Missing hiker on Mt Bierstadt/ Mt Evans

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Tim A
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Re: Missing hiker on Mt Bierstadt/ Mt Evans

Post by Tim A »

Crossfitter, thanks.

The macabre fascination and desire to talk about accidents and what the victim did 'wrong' continue to remind me of rush-hour traffic all slamming on their brakes to gawk at a car wreck on the side of the road and speak in whispered tones. I'm so used to seeing the "I hate to speculate, but..." crap that I quit reading these threads after I see 'that' post, which never fails. The last thing I want to read or hear when I'm preparing to bury a loved one is someone saying: "Well, ya know, I hate to conjecture, but she shouldn't have smoked all those years," or, "well, he shouldn't have been driving and texting." We're all aware of the risks associated with mountaineering and heading into the outdoors. We shouldn't have to immediately depersonalize every tragedy or incident and use it as a soapbox for finger-wagging about "mistakes."

Myself preparing for a sawtooth traverse in a few months, this one hits me especially hard, but I'm thankful for SAR bringing closure to this man's family and for all the risk and effort they put into keeping us safe every day in the mountains. Just knowing they're there is comforting both for me and my loved ones when I'm out in the wilderness. Prayers for this man's family.
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Re: Missing hiker on Mt Bierstadt/ Mt Evans

Post by cocraig »

RIP, Clint.
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Cookie Monster
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Re: Missing hiker on Mt Bierstadt/ Mt Evans

Post by Cookie Monster »

Sad, sad news. Condolences to his poor family. RIP pilgrim.
“Faeries, come take me out of this dull world,
For I would ride with you upon the wind,
Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,
And dance upon the mountains like a flame.”
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Re: Missing hiker on Mt Bierstadt/ Mt Evans

Post by jfrenzen »

To family/friends of Clint: I'm very sorry.

To everyone else: I would agree with the comments that there is nothing wrong with having a discussion about accidents. We've all seen time and time again how people berate you for "conjecture" and become offended if we try to guess/wonder/speculate, or whatever you want to call it. Bottom line, I learn from reading these things and discussing it. If not in a 14ers forum, then where do you suggest these conversations take place?

I believe it would be wrong to write this stuff in an online news article forum, as that is much more likely to be read by friends/family post-accident. I do not believe my wife would come to 14ers.com to read about me if I were to perish in an accident, heaven forbid.

I also know that I will not convince any of you that believe this is wrong, and that is not my hope. I would just like to feel that I can ask a question and learn something to be better prepared for my next trip.
Mount of the Holy Cross--July 10th 2010
Mount Sherman--August 14th 2010
Mount Bierstadt, Sawtooth traverse--July 22, 2011
Longs Peak--August 4th, 2012
Mount Evans--July 4th, 2013
Grays and Torrey's from Loveland Pass--August 3rd, 2014
Mount Princeton--August 22nd, 2015
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Re: Missing hiker on Mt Bierstadt/ Mt Evans

Post by MtHurd »

R.I.P.
Last edited by MtHurd on Fri Jul 20, 2012 11:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Missing hiker on Mt Bierstadt/ Mt Evans

Post by MtHurd »

R.I.P.
Last edited by MtHurd on Fri Jul 20, 2012 11:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
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karriedaway
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Re: Missing hiker on Mt Bierstadt/ Mt Evans

Post by karriedaway »

It is with great sadness that I post this reply.

I, with my husband and a friend, summited Bierstadt on Tuesday at 10:00 am. Shortly after our arrival a man, that I can only assume is Clint, asked who wanted to take on Sawtooth with him. As far as my husband and I remember this man was wearing a green jacket. What I remember is the excited way he raised his trekking poles. He was very happy.

Another man from VA was very tempted to go with him. But in the end decided not to go. In fact, I had assumed that no one attempted it. His question had sparked a lot of discussion amongst several people at the top, whereas most people were excited to conquer it someday, but not that day.

