Overview
- The students, 19-year-old Kaden Matsuda and 20-year-old Jackson Donlon, left the Leadville campus for a weekend climb in late October and were found dead in a snow-filled basin below West Apostle Mountain days later.
- Autopsies by the Chaffee County coroner found both died instantly from multiple blunt force injuries after falling a substantial distance while rappelling.
- A joint sheriff and coroner statement says a primary rock anchor experienced a “catastrophic failure of unknown cause” while Donlon began to rappel and Matsuda was attached to the same anchor points.
- Investigators noted the primary anchor had been backed up by a piton and a secondary rock anchor but have not determined why those backups did not prevent the fall.
- The heavy late-October storm complicated search and recovery but officials say the snow was not a direct cause of the deaths and the county’s ongoing inquiry could influence safety practice reviews for alpine anchoring and training.