PHOTO BY NOLAN NITSCHKE
single trace of Randy had been found, not
even a footprint.
I followed the disappearance from day
one, having heard about it from Randy’s
former boss, retired ranger A lden Nash, who
was a family friend of mine. He told me that
Randy had grown up in Yosemite National
Park, carried around Ansel Adams’s tripod
as a boy, and spent more time in the Sierra
than John Muir himself. But he was also
human and had his f laws, his personal
demons. The summer he disappeared, his
wife had served him with divorce papers.
And those closest to him said he had seemed
depressed. It all fueled speculation about his
fate. Perhaps he went missing on purpose—
walked out of the wilderness to start a new
life elsewhere. Or maybe he’d ended the one
he had in some wild and remote corner of his
beloved Sierra. He’d also had run-ins with a
climber a nd a horsepacker the previous yea r,
so foul play wa sn’t off the table, either.
In the years that followed the search,
Alden and I made repeated trips to the
mountains in search of clues to solve the
mystery of Randy’s disappearance. I never
knew Randy, but I was obsessed with his
story. Could a man with his experience
really just vanish?It wasn’t until the summer of 2001, five
years after he disappeared, that Randy’s
remains were finally discovered. A 19-year-
old member of a California Conservation
Corps trail-building crew ventured off-trail
and found his body at the base of a water-
fall. (After comparing records and GPS
coordinates from search teams, I realized
this ravine had been inadvertently skipped
by just a few hundred yards.) The following
summer, Alden and I retraced Randy’s pre-
sumed final cross-country patrol from his
last-known whereabouts at Bench Lake to
where his remains were found in the gorge
above Window Peak Lake. On the route,
Alden and I detoured slightly and scrambled
up Arrow Peak—as we had many peaks over
the years—to see if Randy had signed the
su m m it reg ister.
He had not, but as we were sitting there
atop the peak, Alden pointed toward a hazy
and distant grouping of mountains to the
southeast. “There’s a Fourteener over thereRandy Morgenson was stationed at Bench Lake
before he disappeared. Arrow Peak
rises in the background.Cast Your Vote for
Trail by Design
VOTE DAILY AT
backpacker.com/trailbydesign
until August 30th.
BACKPACKER and Merrell
teamed up with eight artists
to inspire others by sharing
what the trail means to them,
through their own unique
vision and design.
The winning artist will win a cash
prize and their design will be
printed on a t-shirt benefi ting The
Conservation Alliance.Additionally, Merrell will donate
$7,500 to an outdoor non-profi t
of the artist’s choice.Alex RubioHeidi NisbettDave BonanAlyse DietelNika MeyersChristopher WarrenNikki FrumkinLatasha DunstonSPONSORED CONTENTSPONSORED CONTENT