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In this episode, I'm going to tell you nine of the most disturbing stories in Yosemite
National Park history.
You can't even go there anymore, honestly.
And then, if you can handle it, I'm going to tell you a bonus story about the Mount
Everest body that they don't really want you to remember.
What the hell is going on in Yosemite National Park?
Yes, it's beautiful, but it also hides some of the most disturbing secrets, stories, and
even people in all of American history.
And on October 13th, we're going to tell you about the most disturbing story in Yosemite
National Park.
And on October 13th, we're going to tell you about the most disturbing story in Yosemite
And on October 13th, 1995, an anonymous park ranger learned this reality the hard way.
It all started in the early morning.
Rangers were preparing for the quieter months in Yosemite National Park.
You know, the weather was getting colder and the crowds had been kind of thinning out,
but something dark and very unexpected was about to shatter all of that peace.
That morning, a female park ranger was approached by a random man
seeking a ride.
Now, this man was middle-aged, he was soft-spoken, and honestly, he appeared pretty harmless at first glance.
His name was Phil Lund, and he was a 56-year-old from San Francisco.
So he asks this ranger for a ride, and she agreed, which was a decision she would regret almost instantly.
While in the vehicle with the ranger, Phil Lund suddenly reached down into his pocket and he pulled out a stun gun.
He threatened the ranger with it, and he offered him a stun gun.
He also tried to put her in handcuffs.
The ranger was obviously scared to death.
I mean, she was just out here trying to do her job and help one of her park's visitors,
but now she's being held up and potentially handcuffed all while she's trying to drive.
But though she was scared, she didn't freeze, she didn't panic,
and instead, she dug deep and she found the courage to fight back.
In a moment of what I can only describe as sheer determination,
she managed to escape the vehicle and,
obviously, alerted her fellow rangers for help.
But that didn't stop Phil.
He was able to run away on foot and basically just vanish inside the park,
which obviously started a massive manhunt, you know,
through some of the most rugged terrain in all of California.
So all of Yosemite's rangers and law enforcement officers and search teams sprang into action, right?
I mean, roads were closed, checkpoints were set up.
Every single car leaving the park was searched.
But despite these tremendous numbers of people,
Lund was not caught, at least not yet.
I've been to Yosemite before, as well as a bunch of other national parks,
and, like, I can't even imagine the tension that everyone must have been feeling inside the park.
Employees and visitors alike were being warned to be cautious
because a dangerous fugitive could be lurking around any tree or lurking on any trail.
Just absolutely brutal.
But then, on October 26th,
authorities got a break,
A visitor hiking in the Tanea Canyon area,
which is a remote area east of Yosemite Valley,
spotted a man who seemed very out of place.
Rangers moved quickly, and this time, there was no escape.
Phil Lund was arrested without incident, dirty, exhausted, and all alone.
He was charged with kidnapping and assault with a dangerous weapon,
and he was held without bail.
Now, the ranger that he had tried to kidnap, essentially,
turned out okay.
She was safe, thankfully.
Um, actually, speaking of thanks,
largely thanks to her quick thinking,
and, of course, the response from law enforcement.
And the crazy part is that Phil Lund is far from the deadliest criminal
to run rampant throughout Yosemite National Park.
And we'll get to the story of who actually is that person a little later in this video,
but it turns out that Phil Lund had actually just been released on parole,
four months before this incident, after serving 13 years in prison for. I can't say it on YouTube, but. S.A.
You know what I'm saying?
He'd even worked in the park decades prior as a concession employee,
and, of course, he knew the terrain very, very well.
Uh, even a little too well, you could say.
And so he, like many criminals before and after him,
thought that he could use the size of the park to his advantage
and get away with just a completely different life.
A completely despicable crime, right?
And, fortunately, he was dead wrong.
And if you thought that story was crazy,
I mean, a park ranger being kidnapped, almost, that's. Anyways, if you thought that was crazy, you better buckle up.
Because this next story, I mean,
instead of being a tale about a straight-up despicable criminal,
it's just a straight-up mystery.
On Labor Day of 2021,
Joel Thomason set out on a hike just after dawn.
Summer was coming to an end,
and he had planned a solo backpacking,
a backpacking trip in Yosemite's beautiful backcountry, right?
And Joel was actually a U.S. Army reservist,
as well as a husband and a father to a two-year-old boy, very young.
Uh, he was strong, quiet, and committed to his family.
And so this hike was very important to him.
It was going to be, like, a well-earned, peaceful escape from his daily life.
He planned to hike from a location called Hetch Hetchy
to Lake Eleanor and then to hike back.
He even planned on fishing in the lake.
I mean, this sounds so amazing, you know,
as someone who loves doing this stuff.
It sounds so relaxing,
but unfortunately, it would turn into a nightmare
not just for Joel, but for his entire family
and for the entire park at large.
Joel packed a bright red inflatable kayak,
a yellow backpack, a hammock, good choice,
a green sleeping bag, a camp stove,
and food sealed inside of a bear-proof container.
He even had a steel U.S. Army cup,
stamped with the year 1918.
He crossed over the O'Shaughnessy Dam at around 5 p.m. that night,
and a local park ranger even saw him do this.
Like, the ranger watched him hike over the dam
and then hike on into the nearby forest.
Over the next three days, Joel's family figured
that he was out there having the time of his life, right?
I mean, surely he was fishing, hiking, kayaking,
and just getting away from the hustle and bustle of his daily life.
But by the time that he was supposed to return home,
on September 9th, he was nowhere to be found.
His wife, understandably, started to worry,
and very quickly, this worry turned into full-blown panic.
Soon enough, search teams mobilized,
and they started to comb the area for clues.
Helicopters swept the skies.
They even brought out kayaks to search for this guy.
Like, kayaks were scanning the lakes.
Search dogs were there, of course,
you know, sniffing up and down the trails.
Dozens of agencies worked this case,
and they expected to find him.
They expected to find something, right?
I mean, maybe his green sleeping bag
or his yellow backpack would be easy to spot in the brush.
Or better yet, that kayak I talked about,
maybe that bright red kayak
would be impossible to miss from the sky, right?