My husband walked out a bit to check it out for maybe some time in the future. No one was out there when Rob was. When he returned, we started our descent shortly after that- about a little after 10:30.

I am sorry that I did not reply sooner to this post with information- we just returned from our CO trip and I just logged onto 14ers for the fun of it. I wish I had read this sooner.

My husband and I are in quite a state of shock at this news. We grieve for the family and friends of Clint as they must endure this time of tragedy. If anyone has a connection to the family please pass on our condolences. He was full of excitement and a zest for life and adventure at the top of Bierstadt. He was very happy. Perhaps this memory of mine will ease their pain.

Our thoughts and prayers are with them at this time.

Be safe.
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Re: Missing hiker on Mt Bierstadt/ Mt Evans

Post by jswantekdds »

Hi everyone. I was a friend of Clint's and I came across this board while doing some research about his tragic death. I wanted to thank everyone for their kind words. I also wanted to thank all of those involved in the search last week, especially the Alpine Rescue Team. Clint's parents were so thankful for everyone who volunteered in the search. I've included Clint's obituary below and his family is asking for donations to be made to the Alpine Rescue Team in his name.

Also, @karriedaway, thank you for sharing your story and I will pass along what you said to his family.

Clint's obituary can be found at the following link:
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/chicag ... bLoggedOut
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Image
Clinton Samelson McHugh, 31, was born on Sept. 18, 1980 in Lake Forest, IL. He passed away suddenly on July 17, 2012 in Crest County, CO. Clinton dearly loved and was treasured by his wife, Susan (Keeler); parents Dr. Carl and Linda McHugh; brother Colin (Amber) McHugh; nieces Bryn and Rory McHugh; and nephew Griffin McHugh; Susan's parents Dr. Brent and Marianne Keeler; sister-in-law Cindy Keeler; and many aunts, uncles, and cousins. Clinton was a graduate of Fremd High School, Duke University, Virginia School of Law, and was in the process of completing a Masters of Public Policy/Public Administration at Northwestern University. After receiving his Juris Doctorate in 2005, he was an associate at Kirkland Ellis LLC and Skaden Arps LLC in Chicago. He served as General Counsel for the Rapid Transit Authority in Chicago until June 2012, when he and Susan relocated to Greenwood Village, CO to begin a new chapter in their lives together. To all who knew him, Clinton expressed his spirituality as a truly kind, loving, and giving young man. He felt a strong affinity for nature and spent as much time as possible engaged in outdoor activity. With Susan, he enjoyed bicycling, hiking, kayaking, swimming, and photography. Sadly, he did not survive a tragic accident while hiking in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado on July 17, 2012. Memorials in remembrance of Clinton may be directed in his name to Alpine Search & Rescue, P.O. Box 934, Evergreen, CO 80437 or to the Shedd Aquarium at, http://www.sheddaquarium.org/contribute" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. A gathering of close friends and family to honor and celebrate Clinton's life will be held August 11. For notification, please send contact information to: csm_remembrance@hotmail.com.
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Re: Missing hiker on Mt Bierstadt/ Mt Evans

Post by tmathews »

jswantekdds wrote:Hi everyone. I was a friend of Clint's and I came across this board while doing some research about his tragic death. I wanted to thank everyone for their kind words. I also wanted to thank all of those involved in the search last week, especially the Alpine Rescue Team. Clint's parents were so thankful for everyone who volunteered in the search. I've included Clint's obituary below and his family is asking for donations to be made to the Alpine Rescue Team in his name.

Also, @karriedaway, thank you for sharing your story and I will pass along what you said to his family.

