Michael,mbuhrmester wrote: I hope that sharing this all has been helpful to you all -- I know it has been helpful to me to be able to understand what happened -- many thanks to the Custer County SAR. Our family is and will forever be a mountaineering family (in addition to lots of other wonderful things in our lives), and having read many of the posts here just briefly now, I can see that this site is just a bigger mountaineering family as well. We loved so many 14ers together -- Sneffles, Longs, Snowmass, Mt. of the Holy Cross, Capitol, North Palisade, Sill, Rainier, and dozens more. We loved our summer adventures and the experiences we got to share as a family.
I thank you all again for your condolences during this tough, tough time. And if you are able and willing, please support the Custer County Search and Rescue Team. They are an extremely professional group that helped us through this ordeal with the utmost respect, understanding, and diligence. They are a small unit with an enormous heart.
Thank you for the additional details. I can only imagine how difficult it was to write this so soon after such a tragedy.
If you do return to Colorado, please visit the forum again. I'm sure there are a lot of people who would be willing to climb with you and your brother. I hope you find success in pursuit of your PhD. What an awesome way of honoring your father's memory.