Missing Skier! — Colorado Front Range

[LT]

Wow, total bummer.

++++++vibes+++++++ to her family and friends.

[smitchell333]

Sad news.

I hope it wasnt something that could have been avoided if she would have toldsomeone her destination.

I go solo frequently and have told taken to using a "virtual belay" via cell phone from friends.

[skiHOG]

http://archive.9news.com/acm_news.as...7-c589c01ca7bf

Searchers find body believed to be missing skier
posted by: Sara Gandy Web Producer
Created: 1/2/2007 12:15 PM MST - Updated: 1/2/2007 12:15 PM MST


FORT COLLINS (AP) - Searchers Tuesday found a body believed to be that of a woman missing for a week after she told her family she was going skiing in the Cameron Pass area, authorities said.

Larimer County sheriff's spokeswoman Eloise Campanella said the body was found on Montgomery Pass, where Trish Lehman, 40, of Longmont, was last seen Dec. 25. She had told her family earlier that day she was heading for the Montgomery Pass Trail.

A patrol deputy found Lehman's car Monday at the Zimmerman Lake Trailhead on Cameron Pass.

The search was suspended Monday afternoon due to avalanche danger. Campanella said about 15 searchers were working Tuesday on Montgomery Pass, where up to 8 inches of snow fell over the weekend.

[MarsB]

Very sad to hear.

[shera]

Really, really sad.

[Twoplanker]

She fell into a creek and got wet. She tried to build a snowcave but it was not enough to warm her.


Missing skier dead
Longmont woman's body is discovered 150 feet from trail

Tricia Lehman, 40, was "an incredibly kind person," her professor said.

By Bill Scanlon, Rocky Mountain News

January 3, 2007

The body of a cross-country skier found in a rudimentary snow cave just 150 feet from a ski trail at Cameron Pass and a half-mile from a major highway has been identified as Tricia Lehman, whom friends describe as a budding academic superstar.

Search-and-rescue teams from Larimer County followed tracks off the main ski trail and came upon the 40-year-old woman's body, said Larimer County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Eloise Campanella.

Lehman, of Longmont, was last seen on Christmas Day going up the Montgomery Pass Trail shortly after she told friends she was going skiing.

Investigators found no obvious signs of injury and are tentatively suggesting that the woman may have become disoriented in the heavy snow and suffered hypothermia, Campanella said Tuesday.

Lehman didn't tell friends where she was going skiing, Campanella said.

Lehman's husband, who is separated from her and lives in Denver, went to Longmont on Dec. 30, realized that no snow had been shoveled and worried that she might be at any number of cross-country ski areas, Campanella said.

He reported his concerns to Longmont police, who put out a bulletin.

A couple saw the bulletin and told police they'd seen a woman matching Lehman's description on Christmas Day.

Larimer County sheriff's deputies and search-and-rescue teams were dispatched and found Lehman's car at Zimmerman Lake Trailhead on Cameron Pass on Monday. They searched the trails near the car but were stymied by an avalanche and later by nightfall.

They started again Tuesday. At 11 a.m., they saw some ski tracks that led off the trail.

"The tracks led right to the body," Campanella said. "There was a snow cave of sorts that she had apparently built."

There was about 6 to 8 inches of new snow in the area, Campanella said.

The academic education world lost a very bright light, say the people who knew Lehman at the University of Colorado School of Education, where she was a candidate for a doctorate.

"She is universally thought of as a shining star in the program," said Ed Wiley, her professor and academic adviser.

Lehman specialized in research in education methodology, with an eye toward a career in analyzing policy and testing systems to improve school performance.

Lehman "distinguished herself as just being an incredibly kind person," Wiley said.

[Bodhi]

Really sad, sad news...I think Iskibc and I drove right by where she was on the 27th, which makes me wish there was some way, any way, of knowing or sensing she was back in there...

[RootSkier]

Wow. Sad. Where do you see the part about the creek, TP?

[Tye 1on]

Totally sad. Just awful when it happens to a rockstar cool person. +++Vibes to friends/family...+++

[GoldMember]

I really hate commenting on these stories but damn, this is just so sad. Condolences to her family and friends, and I include you two-planker. I hope you're alright.

[0BernhardFranz]

It´s nuts !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!

[Twoplanker]

Wow. Sad. Where do you see the part about the creek, TP?

I heard some specific details from a friend, who spoke with her husband. He was there when she was brought out.

[dk_alaskan]

+++++++++vibes going out to her family and friends. It is very sad to hear another skier is lost to mother nature.

[MTT]

A lonely Cross Country tour on Christmas Day,
ends in tragedy.

I hope she is in a good place

Best wishes and condolences to her family and friends.

I felt I should post something? But I don't really know how to feel about this.

Was this a better way to go than dieing in a car wreck or many of the thousands of ways people are taken?

Or was this a scary sad way to go?

I was actually relived to hear that she was found on the trail and that this did not turn into a horrific abduction story

[Rontele]

That is very sad. Very tragic and something so innocent that mahy of us do, falling or stepping into a creek.

My condolences to her family.