They searched frantically for something,
anything that might point them to Joel.
His father even came out to search, too.
He would walk the trails all alone
and just call out his son's name,
hoping for a sign, which is heartbreaking.
But of course, he was also fearing
what he might find,
which is equally as heartbreaking.
And after all of the work
that all the different agencies
and Joel's family put in,
they still never found any traces, no leads.
And disturbingly,
that's exactly where the search for Joel stands to this day,
because he basically walked into Yosemite National Park
and never came out.
The secret of Joel's fate
still lies within Yosemite National Park's borders,
and the rangers who searched,
every inch of those woods know
that it's far from the only secret that this park keeps.
In fact, just a year earlier,
those very same rangers were facing another secret,
one that's even harder to explain.
In late June 2020,
we all remember that time.
What a crazy time.
Sandra Johnson Hughes,
who was a 54-year-old former wilderness ranger trainee,
an educator, and a solo hiker,
traveled from Hawaii to California
in search of solitude among the trees and open sky sandra's friends described her as resilient
prepared and deeply comfortable in nature which made what happened next all the more unsettling
we'll say so she set up camp near johnson meadows which is a remote area in sierra national forest
just south of yosemite's southern boundary on june 26th she sent a message to a friend confirming
that she was camping and that she was doing fine but a few days later hikers stumbled across her
campsite and what they found didn't really look quite right tents and belongings were kind of
scattered randomly food and dishes looked like they'd been kind of just like thrown around it
looked like someone had just like up and left in a hurry hell i'm even picturing that scene in tarzan
where all the gorillas trash the campsite and start playing around with the typewriters and
other human stuff but obviously
you
my theory doesn't check out because there are no gorillas in yosemite national park or at least
that's what they say no i'm kidding anyways it was clear that something went terribly wrong in
sandra's campsite she wasn't the type of person to leave in a hurry or leave a mess like this and then
another horrifying discovery was made just about five miles away someone had spotted a silver
shimmer of light down in a nearby ravine and as it turns out this was sandra's car fearing the
absolute worst and
dreading what they might discover behind the wheel of the car i think you know where i'm going with
this rangers peeked their heads inside and when they did this they were completely shocked but
they weren't shocked by what they found they were shocked by what they didn't find i mean they were
pretty much convinced that sandra was going to be inside the car and that she was probably going to
be deceased right but that's not what happened uh she was not in the car in fact she wasn't
anywhere near the car either she was nowhere to be found it looked as if she had just crashed her car
and then walked away into the wilderness which is pretty crazy sure but it actually gets even
crazier because over that very same weekend multiple witnesses reported encountering a
strange woman in the woods they said that she was walking barefoot along these remote forest roads
and that she had a bruise on one side of her face her clothes
were dirty and she was just acting bizarre right i mean this woman looked like she'd been through
complete hell but witnesses said that she was oddly calm during these encounters people even
tried to help her but apparently she denied all of these offers and eventually one witness said
that she vanished into the woods and she just never looked back weeks and weeks of more searching went
on before all of a sudden two hunters caught sight of someone
leaning against a tree near a forest service road this mystery figure that they saw actually
matched sandra's description this person was thin disheveled and shoeless completely barefoot
she didn't speak she didn't call for help and before the hunters could circle back and figure
out what the hell was going on this mysterious person vanished and obviously right after this
a new search was launched in that exact area hell they even brought out the national guard and
specialized trackers and yet despite a wide sweep of the backcountry and those multiple initial
sightings the forest had gone silent once again weeks turned into months the case quieted the
seasons changed and sandra johnson hughes was never seen again to this very day this story
is just so strange to me it leaves me with so many unanswered questions
and so does this next one actually and so in september of 2016
a 74 year old retired educator and experienced hiker named peter jackson drove into yosemite
national park for a solo camping trip he had reserved site number 58 at white wolf campground
for four nights and he planned to spend a few quiet days hiking relaxing and enjoying the
late summer weather on september 17th he sent a very brief text message to his son that said quote
on my way to yosemite this text seemed harmless and simple enough
probably forgettable but his son would soon think about this one text message in a much more
chilling and heartbreaking way peter had booked the campsite until september 21st and so when
rangers made their rounds on checkout day they visited his site and found that his car was still
parked there his tent was still up and his gear was completely untouched it looked as though
somehow he had simply stepped away from camp and
then just never came back which is very very strange and so just like the previous couple
stories they started searching for him right more than 50 people covered over 50 square miles of
rugged terrain with the help of you know the drill helicopters dogs even infrared technology but
after two weeks with no leads and a bunch of storms moving in the search had to be scaled back which
sucks and that's basically where the search would stall over the course of the next three years with
each passing day
that last text message that peter sent to his son became more and more meaningful and also more and
more mysterious peter's loved ones couldn't help but wonder if those were going to end up being his
last words but in august of 2019 trail workers found a faded blue day pack beneath a fallen tree
near akerson meadow just over seven miles away from peter's campsite and after they studied the
pack a little more it was confirmed that peter had sent a message to his son that he was going to
find peter peter had sent a message to his son that he was going to
that it was peter's it belonged to him and finally they had some kind of clue into his
disappearance it might seem like we're leading to some tragic resolution here but the truth is that
sometimes and i've learned this from making all these videos sometimes new discoveries only end
up leading to more and more questions and despite a renewed energy in the search after finding this
backpack there has been no other trace of peter
jackson that's ever been found nobody ever saw him again and yes that text message in all likelihood
would end up being his final words now national parks in general especially massively popular
ones like yosemite can sometimes feel like a giant playground right i mean we feel safe and secure
there are rangers around people everywhere hell there's even some like attractions there kind of
i mean in some ways it can almost feel like disneyland for
outdoor adventurers and this is a side note but if yosemite served churros mickey mouse waffles
and a chance to meet goofy i mean i'd move there in a heartbeat right you would too don't lie to me
you would too this episode is brought to you by txu energy if you're looking for a better way to
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slash special offer should we cut it we'll see and so it might not be the happiest place on earth
but ultimately it's this exact type of comfort and security that can lull any yosemite visitor
into this false sense of confidence and give us the illusion of safety while we're
actually way out in the middle of an untamed wilderness case in point
the story of stacy heiress i actually made a full video on her story
