Sleeping bags found in collapsed tent, but two Colorado students remain missing

Their sleeping bags were still inside the tent. Kaden Matsuda and Jackson Donlon were not. Around noon Tuesday, October 27, a helicopter spotted an object near Lake Ann in Colorado’s northern Chaffee County. A team sent in on foot found the missing college students’ tent collapsed under snow, with a stove and some clothing alongside the sleeping bags. Neither man was there. ²

The discovery gave rescuers a campsite, but not a direction to follow. Deputies reported no snow beneath the tent and no visible footprints nearby—observations that supported their assessment that the shelter had been pitched before the weekend snowfall. Those clues did not establish when the students last occupied it, when it collapsed or where they went afterward. ²

That is the difficult limit of Tuesday’s breakthrough: finding the students’ shelter did not establish what shelter they still had. The gear left behind was an inventory of the campsite, not an inventory of what the two men were carrying.

About 50 searchers from five counties returned Tuesday, with dogs and aircraft again deployed. By the updates that day, crews had found the students’ vehicle and tent but neither student. Deep snow was restricting movement toward Ice Mountain, their planned destination, and Sheriff Andy Rohrich warned that more poor weather later in the week could further narrow the search window. ³

Matsuda, 19, is from Ridgway, Colorado, and is studying to become a wildland firefighter. Donlon, 20, is from New York and is studying to become a mountain guide. Both attend Colorado Mountain College’s Leadville campus. Friends and relatives described them to deputies as experienced hikers who should have had appropriate clothing. That account of their preparation offers context, but cannot establish their condition or equipment now. ^{1 3}

The students left campus Friday, October 23, intending to hike Saturday. They had told others they would return Saturday if they did not feel safe continuing, or Sunday if they went ahead. Their plan included an option to turn back; the available evidence does not show which choice they made. ^{1 2}

Friends showed deputies a text containing a plotted map that pinpointed Ice Mountain, a technical climb in far northern Chaffee County, near Buena Vista. Another image circled the Winfield area and the trailhead, potentially marking where the students intended to enter or camp. These were useful indications of intent, not proof that the men followed a particular trail or reached the mountain. ²

After the students failed to return, college staff contacted the Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office on Monday, October 26. Deputies found Matsuda’s vehicle at the Mt. Huron trailhead, approached through the Winfield area along County Road 390. About eight inches of fresh snow was present at the vehicle site, but none beneath the car. Deputies believed the students had arrived Friday and established camp farther into the area before the storm. ^{1 2 3}

Local reports differ on the spelling of Jackson’s surname: KOAA and The Denver Post use Donlon, while the Montrose Daily Press uses Donion. Their accounts describe the same missing student and search. ^{1 2 3}

Rain and showers preceded the heavy snowfall. A brief break in the weather Saturday gave way to heavy snow in the early afternoon. Conditions deteriorated quickly enough that deputies handled more than a dozen slide-offs and traffic accidents across the county within minutes, according to the local accounts of the sheriff’s release. ^{1 2}

By Saturday night, Ice Mountain had received roughly one to two feet of snow, with sliding and drifting producing depths of three to four feet in some places. These were descriptions of snow already on the mountain, not a forecast for a storm yet to arrive. ^{1 2 3}

The snow concealed boulder fields that rescue teams would have to cross toward the peak. Rohrich described that approach as extremely dangerous and virtually impossible on foot. A helicopter could search overhead, but he said there was nowhere on the mountain to land and bring teams in. ²

Rescuers’ ability to reach the tent on foot does not contradict those restrictions. The campsite near Lake Ann was accessible to a ground team; the higher, snow-covered boulder fields toward Ice Mountain’s peak posed a different problem. Lake Ann lies at approximately 12,000 feet, according to The Denver Post’s account. ^{2 3}

The operational assessment treated avalanche concerns as minimal because this was the season’s first major snowfall. That did not make the mountain safe. Buried rocks and deep, uneven snow remained serious barriers to moving searchers through the terrain. ²

Chaffee County’s north and south search-and-rescue teams began looking Monday. Dogs did not locate the students, and crews found no human tracks in the fresh snow. Helicopters, multiple drones and a multimission aircraft carrying infrared equipment searched Ice Mountain and nearby peaks without finding either man. Tuesday’s returning teams included personnel from Teller, Lake, Chaffee, Arapahoe and Park counties. ^{1 3}

Phone examinations offered no clear direction either. The Montrose Daily Press reported no use over a two-day period, without providing a precise last-use timestamp. Cellular service in the area was poor to nonexistent. Deputies considered whether the students might have turned their phones off to conserve batteries, but that remained a possibility, not a confirmed explanation. ¹

Rohrich said he remained optimistic that Matsuda and Donlon were “hunkered down somewhere waiting to be rescued.” His statement expressed hope, not a verified location or condition. He also said the county was committing all available resources as more poor weather threatened later in the week. The updates did not give an exact time for that deterioration. ²

Teams were considering destinations beyond Ice Mountain, rather than treating the planned climb as a confirmed route. That distinction matters: the map showed where the students intended to go, and the tent showed where they had established shelter. As of Tuesday’s updates, the search had not established where they went from there. ²