Miracle on the Mountain
Jacob and Josh Gately saw the storm brewing from the top of Mount of the Holy Cross. The brothers from Lee’s Summit had just reached the 14,005-foot peak in the Colorado Rockies, known for the iconic snow-filled cross scratched on its northeastern face. It was Saturday, October 13, and light snow began to fall.
The thin Colorado air had made the final 1,500 feet a wind-sucking struggle. Every 20 seconds, the Gately brothers stopped to breathe.
But they had conquered the mountain.
Jacob and Josh snapped pictures to prove it — Josh with his unshaven mug pressed next to the U.S. Geological Survey’s seal, Jacob in his tie-dyed thermal underwear.
Ominous dark clouds obscured the panoramic view. They couldn’t see wilderness or other mountains in the distance. Jacob guessed the snowstorm was a half-hour away. The temperature was 15 degrees and falling. They knew they had to move quickly. If they waited too long, the boulder field they had just passed through would be too slick with ice to climb down.
Josh, 24, was visiting his younger brother in Colorado Springs, where 23-year-old Jacob had spent the past three months installing a copper roofing system at Colorado College’s new performing-arts center. Josh had picked Holy Cross — a challenging climb both physically and navigationally — from a book of hikes and trails.
Jacob was an experienced hiker with an adventurous streak. He had always been the first to try any outdoor sport. At his grandparents’ house at the Lake of the Ozarks, Jacob would go tubing, water-skiing, boogie-boarding and air-chairing. He had been hiking Colorado’s backcountry since his 18th birthday and spent weeklong vacations in the northwestern corner of the state.
The night before, the brothers had set up camp on Half Moon Pass. They knew a snowstorm was coming, so they planned to climb Mount of the Holy Cross early Saturday, before the weather turned. After reaching the top, they would return to camp, tear it down, hike out and spend the night eating pizza in a hotel room 30 minutes away in Leadville. Sunday, they would sightsee in Colorado Springs, and Monday night they would fly back to Kansas City.
At daybreak, the Gatelys downed a breakfast of energy bars and tea. They packed a couple of water bottles and some energy bars, leaving most of their gear at the campsite. Jacob stashed a water purifier in his daypack. He left his cell phone behind because he wasn’t getting a signal.
Jacob wore a stocking cap on his clean-shaven head, blue jeans, a hooded raincoat, thermal underwear and a fleece shirt. Unlike his brother, who was wearing hiking boots, Jacob wore just a pair of tennis shoes.
“That would just kill my feet,” Josh said.
Jacob shrugged off his brother’s observation.
Jacob’s clothes didn’t stop him from scaling the mountain. They hiked up a trail that gave the brothers glimpses of the snow-filled cross. There were three other camps of hikers on the mountain that day, and they were all on their way down when the brothers were heading up. Jacob and Josh made it to the top at 2:30 p.m., about an hour and a half behind schedule.
On top of the mountain, Josh noticed a stone marker engraved with a woman’s name. Michelle Vanek was a 35-year-old mother of four who attempted to climb the Mount of the Holy Cross on September 24, 2005. Thirsty and exhausted, Vanek sat on a rock and urged her hiking partner to finish without her. When he returned, Vanek was gone. A seven-day search with dogs, helicopters and more than 700 rescuers and volunteers failed to find a trace of Vanek. The mountain had swallowed her.
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After about 15 minutes at the summit, the Gately brothers began their descent of the mountain’s boulder-covered spine. On the way down a few minutes later, Josh accidentally hit the send button on the cell phone stashed in his pocket.
Back in Lee’s Summit, Jean Gately’s phone rang at about 4 p.m. Central Daylight Time, but no one spoke when she answered. Jean, a full-time grandmother and Jacob and Josh’s mother, recognized Josh’s cell-phone number.
Jean loved the thought of her boys hiking together and bonding in the woods. She and her husband, Jim, an engineer with Burns & McDonnell, grew up in a large, tightknit families. But Jean also worried about her boys scaling a mountain.
Jean called Josh back.
“We did it,” Josh said. “We summitted. You don’t have to worry anymore.”
“That’s great,” Jean said.
“We just came down the most dangerous part of the mountain,” Josh said. “We’ll be back at camp in a couple of hours. We’ll call you when we are at the hotel, eating pizza.”
Josh’s reassurance calmed Jean’s fears.
Five minutes later, they hung up, and the men continued. But Jacob and Josh couldn’t find the path marker for their trail. They kept moving diagonally down the mountain.
The brothers were dwarfed by truck-sized boulders. Descending down the boulder field was like scaling over loaded dump trucks. The ground was slick, and ankle-breaking cracks threatened to halt the brothers’ progress.