a while back but it's so significant and baffling that i i kind of just have to tell it again
although a little bit differently this time so in the summer of 1981 14 year old stacy eris joined
her father on a 10-day horseback trip deep in the yosemite backcountry their group rode through
miles of rugged terrain before stopping at sunrise high sierra camp which was this isolated campsite
nearly 9 400 feet above sea level not long after arriving to camp stacy told the group that she
wanted to you know stretch her legs and go take some photos of the nearby alpine lakes a 77 year
old man from the group named gerald stewart agreed to go on this short little excursion with her the
trail they were going to hike was only about a mile and a half long and so nothing too dangerous
and you know they're out there in the backcountry to see the sights and stuff nothing out of the
ordinary about this
whatsoever while they were in the middle of their hike gerald grew tired and he ended up sitting down
to rest and stacy decided to continue on alone it's important to note that the landscape around
her was quiet and still and it was also very open i mean there was no dense forests to get lost in
there were no cliffs at least immediately nearby that she could fall off and she was only out on
her own for a few minutes but then time passed and more time
and more time gerald even started calling out for stacy but he got no answer in response they went
on to search the trail and they found nothing and then a full-on search and rescue operation began
with again helicopters scanning the area search dogs combing the mountain and over 100 people
scouring every inch of that camp and every inch of the surrounding wilderness this intense search
lasted nine exhausting days and on the ninth day they found the only thing related to stacy eris
that they would ever find in this case which was a single lens cap from her camera you probably know
where i'm going with this by now but stacy eris was never seen again and how the hell could that
be right uh most people all say that's a generalization but most people for lack of a
better way to say it believe that she might have slipped or fallen in the rain or something like that
and over time this case gained a lot of attention from you know missing persons researchers
podcasters youtubers and even like some conspiracy theorists and yes i've told you kind of a
shortened version of this story but the truth is that even the full long version doesn't really
help make this case any less baffling i mean this is one of the most baffling and heartbreaking
mysteries in yosemite national park history and honestly all of national park history she
basically just vanished in broad daylight and she trusted the adults around her to kind of keep an
eye on her but now her story is just just one that absolutely shatters the illusion of safety
in national parks for anyone who hears it and sadly she is far from the only victim of this
specific kind of outdoors overconfidence we'll call it any collection of stories about missing
people murders and mysteries in yosemite national park would be incomplete if i didn't at least
mention the story of stacy eris and stacy eris in the next episode of national park history and
the most notorious criminal in the history of the park who of course is carrie stainer and if that
name sounds familiar to you well it should back in 1999 a series of brutal murders shook the peaceful
image of yosemite to its core four women were murdered and their killer turned out to be a quiet
unassuming handyman working at the cedar lodge just outside of the park's borders stainer used
yosemite's massive witchcraft to kill her and she was killed in the process and she was killed in the
wilderness to his advantage, his sick and twisted advantage. He abducted his victims right from
their hotel rooms, then hid their bodies deep in the woods where he hoped that no one would ever
find them. The first victims, Carol Sund, her teenage daughter Julie, and their friend Silvina
Peloso, went missing for over a month before their burned out rental car was eventually discovered
with their bodies inside. Then came Joey Armstrong, who was a young park naturalist whose life was cut
short in the very same grim pattern. And what makes this story even more eerie and just crazy
is Kerry Stainer's family background. His younger brother, Stephen Stainer, was a national hero
decades earlier, having survived his own horrific kidnapping and captivity before escaping and
returning home. Now, we've all heard of sibling rivalries before.
Maybe some of us have even been in them, but I don't think I can think of two brothers who were
less alike than the two Stainer boys. I honestly think that Cain and Abel might have had more in
common than these two did. I won't go too deep into Stainer's story because I've talked about
it before, and I'll actually have that video linked in the description if you want the full
story, but it is worth mentioning because it perfectly captures how criminals look at a place
like Yosemite, and they don't just simply see a beautiful park with tons of peace and nature like
the rest of us.
Nope. They see a perfect hiding spot, an ideal escape route, and a place to hide their bodies.
Thankfully, justice did catch up with Kerry Stainer, who's now commonly known as the Yosemite
Park Killer, and he was sentenced to death in 2002.
Now, our next story is going to be a lot different, and so just bear with me here, okay?
On the morning of June 2nd, 2018, three men were climbing up the ever-iconic El Capitan,
which you'll probably remember as,
the granite rock that Alex Honnold soloed up in the movie Free Solo. Jason Wells, Tim Kline,
and Kevin Prince were experienced climbers and close friends. They had all tackled Yosemite's
cliffs many times before. In fact, they'd all been up El Capitan before over 100 times.
Now, on this particular day, they weren't free soloing like Alex Honnold, you know,
later made the wall famous for. No, they had a rope between them, and they were climbing one
of El Capitan's lower walls, and they were climbing one of El Capitan's lower walls, and they were
climbing one of El Capitan's lower walls, and they were climbing one of El Capitan's lower walls,
notoriously technical sections. As the three men climbed up the rock, they did so very quickly.
I mean, again, they were super familiar with this route, and they basically felt as comfortable as
you can possibly feel while climbing up a sheer granite rock hundreds of feet in the air, which
blows my mind, but I'm no rock climber. Anyways, to them, this kind of climb was basically as normal
as breathing. They eventually managed to pass a group of other climbers, and after that, Tim and
Jason were up above Kevin, and the two of them climbed out of view of anyone else. It's reported
that one of the climbers in the other group even watched Tim and Jason speed up the wall and
remarked that, quote, Jason sure is a superhero. But as we've been talking about here in these last
couple stories, sometimes comfort and confidence can be any superhero's kryptonite. While Tim and
Jason were up above Kevin in a 50-foot section that many climbers have since called the simplest
part of this particular climb, again, I'm not a climber, so I can't speak to that. That's just
what people say. But then, all of a sudden, Kevin and the other climbers heard a loud slamming noise,
and suddenly they saw Tim and Jason both falling through the air. Because no one saw the initial
fall, this part of the story is a little unconfirmed, we'll say, but it's believed that
one of the climbers fell first, and then the other one was pulled down, and then the other one fell
down by the rope that was tied between them. But that doesn't exactly explain the loud slam that
the other climbers heard way up on the wall. This is hard to say, but it turns out that after Tim
and Jason had begun their sudden freefall, their rope actually caught itself on a boulder, and that
actually arrested their fall. For just a brief moment, they had actually been saved, right? But
then, their nightmare started all over again. The boulder that had stopped their fall suddenly became
their greatest threat, basically, and it actually cut their rope in two due to sheer force. I hate
telling stories like this, man, but like, you know, now they're free-falling once again, right?