Clint's obituary can be found at the following link:
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/chicag ... bLoggedOut
-----------
Image
Clinton Samelson McHugh, 31, was born on Sept. 18, 1980 in Lake Forest, IL. He passed away suddenly on July 17, 2012 in Crest County, CO. Clinton dearly loved and was treasured by his wife, Susan (Keeler); parents Dr. Carl and Linda McHugh; brother Colin (Amber) McHugh; nieces Bryn and Rory McHugh; and nephew Griffin McHugh; Susan's parents Dr. Brent and Marianne Keeler; sister-in-law Cindy Keeler; and many aunts, uncles, and cousins. Clinton was a graduate of Fremd High School, Duke University, Virginia School of Law, and was in the process of completing a Masters of Public Policy/Public Administration at Northwestern University. After receiving his Juris Doctorate in 2005, he was an associate at Kirkland Ellis LLC and Skaden Arps LLC in Chicago. He served as General Counsel for the Rapid Transit Authority in Chicago until June 2012, when he and Susan relocated to Greenwood Village, CO to begin a new chapter in their lives together. To all who knew him, Clinton expressed his spirituality as a truly kind, loving, and giving young man. He felt a strong affinity for nature and spent as much time as possible engaged in outdoor activity. With Susan, he enjoyed bicycling, hiking, kayaking, swimming, and photography. Sadly, he did not survive a tragic accident while hiking in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado on July 17, 2012. Memorials in remembrance of Clinton may be directed in his name to Alpine Search & Rescue, P.O. Box 934, Evergreen, CO 80437 or to the Shedd Aquarium at, http://www.sheddaquarium.org/contribute" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. A gathering of close friends and family to honor and celebrate Clinton's life will be held August 11. For notification, please send contact information to: csm_remembrance@hotmail.com.
Again, condolences to Clint's family and loved ones. :(
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Re: Missing hiker on Mt Bierstadt/ Mt Evans

Post by kushrocks »

My most heartfelt condolences to you and your family. I never knew Clint but his kind spirit that you mentioned is exactly the type of person my friends and I would enjoy spending time in the outdoors with. I know myself and many others will be thinking of him this weekend in the mountains as we try to honor his memory. Rest in Peace buddy.
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Re: Missing hiker on Mt Bierstadt/ Mt Evans

Post by CSMDawgDoc »

This post is an amalgam of several posts and replies we have made in the past week, you may have read parts of it previously, but this is not simply a repost of another;

Clints family and friends wish to offer our profound gratitude for the work of the Alpine SAR, Clear Creek Sheriff's Dept. and others involved in the search and rescue operation. These brave volunteers put themselves in harms way conducting the initial search on the mountain into and throughout the dark of night. Their selfless efforts lead to the rapid location, recovery and return of my brother to our family, an act of such humanitarian kindness during his wife and parent’s grief stricken hours for which we will forever be grateful.

I realize speculation and comments over his death may serve to placate the fears of our own mortality and the capriciousness of life in letting one believe such a tragic accident could have only occurred because he was a transplant city boy from Chicago with no business in the mountains.

In response, I can only offer my brother was not a neophyte to the outdoors, or to the Colorado experience for that matter. An avid outdoors enthusiast since early in high school, he devoted much of his free time to hiking, climbing, and mountain biking, skiing, kayaking and nature photography among other outdoor pursuits. In college he had began a fascination with rock climbing but gave up this activity within a couple of years due to its "high risk" potential as he put it. Although their personal move to Colorado from Chicago was quite recent, his wife, Susan, is a native and both made frequent trips and took many vacations in the area over the past decade to enjoy the biking, hiking and skiing in the mountains. Their relocation to Denver was the realization of a promise of their future life to be able to spend even more time in touch with nature and one another.