About 20 feet separated Jacob and Josh as they corkscrewed their bodies over the rocks. Jacob led the way, twisting down a couple of boulders. The brothers couldn’t see each other but yelled to keep track of their positions.
“Are you all right?” Jacob asked.
“I’m fine,” Josh yelled.
“Meet me at the bottom,” Jacob hollered back.
Josh yelled back, but his voice was faint. Jacob thought Josh was lagging behind so he slowed his pace and waited for Josh. But Josh never caught up.
“Josh?” Jacob called.
No answer.
“Josh?”
Silence.
Jacob panicked. He wondered if Josh had fallen and hurt himself.
Jacob chucked his daypack and walking sticks and darted back up the boulders. No Josh. Jacob zigzagged through a field of refrigerator-sized rocks. His brother was nowhere.
The frantic search threw Jacob even further off course. He lost the trail, and he couldn’t find where he threw off his daypack. Snow fell harder and began to accumulate on the ground, and Jacob was losing daylight.
Just after 3 p.m., Josh Gately exited the boulder field to a clearing of trees, just as Jacob had instructed. His younger brother was nowhere in sight.
“Jacob!” Josh yelled.
Silence.
“Jacob!”
More silence.
Three inches of snow had already fallen. Josh ran 200 yards across the clearing, trying to catch a glimpse of Jacob, but he saw no one.
Josh wondered if his brother had gone ahead to a stream to purify drinking water, so he headed for East East Cross Creek, a major drainage that starts at about 13,800 feet and runs 11 miles down to the Eagle River.
He trolled the banks of the creek, calling out Jacob’s name. He stopped at three campsites and talked to the hikers whom he and Jacob had passed while climbing.
No one had seen Jacob.
Exhausted and thirsty, Josh headed back to the campsite on Half Moon Pass. It was 6:30 p.m., and falling snow had buried the camp. Josh passed the camp several times. Finally, he stumbled upon the fire pit that he and Jacob had set up the night before.
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Jacob wasn’t at the camp.
Josh crawled in his tent, put on dry clothes and snuggled into his sleeping bag. Jacob had their only water purifier, so Josh filled a bowl with snow and placed it on his chest, using his body heat to melt it.
Josh decided that if Jacob didn’t show up by 7, he would call 911.
Waiting in his tent, Josh’s mind wandered. His brother hadn’t planned on hiking in the dark. He hadn’t packed enough food or water. The worst-case scenarios played in his mind. Was Jacob unconscious in the boulder field? Had Jacob fallen off a cliff? Had a mountain lion attacked him?
Seven o’clock came without Jacob. Josh dialed 911. The emergency dispatcher connected Josh to Bruce Norring of the Vail Mountain Rescue Group. Norring, the on-duty rescue coordinator, was a 16-year veteran of the rescue team. Norring listened to Josh’s story and told him that there was nothing rescuers could do. Nightfall mixed with the heavy snow made a rescue mission too dangerous.
But Norring had an idea where Jacob probably got lost. Josh’s call was similar to the 12 to 18 calls a year that the rescue team gets from lost hikers. Mount of the Holy Cross’ contours push hikers off the mountain’s ridgeline and typically into about a square mile of wetlands. Norring figured that Jacob had stumbled into a willow patch. With stalks that rise 7 feet tall, the willows can trap a hiker like a corn maze.
Norring told Josh to stay put and conserve his cell-phone battery, which was almost dead. Josh needed to keep a line of communication open with the Eagle County Sheriff’s Office and the volunteers from the Vail Mountain Rescue Group.
Josh clutched his cell phone to his chest and waited.
Farther up the mountain, Jacob had given up hope of finding his brother in the jagged boulders. Snow continued to pile up. The temperature was dropping, and darkness was falling. At about 7 p.m., Jacob found a trail marker along a stream.
Jacob climbed onto a jutting rock over the stream. The rock had iced over. Jacob lost his footing and fell 10 feet into the frigid East Cross Creek. He grabbed a branch of a fallen tree and pulled himself out of the water. He was soaked up to his chest.
Disoriented and fatigued, Jacob cursed himself. He knew there was no chance of making it back to camp that night. He had to build a fire or he would freeze.
Jacob’s survival instincts took over. He ignored his hunger pangs. He set up camp among a dense thicket of pine trees. The cover from the trees kept the snow off him but also made the night pitch-black. He scavenged wood and built a 7-foot fire pit. He strung his blue jeans, thermal underwear and socks on makeshift teepees. His raincoat, fleece jacket and thermal shirt had stayed relatively dry. Jacob pulled an old Bic lighter out of his pocket. The lighter was low on fluid. Jacob emptied the credit and business cards out of his wallet. He used them as kindling to start a fire.