And this time, they would continue to fall the rest of the way, approximately
1,000 feet to the base of El Capitan. And of course, right after this happened,
Kevin, who was still high up on the wall all by himself now, called 911 and,
when he finally got through to someone, he found out that the rescue crews down below had actually
already found Tim and Jason. And the voice on the other end of the phone told Kevin the
heartbreaking news that both of his friends had died. These deaths sent shockwaves through the
climbing community. Both Tim and Jason were skilled and seasoned climbers, and their friends were
obviously crushed by their loss and rattled over how such experienced and experienced climbers
and experienced and competent athletes could fall on a route that they had done before a route that
they knew so well. Now, this story obviously involves some riskier adventuring. It wasn't
just like a short little day hike, but even the name park in Yosemite National Park can can
clearly create an image of safety and fun that just isn't the reality when you're going up against
big bad mother nature. And if you think this climbing story is scary, just wait until later
in the video when I tell you about what happened on Half Dome. But I'm getting a
head of myself. First, I need to tell you about the most dangerous selfie of all.
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plus rated pg-13 time so back on july 19th of 2011 three young visitors made a day trip to
yosemite national park 22 year old hormez david 27 year old ninos yakub and 21 year old ramina
badal were among a group of friends and family who had hiked the popular mist trail to the top
of vernal falls which is a towering 317 foot waterfall along the merced river once they were
at the top of the waterfall these three hikers made the biggest mistake of their lives they
decided to disobey the most obvious rule of hiking when they decided
to hike the most obvious rule of hiking when they decided to hike the most obvious rule of
to go off trail very close to a dangerous waterfall and cliff despite other hikers
around them yelling and telling them to get back on the trail the group seemed to be hell-bent on
taking a picture much closer to the edge now i probably don't need to say this but i'm going
to take a small detour in this story to make a public service announcement we'll say it
do not ever do what these hikers did please stay on marked trails especially when you're near
cliffs or waterfalls please please please uh and even if you've done this in the past and nothing
bad happened there's a pretty strong chance that the next time you won't be so lucky and and look
i'm not trying to like beat up these particular hikers obviously um but i don't know dude this
one is just so preventable i i had to say it so after hormis ninos and ramina crossed over the
trail barrier they stepped into knee deep water roughly 25 feet upstream of the trail and they
fell to the extreme of the falls dramatic edge which is way too close and once again other hikers
around them were were trying to get them to come back they were crying frantically come back guys
please please um but they didn't listen they hiked onto the slick rocks along the gushing river
also that they could pose for a couple of photos now witnesses say that ramina slipped on the rocks
first and as she began to get swept away one of the men the news report i read didn't really confirm
it but she desperately tried to like reach out and save her but then he slipped too and then in a last
ditch effort the other man had started walking back to the trail but seeing his friends in grave
danger he rushed over to try and help but the current was way too strong at this point and if
any of you out there somehow think you could win a fight against a waterfall you better think again
all three hikers were flung over the edge of the vernal falls and witnesses said that the three of
them were actually holding on to the water and they were trying to get them to come back
to each other in a heartbreaking embrace during these final moments rangers launched an immediate
search and rescue operation they closed the mist trail as teams combed through the merced river down
below they did everything they could i mean they navigated the same dangerous and fast-moving waters
that had caused the hikers to fall in the first place and they tried to find areas where the
hikers might have washed ashore or even climbed to safety if they were somehow alive they would
obviously need medical attention and they were able to get them to come back to the water
so this was a very urgent effort but despite this urgency they didn't find them for a long time
weeks went by before any progress was made but finally on august 5th 2011 the body of hormis david
was recovered about 240 feet below the base and then a while went by and it wasn't until that
winter on december 3rd 2011 that yosemite rangers located and identified romina's body in the merced
120 yards below the vernal falls footbridge about a half mile downstream and then later that very
same day the final remains of nino's yakub was found near the same general area near the footbridge
you know finally bringing the search for all three very young victims to a tragic end and
of course with that final discovery you know that basically closed the chapter of the deadliest
selfie in national park history i feel like i was a little rough on them in this one i never want to
be like you know disrespectful to people who died and so i i apologize but again this one was just
like so preventable water and cliffs can be very very dangerous in the back country and so if you're
near either one of those things or especially if you're near both please just remember this story
and please be careful i really hate to see this happen to anyone else and as if we needed another
reminder of the
perils of nature our next story takes place on top of yosemite's iconic half dome and the ever
popular half dome cables if you don't already know the cables are a 400 foot span of you guessed it
cables that cover the last steepest ascent on the iconic and infamous half dome hike they're
used to help hikers travel up and down the treacherous granite i've never done this
particular hike but it looks pretty gnarly from the photos i've seen i know it's pretty popular
too and these cables obviously help keep people safer it's a pretty genius man-made invention but
sometimes nature has other ideas on the morning of july 31st 2011 which was just a mere 12 days
after the tragic accident at vernal falls stormy weather had swept over the half dome area i'm
talking lightning thunder and heavy rain all of these things persisting for several hours and as
these conditions developed the
granite slabs along the cables section of the half dome hike had become treacherously slick as you
could probably guess wet rock metal cables and again this is very a very popular hike tons of
day hikers sounds like a pretty clear recipe for disaster enter hailey laflame who was a 26 year
old woman who just so happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time on this particular day
she had been hiking half dome with her sister and her two friends they had trudged through the storm
weather all day but they didn't let the rough conditions or the posted trail warnings discourage
them from making it to the top of this again iconic yosemite hike the group used the cables
to make it to the top and after spending some time enjoying a very gloomy version of the view
they started their descent back down as they slowly eased their way down the cables they
