recreation opportunities why not get out into nature a bit clear her head and do some meditation what's could possibly go wrong well everything went wrong what was supposed to be a hike so short that eller didn't even bring her cell phone would soon spiral into an incredibly tense mysterious and dangerous situation within just a few days her story would be plastered all over the national news police would be searching her boyfriend's house for evidence and searchers on foot and in the air would be scouring through the dense maui wilderness day one turned into day two day two turned into day 10 and day 10 turned into day 17 and just when everyone was starting to run out of hope a discovery was made that would change everything amanda eller was alive albeit barely but as soon as she began telling her story to the public a whole new mystery began to take shape did she really get lost or was it all a hoax did she take any mind-altering substances that day and was she really telling the truth or was there an alternative agenda perhaps one that might benefit her financially at play this is the controversial survival story of amanda eller in 2019 35 year old amanda eller was a resident of the hawaiian island of maui where she worked as a physical therapist and a yoga instructor by all accounts she was truly living the dream she was working jobs she loved she was living with a supportive boyfriend in literal paradise i visited maui for the first time recently and so trust me i'm not making that up maui is absolutely incredible and speaking of maui one of the perks of living there is that you have access to insane amounts of outdoor recreation from the eastern part of maui which is one of the obvious ones like surfing and the beach stuff all the way to hiking and backpacking hell there's even a beautiful national park there haleakala national park among multiple other state parks and forest reserves amanda eller took full advantage of the hiking opportunities at her disposal and she was known to frequently go on runs in the forest where she would also stop and take time to meditate while she took in the scenery she was also known to leave behind her cell phone when she went on these short adventures at roughly 10 30 a.m on may 8th 2019 amanda drove to the makawau forest reserve and parked her white toyota rav4 at the trailhead she then headed into the woods intending to do a short hike slash jog she hiked in the forest here quite often and so she felt comfortable perhaps a little too comfortable now like i said a second ago amanda left her cell phone and other items like her wallet in the car when she went on these adventures i'm not exactly sure what her reasoning was for this but i did find one quote from her saying i love to stay away from emf which means electromagnetic fields and cell phones now i never found any other direct quotes from her about this but the general consensus seems to be that she simply liked to unplug and disconnect from technology when she was hiking which is very reasonable i totally get it although in hindsight i'm sure that she wishes that she would have brought that cell phone amanda eller was planning on hiking three miles and didn't intend on being out for more than just a couple hours at one point during her hike she decided to take a break and she quote laid down on a tree whatever that means after this break she started to backtrack towards her car or that was her intention at least unbeknownst to her she was in the process of making a big potentially deadly mistake eller soon realized that she was not following a hiking trail but had instead accidentally started to follow animal paths which were leading her deeper and deeper into the wilderness when asked about this critical point in her hike she said quote all i can say is that i got out of my car it's like i have a strong sense of safety and i'm not going to be able to get out of my car i'm not going to have a strong sense of internal guidance whatever you want to call that a voice spirit everyone has a different name for it heart my heart was telling me walk down this path go left great go right it was so strong i'm like great this is so strong that obviously when i turn around and go back to my car it's going to be just as strong but it wasn't not only had eller left her cell phone behind but she also wasn't carrying any map of the area or an emergency satellite device hell she wasn't even carrying any food or water and now she was completely lost all by herself around 7 p.m that evening park officials were getting ready to close down for the night part of their duties was to lock the gates at the park's entrance and in the process of doing this they noticed that a white toyota rav4 was still parked at the trailhead they didn't notice anyone in or around the car and so they just left the car and left the car and left the car just continued to lock up and at the same time that this was happening amanda eller's boyfriend was beginning to worry because well she hadn't come home to the residence that they shared yet he was quoted saying she likes to do her own thing and i respect that it did however start to get later with no sign of her and i started having that weird feeling you know that gut feeling that something wasn't right his gut feeling was correct something definitely was not right and after actually calling amanda a few times he decided to just go to bed i mean at that point what are you supposed to do something feels off but at the same time it's not uncommon for her to not come home and so he went to bed and he just hoped that amanda would arrive at some point during the night but morning came and amanda still wasn't there and so it was at this point that he reported her missing and officials quickly got to work trying to figure out what the hell had happened as is often the case when someone goes missing their partner is the first person that police take a close look at And just because Amanda's boyfriend had been the one to report her missing did not mean that he was going to be let off the hook. Police asked Amanda's boyfriend if they could search the couple's residence, and they also asked him to take a polygraph test. He complied