Jacob didn’t burn everything. He pocketed his driver’s license, in case he didn’t survive. He knew rescuers could use it to identify his body. It wasn’t something he wanted to think about.
He sat so close to the fire that flickers burned his bare legs. The tree cover trapped the smoke.
In two hours, Jacob’s clothes and shoes had dried. Jacob pulled on his clothes, grabbed his digital camera and lay next to the fire. He scrolled through the pictures that he and Josh had taken on top of the mountain.
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Looking at the images, Jacob worried that Josh had fallen and injured himself in the boulder field.
The thought kept him awake the rest of the night.
The sun crawled up slowly Sunday morning. Jacob abandoned his makeshift camp and marched through nearly 7 inches of snow. As long as he was moving, Jacob didn’t think about being hungry.
Walking near the stream, he thought he heard faint voices, like two people having a conversation.
“Help!” he yelled. “Help!”
He stood still and listened. More voices.
“Help!”
No one answered.
Wondering if his mind was playing tricks on him, Jacob continued searching for the trail.
Simply climbing down the mountain wasn’t an option. Jacob, thinking his brother was still lost in the boulder field, wasn’t about to leave him. Besides, he wasn’t sure he was lost.
After about three hours, Jacob found a clearing. He looked at Mount of the Holy Cross and couldn’t see the snowy cross. He realized that he was heading in the wrong direction.
The sun had warmed the ground enough to melt some of the snow. Jacob’s clothes were soaked from trudging through the heavy wet snow and brushing against soggy trees. He had to dry them again.
Jacob set up another camp and used the little fluid left in his lighter to start a fire. The fire burned long enough to dry his clothes.
About two hours later, Jacob got dressed and resumed his search for the trail.
At about 12:30 p.m., Jim and Jean Gately returned home from the Sunday service at St. Matthew Apostle Catholic Church in south Kansas City. Jean, tired and coming down with a cold, stretched out on the couch. Jim flipped on the Chiefs game.
At 3 p.m., Jim asked, “When are we supposed to pick up the boys?”
“We should find out when they’ll be back,” Jean said.
Jim called Jacob’s cell phone, but the call went straight to voice mail. He tried Josh’s phone.
Josh answered.
“How’s everything going?” Jim asked.
“Not good, Dad,” Josh said. “I’ve got some bad news. Jacob’s lost.”
Jean sat up. She couldn’t hear the conversation, but a bad feeling came over her.
Josh explained that they’d been separated in a boulder field, and rescue teams were searching for Jacob. Josh told his father that he was waiting at the campsite, in case Jacob came back.
“I need to conserve my cell-phone battery to talk with the authorities,” Josh said. “I’ll call you when I know more.”
Jean called family members and asked them to pray for Jacob. Then she and Jim did the only thing they could do — wait.
Rescue workers had planned to call off the search as night fell. But at about 7 p.m., they found large sneaker prints in the snow. They kept searching.
Meanwhile, the rescue team took Josh off the mountain at about 9 p.m. They paid for a hotel room for him and bought him dinner. Josh called his parents from his room. He told them that the rescuers had found size-13 shoe prints — Jacob’s size.
Jean was elated.
All but five of the 25 rescuers were called back to the base. The remaining searchers began tracking the sneaker prints. They followed the tracks for two hours to East Cross Creek and found tracks leading out of the stream. Seeing the tracks leading from the icy waters, the rescue workers feared that Jacob might be hypothermic.
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Continuing the search was dangerous for the rescuers. Wind gusts were whipping falling snow at 20 miles an hour. The snow was blinding. The rescuers kept their flashlights and headlamps focused on the ground. The tracks seemed to lead into a forest of towering pine trees and huge boulders about seven miles from where the search started. They found Jacob’s fire pit but no Jacob.
The blizzard conditions forced Norring to call off the search for the night. The five rescue workers finally marched out of the woods at 1 a.m. without Jacob.
Jean’s glimmer of hope faded when she found out that the search had been called off for the night.
Jim and Jean talked about going to Vail that night. But they were too tired to drive, and their nerves were shot. Jim searched travel Web sites for flights to Denver, but no more were leaving that night. Jim bought two tickets for an 8:30 a.m. flight on United Airlines on Monday, and Jean started packing.
The blizzard pounded Holy Cross Sunday night, dumping more snow on top of what had fallen Saturday. Jacob knew he had to set up camp. He searched for dry wood to start a fire. Finding burnable wood was impossible; the melted snow had soaked everything. Jacob tried to light a fire, but the little fluid left in the Bic wouldn’t spark the wet wood. Without a fire and in soaking clothes, Jacob knew he was in for a long night.