began to realize just how slick and slippery the granite had become and experienced hikers and climbers
know this but um an underrated part of climbing any mountain is just how tricky and technical it
can be to get back down like a lot of people focus on getting up like that's the objective
you want to reach the top it's harder physically to go uphill but once you're there you're only
halfway you have to get back down and yeah a lot of people underestimate that and so at one point
during the descent haley placed one foot on the slick granite and it slid her hand then lost the
climb in a single horrifying moment her friends watched completely terrified as she fell 600 feet
down the rock face before finally landing and with that the success of their climb was instantly
shattered and what was meant to be a lifelong memory for these four friends had turned into
an absolute nightmare for some reason the falls really get me man like i've told so many stories
like this at this point on this channel but like
it still hits me every time um anyways park rangers arrived on scene and they did end up
getting to haley but by the time they reached her it was too late and she was pronounced
dead on arrival and her death marked the 14th fatality in yosemite national park that year
which was a very startling surge compared to the typical average of say five or six
deaths by late july it's clear that there is very little margin for error on this trail
even in good weather but of course in bad and yeah i mean in wet conditions the granite has
virtually no traction and one single misstep can prove fatal that's all it takes and that's exactly
what happened in haley's case may she rest in peace and guys please leave some love for her
and the rest of the victims i've talked about today in the comments below i always appreciate
how respectful you guys are with your comments and be sure to buckle up because now i'm going to
get into some of the things that i don't really want you to know about but first be sure to leave
this show a five-star review it helps us tremendously and it's totally free do it right
now thank you very much in 2016 my friend tom was climbing mount everest when he came across a dead
body on the mountain and that alone isn't unheard of but when i learned whose body this was and what
led to their death it left me floored i quickly realized that this is one of the most controversial
climbs and deaths in everest history and i'm going to be honest with you guys this is one of the
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it remembered i can't say for certain why this story was buried but i have a feeling it's because
of the cruel almost ironic way that it ended once you hear that i think you're gonna understand why
so few people ever bring it up
long before she reached the death zone of everest maria stridham was teaching finance in melbourne
australia born in south africa she was a brilliant lecturer sharp with numbers and constantly
challenging her students to think critically and logically right but the classroom was only half
of her life outside of it maria was an avid outdoors woman she didn't take ordinary vacations
or quiet weekends she chased adventure on every climb she naturally became the leader
often moving faster than mountaineers with twice her level of experience which is why when she
met robert grapple who was an australian veterinarian who shared the same hunger for
exploration and skills as a climber she knew that she'd found her soul mate i'm telling you guys
these two together were an absolute power couple right they traveled the world you know hiking
skiing climbing doing everything together and as they did this they fell deeper and deeper in love
which might sound like a familiar story to you but their love was actually quite unique and and i say
that because it never really felt like satisfied let me explain there was always another mountain
that they hadn't conquered together leading them to want more and more uh and and this desire
ultimately led them to the seven summits challenge which is when climbers take on the highest mountain
on every continent and of course at the top of that list looms mount everest now maria and robert
had another unique thing going for them uh because even though they had all these big plans to do
giant difficult adventures together there was one thing that they wouldn't do together or i guess
consume together maria and robert were both devout vegans and not in the casual sense either where
you know maybe they'd have a bite of someone else's burger
or cave for a slice of cheese every now and again no uh veganism guided every part of their lives
their commitment to the diet was basically as strong as their bond to each other and they
wanted to prove that vegans could do anything including climbing the seven summits now i need
to put a massive disclaimer here i am not a vegan and i'm definitely not an expert in nutrition
or biology or anything like that and so in no way am i
going to say that like being a vegan makes you a worse or better climber and for the most part i
know that like most vegans or people with you know more intense we're going to say diets i know that
these people know what's going on in their body pretty well and so i can't reiterate enough to
you here like please don't take this story as an attack on on veganism people of all different
diets are welcome to watch my videos and are welcome in my comment section all i'm saying
is that for this particular story i think it's important to note that
the diet aspect of maria and robert's life has largely been the center of public discussion and
so we kind of have to talk about it so maria and robert's friends did sometimes question their diets
doctors some doctors anyways would warn about the diet's effect on vital nutrients like protein iron
and b12 and some mountaineers even argued that at extreme altitudes vegan diets can leave climbers
and vulnerable but maria insisted that their choices didn't limit what they could do and to
be fair she was backed up by plenty of other doctors and experts and mountaineers who agree
with her i mean vegans should be able to do just about everything that non-vegans can do right
besides you know uh eating meat and animal products did that really need to be said as long
as you're taking care of your body and as long as you know what's happening to your body in the most
extreme environments on earth you should be
okay but the key word there is should this belief in themselves and in their vegan diet
carried maria and robert across the world from kilimanjaro to denali to akunkagua but
mount everest well everest is a different kind of challenge uh one that requires all the preparation
and all the commitment and honestly all the nutrients that you can get it's also a challenge
that
get this uh no vegan had ever accomplished before and so for maria and robert uh they weren't just
determined to climb mount everest and complete the seven summits they were determined to to break
this record to be the first vegans to ever summit the highest mountain in the world and while this
goal was frankly very inspiring i hope we can all agree on that it was also a very dangerous gamble
at the time the summit rate on mount everest was just over
50 percent meaning that barely one out of every two climbers actually made it to the top which
also meant the other half failed often in brutal unforgiving ways for maria and robert chasing
history together meant stepping into a climb where the odds were already stacked against them
and the mountain rarely shows mercy to those who fall on the wrong side of that coin we're