with both of these requests. Nothing suspicious was found at the home, and he also passed the lie detector test. And therefore, Amanda's boyfriend was cleared as a suspect in her disappearance, and he then turned his attention to doing all that he could to help bring her home safely. In one of the first pieces of evidence in the case, security footage was quickly obtained that showed Amanda Ehlers stopping into a store as well as a post office to mail out a Mother's Day gift. The footage showed her leaving the post office at 10.21 a.m. in her white Toyota RAV4 SUV. That same day, Amanda's boyfriend was found dead. That same SUV was located early on the first day of the search. It's at this point that searchers noticed her cell phone, wallet, water, and backpack were all left in the car, indicating that she either wasn't planning on being out for long, or maybe was taken from the scene against her will. However, it didn't take long before officials learned about her habit of leaving her phone behind while she was out on hikes. So, all of this is going on, and. Everyone was very confused about what had happened, but nobody was as confused as much as Amanda herself. After getting lost that first day, Amanda Ehlers wandered around in the Maui forest until midnight. She hoped that she would get lucky and somehow stumble back to her car, but this didn't happen. She started day two with the same naive optimism, but by day three, she became less confident. She was concerned with finding her car, and much more concerned with just simply surviving. She needed food, she needed water, and she needed shelter. Some nights, Amanda slept in the grass, and some nights, she slept on rocks. She apparently even spent at least one night in a boar's den. She ate various plants that she found in the forest, many of which she didn't even know anything about. If you're looking for a better way to survive, visit TXU Energy. To save on electricity, both night and day, look no further than TXU Energy Free Nights and Cool Summer. With savings like that, you'll never look at a free night's plan the same way again. On occasion, she even resorted to eating moths that landed. On her body. With each passing day, Amanda Eller became more and more desperate. On multiple occasions, she noticed helicopters flying overhead, and she did her best to get their attention. She arranged rocks into an SOS formation, and she also put her bright clothing out on display, hoping that the helicopters would see it. And yet, despite these efforts, the helicopters didn't see her. She was still all on her. And just when she thought her situation couldn't possibly get any worse, Amanda fell 20 feet off of a cliff. This caused a fracture in her leg and a torn meniscus in her knee. And so now, even just simple movements through the forest were incredibly difficult. Amanda would drink from random water sources until she discovered a reliable stream about one week into her ordeal. After this, she continued. She continued to stay on the move, but she stayed near the banks of this stream. At one point, she was caught in a flash flood, which caused her to lose her shoes. And yet, despite this, she still stuck to the stream. She was just following her intuition. And even though this intuition had nearly gotten her killed in the flash flood, only time would tell if it was ultimately going to save her. The search for Amanda Eller was massive. For whatever reason, the news about her disappearance absolutely just blew up online. And it was soon being covered by major news networks broadcasting all around the country. Online donations came pouring in as well, totaling more than $70,000. Volunteers scoured over the terrain in Makawao Forest Reserve, searching caves, backcountry streams, and pretty much any other place they thought that Amanda could have potentially been. They even killed aggressive wild boars to check their intestines for human remains. An average of 100 volunteers were out searching for Amanda every single day that she was missing. Officials always believed that she had most likely gotten lost in the forest. But as the search dragged on, there definitely was some chatter about the potential that Amanda had run into foul play. Sarah Haynes, a spokesperson for Eller's family, was quoted saying, "Generally speaking, it's hard to believe that Amanda was missing." "It's highly likely that she's lost or injured in this forest and it's also equally as likely that she was intercepted by someone in the parking lot or on her run." "And as the days go by, and more and more people are in the forest, we get closer and closer to foul play." But at the end of the day, the only thing that they could really do was continue to search. And while hundreds of volunteers were doing that on the ground, other tools, besides just human feet, were being used. As well, scent dogs, drones, even psychics were brought in to try and assist in the search for Amanda. And of course, one of the most indispensable search tools was being used as well, that would be helicopters. Most of the search efforts had been concentrated in a mile and a half to two mile radius around the trailhead Amanda Eller had left from. And this makes total sense. The forest in this area is very thick. I've actually seen it described as a jungle a few times. It was unlikely that Amanda had been able to travel outside of this search perimeter. On day 17 of the search, a helicopter being funded by the online donations I mentioned earlier decided to search a bit further out than anyone else had, because why the hell not? The helicopter crew flew some seven miles away from the search radius, but they still didn't see anything. Their fuel levels then dictated that they better turn around, and so they did, and on the way back, they made a discovery. A discovery that would soon be plastered all over the news headlines throughout the country. The searchers in the helicopter had, by some miracle, spotted Amanda Eller 17 days later. Her terrifying ordeal was finally about to be over. "We all did a double take. Where we found her is an extremely treacherous area," said Javier Cantalops, one of the men in the helicopter. There were also three