He slipped off his blue jeans, thermal underwear, socks and shoes. They were too wet to wear and would surely freeze during the night. His thermal undershirt had stayed dry. He stripped it off and wore it over his legs. He pulled on his fleece and bundled up in his raincoat.
Jacob knew he was in the right valley. He could see the opening at the top of the pass where he and Josh had camped. He was certain it was the right way out. But it was getting dark, and heavy snow was falling. It was too late for him to hit the trail.
At nightfall, Jacob took shelter under a massive pine tree. Nearly three feet of needles had gathered under the tree. Jacob knew he couldn’t leave his skin exposed to the cold. His skin would be frostbitten, and he’d face amputation. Instinct took over. Jacob sat cross-legged and tucked his feet under his knees and thighs. He buried his legs up to his knees in the needles. He didn’t realize that what he was doing was a survival technique; a chemical reaction between the needles and the soil produces heat.
Jacob also knew if he fell asleep, he’d freeze to death. He rocked back and forth, stretched every 20 minutes and massaged his thighs and legs to keep his blood pumping.
Staying awake was a struggle, especially when Jacob saw Josh sitting next to him under the pine tree.
“I got the car running,” Josh said. “Subway is just down the street.”
Jacob couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He was alone. But his brother wouldn’t go away.
“Put the heat on my feet,” Jacob said.
Jacob sat with the apparition under the pine tree and waited for the sun to come up.
By sunup, Jacob’s shoes were ice blocks. His socks, jeans and thermal underwear were also frozen. Jacob had no choice but to slip on his frozen sneakers. He ditched the rest and continued wearing his thermal shirt as pants.
Jacob had no idea that anyone was looking for him. He heard no helicopters, dogs or airplanes.
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He decided to climb up again toward Half Moon Pass. If he could find the path, his Jeep would be just a couple of miles away. He knew if he could make it there, he could drive to the hospital.
But Jacob still wasn’t sure he was headed in the right direction. Trees blocked his view, and his string of bad luck rattled his certainty.
Jacob’s gloved hands were now wet and numb. His feet had also gone numb in his iced shoes; it was as if they weren’t there at all. Without feeling in his feet, Jacob took a few spills and slid down a steep incline. He spent most of his climb up Half Moon Pass on his hands and knees, grabbing onto trees and pulling himself up. He set small objectives — spot a tree, then make a goal of crawling to it. Trees blocked his view. He couldn’t see what was coming.
Three hours into the climb, he stopped under a tree to rest. He took off his shoes. His feet had turned a purplish-green. He had to keep going, or he’d lose his feet. He slipped his shoes back on immediately.
An hour later, he reached the campsite that the brothers had used before their ascent. Rescue workers had left freeze-dried food there in case Jacob returned. But the heavy snow had buried it, and Jacob didn’t see it.
The campsite was just a couple of miles from the trailhead where he had parked his Jeep. He finally knew the way out.
Around 5 a.m. Monday, Jim and Jean Gately arrived at Kansas City International Airport. They begged the ticket agent to let them on the 6:30 flight to Denver, explaining their story. The agent told the Gatelys that the flight was overbooked.
“We’ll see what we can do,” the ticket agent told the Gatelys.
Throughout the night, Jean had clutched a medallion engraved with the word “Believe.” But she was struggling to hold onto hope.
“We’re not going to get on this flight,” Jean whispered to Jim.
Ten minutes later, a voice over the intercom echoed, “Would Jim and Jean Gately please come to the ticket counter?”
The agent handed the Gatelys boarding passes for the 6:30 flight.
Onboard, Jean sat next to a man from Australia. She told him Jacob’s story, and he shared his own tale of being lost in the Australian outback for two weeks with no water, in temperatures exceeding 100 degrees.
“He’s going to be fine,” the man reassured Jean.
Jean wanted to believe him. Are you my guardian angel? she wondered.
In Denver, the Gatelys rented an SUV and began the trek to Mount of the Holy Cross.
On their way, Jim and Jean stopped at a McDonald’s. Jim was getting shaky from lack of sleep and needed a break. They called the sheriff’s office for an update. There was no news. A deputy told them that because Jacob’s next of kin had been notified, his name would be released to the press. The comment worried Jim and Jean. They feared that the authorities were withholding information from them; they worried that officials were waiting to tell them in person that Jacob had been found frozen to death on the mountain.