going to flash forward in time to may of 2016 and at this time we're going to be talking about the
first time that everest climbed mount everest was not just as dangerous as it normally was
it was even more so i'm sure we've all seen photos that illustrate this but like everest was just
kind of overcrowded at the time with frankly way too many commercial climbs planned for this season
there was also some very unpredictable weather and lingering threats from recent avalanches and ice
falls but despite these dangers maria and robert were not deterred when they landed in kathmandu they began to climb mount everest
they began to climb mount everest when they landed in kathmandu they began to climb mount everest
their preparations for the altitude to come by you know drinking as much water as they possibly
could eating as many carbs as possible and i'm sure they were also getting some meatless protein
in there as well because you know a boost of that never hurts before a big climb they took the short
flight from kathmandu to lukla and with snacks and only the usual light-headedness that comes with
elevation maria and robert began their trek to base camp not a lot of people understand this
about everest but by the time you get to lukla which is like the small town where you start your
journey to base camp you're already over 9 000 feet above sea level or over 2800 meters and it's
not like you get to base camp in just one simple short hike or even in one day it's a multi-day
brutal journey just to get there my friend tom who also happens to be another youtuber by the way he
helped me out a lot with this script you should check out his channel it's called everest mystery
tom told me that on those days where you're
climbing to base camp you really have to be just careful because the wind can get taken out of you
from pushing even just a little bit too much which is insane but anyways robert and maria
eventually did arrive at base camp which is over uh 17 000 feet above sea level or over 500 meters
which really should put in perspective how difficult just the climb to get to base camp
is right and i'm sure by the time they got there robert and maria were probably a little bit gassed
but that's pretty par for the course for everyone right in fact robert and maria actually had spent
a lot of time at this very same altitude on their previous climbs and so they knew not only how to
take care of themselves but also how to take care of each other and that love and caretaking
along with the sheer will it takes to accomplish this feat, was what was going to get them up the
next 10,000 feet or 3,000 meters to the summit of the highest mountain on earth together. But right
here, it's important to note that when you climb Everest, everyone kind of knows the deal. I mean,
I already told you that it's close to a 50-50 shot to actually reach the summit, but there's also
another statistic that I need to share. There's a risk, a very real risk, that when you go up the
mountain, you may not come back down. As of 2025, you know, in the best research that I could find,
the number of people that don't come back down is a little bit more than 1%, which might sound
small, but you need to know that Everest guides and Sherpas take that percentage very seriously
because it does happen from time to time. And the reason I bring this up is because going with
someone who lives in a mountain, you don't want to go up the mountain, you want to go down the
mountain, you want to go down the mountain, you want to go down the mountain, you want to go down the.
on
world might feel like an added security at first, but that may make what could possibly happen to
you up there or your partner so much worse, right? And so flash forward to May 20th, 2016. Maria and
Robert had made it all the way up to Camp 4, perched at over 26,000 feet or 8,000 meters. Ahead
of them was just the final push to the summit. I mean, they were really close. It was early in the
but there was enough of a window for them to make that push to summit Mount Everest. Darkness
surrounded them. Maria's and Robert's headlamps cut through the snow and ice. Folks, at this
elevation, I've never been there, but from talking to Tom and just, I mean, everyone knows that every
single step hurts. Every single breath feels like it's going to be your last. It's a straight up
battle to move forward, but you also can't like push yourself too hard.
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Oh, and in Maria and Robert's case, they haven't even been able to eat any beef jerky. But anyways,
Maria was actually starting off unusually strong. She was actually leading Robert and moving faster
than the rest of the climbers in their group. And again, I mentioned it earlier, but she had this
record that this big record in her mind, this idea of being the very first vegan to ever summit Mount
Everest. And I'm going to make some assumptions here, but I'm going to make some assumptions here.
Well, I imagine it would feel really good just for herself to break a record. Like we all,
you know, winning something or breaking a record feels good, but I think it was probably even more
important to her to break this record because it would just be so validating to the lifestyle that
her and Robert had committed to, you know, she could prove all the haters of the vegan diet,
or even a lot of the doctors and experts wrong, you know, that you could do something like this
while eating no meats or animal products. And so she's charging up the mountain and Robert was just
a little bit behind her, but with her every step of the way. In fact, he was actually going to let
her be the first one to summit because he knew that this record mattered more to her than to
him. But as the hours dragged on and the summit became closer and closer, something started to
change. Robert was actually the first one to notice even before the Sherpas and the guides
Maria's pace, which had started out so strong, began to slow down. And at first Robert didn't
say anything, you know, probably because at that altitude, you're just trying to focus on your own
breathing and getting up the next step. And so, you know, at first it's whatever, but after a few
minutes, Maria's pace became noticeable to the rest of the group. Her breath became shallow and
rapid. Uh, her chest rattled with each, you know, inhale and her body just seemed to start giving
out on her, uh, as if she had basically run out of fuel.
She whispered barely audible through her mask, but just enough for her husband to hear quote,
I don't feel right. And that's probably a line that we've all said before, but you need to
remember that at altitude up in the death zone of Mount Everest, hearing those words is terrifying.
That is almost the worst case scenario for a climber in this situation. And it also brings
up a lot of hard decisions. And in this moment, Maria and Robert decided to keep pushing on
silently as Maria tried to basically mask her suffering, but it wasn't long until her skin
started to turn completely pale and her lips became fully blue. Each breath that she took
came with this wet gurgling sound, which was absolutely horrifying. It's hard to even say
that to be honest, the Sherpas were taking note of her condition, but Maria was still
trucking on her eyes stayed straight ahead of her, but behind her mask, the truth was that
they were glassy and unfocused. I mean, it was getting bad, but even still she could
actually see the final pass leading to the summit. At this point, she even paused to kind
of marvel at it, right? She was so close. And just as she took a confident step towards it,
disaster struck folks, her knees gave way and she buckled into the snow.