My brother was keenly aware of the potential dangers in the pursuit of the activities he dearly loved, and made efforts towards proper preparation with exercise, monitoring of weather conditions and, yes, altitude conditioning. We had recently discussed these very issues when we were together for a family vacation at Kiawah Island just last month. As we were lying on the beach in the lapping of the tide, watching my children (his nieces and nephew) as they played in the low surf. He discussed me traveling out to Denver to do some trail hiking on the safer trails of the 14ers as his Birthday Present in September. I remarked that I could no longer take on anything with "that much risk anymore". He simply said we would only go on the popular trails where it was a test of fitness and the worst I might do was trip and twist an ankle or have to turn back out of fatigue before reaching an objective. We talked about other types of trails he hiked, and he said they did have risk and that sometimes people got lost misstep or had rock shale slide out from under them with fatal consequences. I made him promise me he would be careful, as his nieces and nephew adored him and I would be "so mad at him" if he made me have to tell my children he had an accident and left me as the only child having to deal with our parent's as they entered their senior years. I can only hope that in his final hour or minutes, he was unaware of his true risk and did not recall the details of this conversation.

We know his death was instantaneous with his impact. There is no question. For that, I am thankful, as he did not have to lay there suffering in agonizing pain for minutes or hours contemplating that he was likely to die. With that knowledge, I can comfort myself and my family with thoughts that he was enjoying his hike, perhaps even enjoying the challenge of a new trail and some interesting conditions adding to his outdoor experience. I try not to dwell on the possible negative thoughts of what he might have experienced in those last few minutes or hour before he fell.

His choice to hike alone on that day, one of many in his past, will undoubtedly tug on my thoughts for the remainder of my life. Whether it would have made a difference will forever be unanswered. It may have been unfamiliarity with the trail, or some altitude fatigue, or the pop-up storms with wind and rains reported in the area that afternoon or more likely some combination of these and other unknowns. I know he kept himself familiar with the weather patterns and current conditions, as local weather sites were still open on his laptop at home. After. He also followed 14ers blogs and forums, including this one – links to which dominated his favorites. SAR has retained his broken GPS in hopes of recovering data which may be of future value.

It was a very good visit at Kiawah last month. We played with the kids on the beach and in the surf. He played children's board games with them, my parents and I. (He was a board game enthusiast as well, having over 150 board games stacked up organized in a walk in closet in their guest room/office space). We spent a lot of time preparing dinner together for the family and talked about how excited he was to be with Susan in an area where they could truly enjoy the things they loved - hiking, biking, skiing etc in such a wonderful area. He spent some time doing nature photography, and sent us photos of the birds, turtles and alligators he had taken on the trip. He was so full of promise and life on this visit - I could tell he was truly enjoying what their future had in store for them. I will cherish those moments he had with me, and had with my children, and with my parents, all together for the rest of my life.

He was a truly wonderful young man, as intelligent as they come, obviously well educated and dedicated to self improvement, self awareness and achievement. In most ways he reflect his older brother, but my mirrored image was much brighter in that he was more compassionate, more thoughtful, more carefree, more introspective and had many, many people who counted him as friend. Whereas I have a lot of acquaintances, I have very few very very close friends - he had many. In his death, I find it comforting that so many of 'his people' have contacted us and remarked on how he was always there for them, in their time of need as support, and how many of them say some variation of "I don't have many close friends, but I would count Clint as my best friend". We've had close to twenty of these comments come through so far. The world was a better place with his presence, in his absence, diminished.

Yes, he may have made a mistake, likely several mistakes in the end which we can all point to in hindsight and say “I would never have….” But we do not know that they ultimately caused his death and who among us has not made "some" mistake we only truly recognized afterwards. I can say with absolute certainty he was not cavalierly careless in how he died. I know that he was not in how he lived. There but for sheer dumb luck could we all be.

He would not wish his passing under these circumstances to diminish ones love for the beauty of the outdoors and the awe of nature. He would, I believe, remind us all to enjoy life, take good care and never miss the opportunity to tell the ones you love how you feel.

Be safe out there.

Colin
Last edited by CSMDawgDoc on Tue Jul 24, 2012 3:41 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Missing hiker on Mt Bierstadt/ Mt Evans

Post by dmccool »

Amazing tribute to your brother, Colin. Thank you so much for sharing it with us. Grace and Peace to you and your family.
Save a place for me up in the high country.
There's still space to breathe.

- Gregory Alan Isakov
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