Chaffee County Sheriff Says Failed Rock Anchor Likely Caused Fatal Fall of Two College Students

The Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office said this week that a rock likely gave way during a rappelling descent, causing the deaths of two Colorado Mountain College students on West Apostle Mountain last week.

Kaden Matsuda, 19, and Jackson Donlon, 20, were found dead in a snow-filled basin on the mountain, located roughly 100 miles southeast of Aspen, after failing to return from a weekend climbing trip.

According to the sheriff’s office findings released Tuesday, Donlon was beginning his descent from an anchor point that was backed up by additional safety protections when the rock securing it likely failed. Matsuda was attached to the same anchor, and both students fell. Investigators have not determined the exact distance of the fall.

The two had set out from Colorado Mountain College’s Leadville campus. They initially planned to climb nearby Ice Mountain before apparently changing course for West Apostle Mountain, authorities said.

Autopsies found both students died instantly from multiple blunt force injuries. Authorities said the severe snowstorm during the trip was not a direct factor in their deaths.

Investigators said they found no obvious errors in how the students prepared for the climb.

“In most similar cases that have led to a devastating conclusion we find it easy to pick apart what was done wrong,” Chaffee County Sheriff Andy Rohrich said. “That was not the case with Kaden and Jackson.”

Rohrich also said there was some comfort in knowing the students did not suffer.

“While their lives were far too short, they spent their final moments together surrounded by the majestic beauty of Chaffee County’s high peaks that they loved,” he said. “There is also relief knowing neither of them suffered.”

Both students shared a deep love of the outdoors. Matsuda, of Ridgway, Colorado, was studying to become a wildland firefighter. Donlon, of Queensbury, New York, was studying outdoor recreation leadership.

The accident adds to a string of fatal climbing incidents reported this year, including the death of elite rock climber Jake Whisenant, 30, in a fall at California’s Sequoia National Park this summer, and the deaths of three Latvian mountaineers near Denali Pass on Alaska’s Mount McKinley, where a fourth climber was critically injured.