And at that moment, Maria's body was suffering severely from several things as she was
lacking blood flow, warmth, and possibly some key nutrients that would have helped her stay
upright. But most notably, Maria was lacking oxygen. Again, where she is, the air is so thin,
she's at high altitude in the death zone of Mount Everest. She was experiencing the symptoms of
something called HAPE, which is high altitude pulmonary edema. This is when fluids fill your
lungs, restricting oxygen flow. And when you're that high up in elevation with the air,
so thin anyways, basically anything else that gets in the way of your breathing puts you in
very, very bad shape very, very quickly. And so after she fell, Robert grabbed Maria and
he pulled her out of the snow. He supported her weight and tried to keep her upright,
you know, because the floor of the mountain was freezing and adding hypothermia to the mix of this
already bad situation was obviously not what needed to happen. Things started to get a little
chaotic here. Sherpas were kind of shouting instructions to each other, opening oxygen
bottles and just passing them to Maria. As the concerned caretakers kind of stood there trying
to do anything they could for her. The sun started to pass over them, meaning that it was now
afternoon. Their window to climb Everest was closing. Time stretched and distorted all around
them. Every second felt like an hour. And again, every breath was agony. They tried to push further
altogether, but Maria was basically grasping for air at this point. And so once again, they had to
stop. And here's one of the hardest parts of all of this. Right at the spot where Maria was now
bent over, grasping for air, she could actually make out a vision. Now, of course, this could
have been a hallucination. And at first, maybe Maria thought it was one. But soon, the Sherpas
saw it too. And eventually, Robert's attention was brought upwards as well. All of them saw the
moment that the peak of Everest seemed to be right within reach. I mean, this was beautiful.
And it was right there.
Robert and Maria basically had the same thoughts, but neither of them could speak it in this moment.
For Robert, the choices and options became agonizingly clear.
He could climb up to the summit, leaving Maria with the Sherpas to survive however she could.
He could stay with Maria, potentially risking both of their lives, or they could all turn back now.
Now, in hindsight, Maria, the professor, would have known that turning back was the only logical choice,
and certainly the safest, and maybe if she was thinking more clearly, she would have turned back even earlier in the climb.
There's probably some of you that have been thinking this for a while now, as I've told this story,
but I want you to put yourself in their shoes for a second.
This was their ultimate dream. These climbs were something that they did together.
It meant so much to them, not just in terms of pride, but in terms of who they were, right?
It was what their love was defined by, which is why it isn't entirely shocking that,
it wasn't Robert that actually made the final decision here, it was Maria herself.
Robert and Maria both felt that Robert could make it to the summit quickly and then return back to her.
Maria said that she would be okay to wait for him to return,
and Maria basically demanded that her husband go to the summit and leave her behind in this moment.
She really did not want to let her difficulties get in the way of her husband's dream,
and get in the way of breaking this record.
She would wait right there.
They would celebrate Robert's summiting of Everest together once he returned.
Take a second to let that sink in, folks.
For Maria, this is her letting go of her dream of being the first vegan atop the mountain,
and then encouraging her husband to summit without her,
and choosing to wait for him to come down instead of returning immediately to camp,
which was obviously the safest thing to do.
And again, it's easy to kind of hyper-analyze these things after the fact,
but I don't know if this decision,
that Maria made, was made out of selflessness or out of just straight-up exhaustion.
But anyways, I now want you to put yourself in Robert's shoes.
I mean, at this point, the last thing he's thinking about is his own life, right?
He's asking himself a million questions like,
is my wife going to be okay?
Like, what should I do?
Do I stay with her?
Do I listen to her and go?
Am I helping even just being here, or am I in the way?
Should I just say, screw it, and climb to the top?
I mean, it's so close.
It's right there.
And every answer to any of these questions just felt like betrayal.
But when he heard the words of Maria, the love of his life,
reassuring him that it's okay to go up without her, that she'd be fine,
honestly, in that scenario,
I think that most of us would have done what Robert and Maria ended up doing,
even if in hindsight, it may not have been the most rational move.
Because as much as this was Maria's dream, again, it was Robert's too.
And so Robert,
just like he had done on countless other adventures where Maria was at the head of the pack,
followed his wife's instructions,
and he left her behind.
That's right.
Robert left Maria with a few Sherpas who were working to stabilize her,
and he began the final push up towards Everest.
Now, this is unofficial.
This is me editorializing a little bit,
but my guess is that this might have been the fastest push up this last little section of Everest in history, right?
Because you can imagine,
that every single step Robert took up the mountain from this point on,
he was thinking about slingshotting right back down to get to his wife.
And after what must have felt like hours,
but in reality was probably under an hour,
Robert did summit Everest.
He accomplished that goal.
He broke that record.
At least he thought he did.
But of course,
this wasn't like an amazing time for him up there.
It probably wasn't as triumphant as it usually is for people who summit.
I think he literally went to the top,
stood there for a moment,
and then went immediately back down to get to his wife.
And when he did return to Maria to tell her the good news,
well,
she didn't have any good news to report herself.
At this point,
Maria was just not okay at all.
She had actually collapsed in the snow.
There was no standing her back up as the Sherpas who tried to do this,
had their ropes torn in the process.
Uh,
folks,
this is where that thing I was saying about having the,
the ones you love up there with you,
might not be such a great thing because now Robert,
who had just arguably done the most incredible thing of his entire life,
summiting Everest.
Well,
he was now holding his wife while she was slowly dying.
Her chest was still rattling with each desperate breath.
Um,
Robert whispered words of encouragement,
trying to keep Maria conscious.
He applied oxygen and he monitored every beat of her pulse,
but her breath became,
became wetter and wetter.
In fact,
both of them began to develop frostbite as the evening temperature set in,
uh,
Maria's hallucinations took her in and out of consciousness as Robert's sweats
began to freeze all around his body.
The Sherpas were now worried about not only losing one climber,
Maria,
but multiple climbers,
including Robert.
Robert was starting to breathe heavily as he sat there with Maria,
uh,
panicking and begging for her to hold onto life.
The sun started to crest over the mountain.
It was going to be dark soon and spending even a few minutes on the mountainside at night was agonizing.
And on top of all of that,
Sherpas didn't have any more oxygen cans to give out.
They had given all of their resources to Maria.
And so if they stayed up there any longer,
they were all going to be in trouble,
right?
But just as the Sherpas thought about pulling Robert away from Maria,
which,
which would have been,
I mean,
brutal one final painful breath,
rattled through the mountain.
And then silence.
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Laying there in her husband's arms.
Maria passed away.
She was gone.
As was her dream of summoning Everest.
Obviously, Robert took several minutes to be there with Maria's body.