other men in the helicopter. Chris Berkwist. Troy Helmer. And pilot Pete Voorhees. I think I got all those names right, but I do apologize if I messed any of them up. When these men rescued Amanda, they were absolutely just thrilled. I mean, look at some of the photos taken right when Amanda was found. Now, this is a very serious situation, so I'm definitely not trying to make a joke out of this, but you got to admit, it is kind of funny just how excited they all look. Berkwist described finding Amanda as, quote, "the coolest thing I've ever done in my life." Cantalops said it was one of the highlights of his life. They were just completely stoked, and honestly, good for them. They, without a doubt, saved Amanda Eller's life, and so even though these photos are a little silly given the serious circumstances, I don't know, I think they earned every right to take them. Amanda was flown to the hospital, and after staying for a few days, she was released and thankfully has made a full recovery. And therefore, it might sound like this is the end of the story, but unfortunately, it's not. It would turn out that the circumstances of Amanda Eller's disappearance and later rescue would prove to be very controversial, particularly in discussions online. Now, I obviously wasn't there. I don't know what the truth is, and the last thing I want to do here is encourage people to hate on Amanda Eller. I think she already went through. Enough with that said, I do think that it's okay to discuss some of the unanswered questions and mistakes made in this case in a respectful manner, and I ask that you conduct yourself in the comments section also in a respectful manner. So the low hanging fruit here is I'm just going to say it, folks, it's a terrible idea to go hiking without your cell phone, without an emergency beacon or a map of the area that you're hiking in. Do not do that. And I know. That's pretty obvious for most of you, but clearly it happens sometimes. And honestly, I've encountered tons of people doing this over the thousands of miles that I've hiked. I'll come across someone asking for directions because they're deep in the wilderness and they have no idea what trail they're on and no idea how to get back to their car. Again, I'm not saying this to try to be a jerk to Amanda. I just think it's an important lesson to be highlighted. And honestly, I'm very sure that Amanda will not make this mistake again. So now that that's out. Of the way, let's move on again. I'm not an expert on this case, but it does seem to me that much of the controversy that emerged after Amanda was found started maybe because of some of the comments that she made in the media now this is just my opinion and again i'm not trying to be a jerk here but i don't really think that amanda did herself any favors when she was interviewed and referred to her near fatal ordeal as a quote spiritual boot camp it's like you almost died and you know you put other people at risk potentially the people that were out there searching for her and so i think this quote just really rubbed a lot of people the wrong way as did some of her other comments that i actually read earlier in the video remember the ones about her strong sense of internal guidance which she then blamed for getting herself lost in the first place so yeah these quotes definitely didn't do her any favors but this wasn't the only reason that her case became so controversial after she was rescued for whatever reason people began to quote her as a spiritual boot camp and i think that's why amanda did herself any favors when she questioned pretty much everything relating to amanda's story some people were wondering if maybe she had taken some mind-altering substances the morning that she went missing in response to these accusations she said quote i definitely didn't have any drugs or alcohol or anything like that anybody that knows me and knows my spiritual journey in the last few years knows that i get high off of life and off of people and heart and so i don't know everybody can have their theories there i don't care and going along with the questions about potential substances that were used other questions were raised as well such as how does somebody fall asleep on a log in the woods or how come in 17 days of wandering through the forest how didn't she cross any roads or any other trails that entire time some people were even wondering if she could have been hiding out at the house of one of the rescuers for those 17 days and so i think that's why amanda did herself any favors when she went missing in the last 17 days with the goal of pocketing all of the donations that were made to her gofundme now i'm not so sure about that last one to be honest but i will admit that some of these questions are intriguing to say the least but at the end of the day i'm going to refer to the judgment of the men who actually rescued amanda eller those men have actually come out and publicly denounced any of these questions and the people that are questioning amanda's story and i'm going to go ahead and answer those questions and i'm going to go ahead and write them down and let you know what i think is the best way to answer them and i'm going to go ahead and read them and let you know what i think is the best way to answer them and i'm going to go ahead that's one thing, but disrespecting the memory of this, disrespecting what happened, is disrespecting every single volunteer with that search and rescue team." And this is just my opinion, but I think he has a great point. Regardless of some of the weirdness in this case, the search and rescue efforts were amazing, effective, and even heroic. And as for Amanda, again, I wasn't there, but I think it's pretty obvious that she made some bad choices the day that she went missing. And then also made some bad choices in the way that she spoke to the media. I think it's good to ask questions about public cases like this, especially when things don't really seem to add up, but I also don't think that it's okay to blame or use hateful language, and so I really ask that you be respectful to Amanda in the comments section. I'm very, very glad that she survived, and I wish her well.