At 6 a.m. Monday, Tim Cochrane took over the search operation. Cochrane had 30 years of experience leading searches for the Vail Mountain Rescue Group. Cochrane had put out a call for more volunteers. Searchers from Grand Junction and a dog team from Fort Collins answered the call. A National Guard helicopter stood ready.
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But a heavy fog covered the mountain. It prevented Cochrane from sending the helicopter or the dog team. It would take the volunteers two and a half hours on foot to reach the fire pit that the searchers had found the night before. If he waited for the fog to clear, the same trip would take 12 minutes. Cochrane knew that Jim and Jean Gately were on their way. He didn’t want to have to tell them that they weren’t looking for their son. So Cochrane sent two volunteers on foot to the pass to watch for Jacob. He sent two more volunteers up the seven-mile trail.
The fog lifted at 10:02 a.m. Cochrane sent the helicopter with a dog and six searchers to case the area around the fire pit.
Jim and Jean arrived at the sheriff’s office in Vail at about 10:30 a.m. Once they saw Josh waiting outside for them, their fears were lifted.
Jean rushed to Josh, hugged him and cried.
No matter how hard she held on to the “Believe” medallion, seeing the mountain sapped Jean’s hopes. She felt angry at the mountain, as if it had stolen her son. Anger led to prayer. She asked Jesus to walk with her sons.
Jacob hiked for 45 minutes down the trail toward his Jeep. He wore his fleece, his rain jacket and his iced-over tennis shoes. His thermal shirt covered his legs.
At about noon, Jacob stumbled down a hill to the access road to the trailhead where he had parked. He had another problem: He didn’t have the keys for his Jeep.
Jacob saw a couple of guys loading their packs into a car. He thought they were hikers leaving after a morning hike.
“Help!” Jacob yelled and collapsed to his knees, overcome with joy.
The men were volunteers with the Vail Mountain Rescue Group. They were suiting up for the day’s rescue mission and watching for Jacob in the parking area near his Jeep. When they saw Jacob, they rushed to him.
“Did you guys find my brother?” Jacob asked. “Is he all right?”
Your brother is fine, the rescue workers told him.
“I’m going to lose my feet,” Jacob said.
The searchers — trail guides from the Beaver Creek ski area — went into rescue mode. They gave Jacob warm clothes, food and water, and loaded him into a Subaru. Jacob rode in front, with his feet up on the dashboard heater.
The volunteers called Cochrane. “We found Jacob.”
“What do you mean?” Cochrane asked.
“We’ve got him.”
Cochrane and a sheriff’s deputy jumped in a patrol car and raced away.
About two-thirds of the way up the mountain, they met the Subaru.
When Cochrane saw Jacob, he knew the hiker wasn’t going to die. The young man looked like he’d been in a bar fight. His cheeks and eyes were sunken. His face had turned bright-red from the constant freezing wind nipping at it. His nose was black from inhaling smoke from the fire pit two nights before, and he smelled of smoke. He had a deep cough.
“Are you Jacob?” Cochrane asked in his gravel-crunching voice.
Jacob just looked at him.
“Are you Jacob?” Cochrane asked again.
“Yes, I am,” Jacob muttered.
“Do you know what day it is?” Cochrane continued.
“No.”
“How long have you been out here?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know where you are?”
“In a car.”
“Good, good.”
On a consciousness scale of 1 to 4, with 4 the highest, Cochrane ranked Jacob at 1.5.
Cochrane also examined Jacob’s feet. They were dark-red to black two-thirds of the way up to Jacob’s ankle.
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It would be another half-hour before they reached an ambulance.
When Jacob saw the ambulance, he tried to refuse the ride. “I don’t want to waste money,” he said. “Take me in the truck.”
But when the rescuers insisted, the normally stubborn Jacob relented. “All right, let’s go.”
In the ambulance, the rescue workers set up a call between Jacob and his mother.
Jacob sounded frazzled and exhausted. The ambulance rushed him to Vail Valley Medical Center.
When Jean, Jim and Josh arrived at the hospital, they ran to Jacob’s bedside and took turns hugging him.
Still filthy, Jacob was covered with a heating pad and blankets in an attempt to raise his body temperature. An IV pumped fluids into his hypothermic body.
The frostbite on his feet was minor, the doctors said. His feet had improved to a rosy-pink color. Because he had kept hiking — and kept blood circulating — his feet wouldn’t be amputated. However, doctors told him that he might have permanent nerve damage on the big and second toes on his left foot. He also had several small burns on his legs from sitting too close to the fire.
Given a good prognosis for recovery, Jacob gave in to his hunger pangs. He wanted pizza. Domino’s delivered a sausage pie to the emergency room. Josh once again kept his brother company through the night. This time, he was really there.