Despite the sky getting darker and darker, he was in total shock, kind of just holding onto Maria's body as tightly as he could.
Can you imagine this like this is hard to even say, to be honest, like, I'm thinking of my girlfriend, like, instead of the couple celebrating the fact that one of them had made it to the peak of Mount Everest, let alone two of them an incredible achievement, just 30 minutes after he summited, Robert was now holding the lifeless body of his beloved wife, immediately, Robert was hit with a wave of regret of these what ifs, right?
But of course, none of it mattered.
Now, he had to.
Kind of switch his mindset temporarily away from grieving this horrible thing and think about his own life.
Think about how he was going to make it down, because again, he wasn't that far off from death either.
The Sherpas had to pull Robert, who was basically catatonic at this moment, away from Maria's body.
They slowly guided him down the mountain, and unfortunately, they actually couldn't bring Maria's body down with them because it was just too late in the day.
It would have been too much work, too dangerous.
It took over a week for Maria's body.
to be recovered from the mountain.
And folks, that's the way.
week that my friend tom pollard from the everest mystery channel actually saw several sherpas
working to bring down maria's body during his own climb to the summit of mount everest in fact he
actually summited mount everest just a few days after this tragedy struck and tom told me that
when he saw the body of maria and all the sherpas around it it wasn't the kind of thing that you
would like stop and stare at right um tom saw the scene acknowledged you know to himself that it
could actually happen to him too potentially and then he kept pushing forward giving himself the
best odds to make it up to the summit and back down in one piece i've never seen a dead body
before and so i don't know how i would react when if i was in this position but i mean if you're
gonna do everest there's a pretty good chance you're gonna see one there's still tons of bodies
on everest to this day that haven't been brought back down as i'm sure a lot of you know so i guess
the best thing to do if you encounter this is to just try
and not let it get to you even if it's literally staring you in the face anyway so as soon as
maria's body was brought down from the mountain you can imagine that some intense debates flared
up about what happened again not very many people talk about this story but there was a little bit
of media coverage particularly in australia and as you can probably imagine the one thing that
a lot of the coverage centered around was the veganism aspect their diet could that
have possibly contributed to what happened so i actually asked tom about his diet when he
summited everest i mean that was my first burning question after all of the vegan stuff that i was
reading about um because you're not like packing sandwiches or making bacon at 26 000 feet and so i
wondered what people eat up there and if certain foods affect your body in different ways tom said
that once you're up there in the death zone particularly you know at the very very end of
the climb it doesn't really matter what you eat he ate ramen noodles for instance just straight up
carbs and he said that basically anything you can get into your system at that altitude and also
keep down at that altitude is a miracle because you're you're just focused on climbing your body
is struggling you can't really think about food that much the most important thing is to just
get some calories in you and then get out of the death zone as quickly as possible and as for maria
and robert's strict long-standing vegan diets before getting to everest well tom couldn't
really speak to if that affected their climb or not i mean he's not a diet expert and so we're
kind of still left with that question um did maria's veganism contribute to her weakness
at that altitude again i'm not an expert on diet i'm not even close i literally ate mcdonald's
for dinner last night but through my research this is the best i could find stream climbers
usually need dense calories and high protein nutrition and having extra reserves of iron and
b12 going into something like everest like it has to be helpful in some way right and we all know
that getting all of those nutrients is simply more challenging for people on plant-based diets although
i'm sure someone's going to contradict that in the comments and so uh feel free if you know more about
this than me just do so respectfully please that's all i ask but there's actually something else at
play here because while a lot of people in the media were arguing about veganism
some other quieter people were saying that hape the respiratory issue that maria was
dealing with on the mountain is something that kills people indiscriminately whether
you're a meat eater a vegan an olympic athlete an experienced everest guide or a silly youtuber
the mountain doesn't care about your diet or your principles it only cares about physics oxygen and
the human body's limits so what was it well folks here is the cruel irony the twist of faith that
answers the question we've all been thinking about and to my knowledge no source out there has put
these two pieces of information together but my research has led me to this so i want to try and
get this exactly right so maria was aiming to be the very first vegan ever to summit everest right
and supposedly
robert would end up taking that honor or at least that's what i've told you well robert was actually
the second vegan to ever summit everest because the first vegan to summit everest was actually
kuntal joysher an indian mountaineer who reached the top of everest the day before maria attempted
her own climb literally so the record maria died while chasing that incredible bar that
she and robert had set for themselves to achieve to prove to the world that that vegans could do
anything had already been done less than 24 hours before they had their chance to touch the summit
i mean this is just crazy right and one has to wonder if knowing that information about the
record already being broken would have affected maria and robert's decisions on the mountain
if they would have maybe come down before it was too late it took years for robert to come to peace
with what happened to maria he still can't look at pictures of her partly because of how
heartbroken he is and partly because he still can't quite believe how quickly everything just
went wrong but even though robert may feel some guilt for what happened that day you know me
personally i don't really think that there was much he could have done to help i mean
maybe the sherpas could have gotten maria down the mountain sooner but that decision
would have been going against her own desire to keep pushing right
and plus she was keeping her struggles pretty quiet up until the point where she basically
couldn't breathe and also it's important to note that there was no guarantee that even
if robert had stayed with her or had descended with her instead of going to the summit um
there's no guarantee that she still would have survived either for maria
i'm pretty sure that having her husband there with her at her last moments brought her at
least some comfort and peace uh maybe even her knowing that robert had successfully reached the
summit himself brought her some peace as well but it's still just so tragic man and to me maria and
robert's story and all the the gaps that we've filled in with this video still doesn't answer
maybe the most important question of all and that's where i need your help would you climb
everest with the person you love the most knowing that there's a one in 100 chance that one of you
won't come back which again is a pretty small chance but if you just so happen to be the one
in 100 then obviously uh the con do i even need to say the consequences are dire i don't know and
of course may maria rest in peace show her some love as well i always appreciate when you guys are
just like so respectful to the victims that i cover in these stories and so i appreciate all
of you so much for watching from the studio that brought you wandavision i was an avenger but i'm
not a hero anymore it's like i'm losing my the vision returns for the final chapter of the
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