COLORADO COLLEGE REPORTS TWO STUDENTS FOUND DEAD

Colorado Mountain College said on Thursday that two students had died after they failed to return from a hiking and climbing trip. Kaden Matsuda and Jackson Donlon left its Leadville campus last Friday for a weekend trip to Ice Mountain in Colorado. The college expected them back by Sunday, and staff reported them missing on Monday morning. Their bodies turned up on Wednesday afternoon in a basin of West Apostle Mountain, about 100 miles southeast of Aspen.

The Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office said rain fell when Matsuda and Donlon set out. The weather cleared briefly on Saturday morning before a severe storm arrived that afternoon, bringing up to two feet of snow, according to the sheriff’s office. Ice Mountain rises to 13,958 feet, or 4,254 metres. Matsuda, from Ridgway, Colorado, was studying to become a wildland firefighter. Donlon, from Queensbury, New York, was studying to become an outdoor recreation guide.

Colorado Mountain College has campuses across the Colorado Rockies and offers courses in mountaineering, ski patrol and guiding. Its Leadville campus sits in a city roughly 100 miles west of Denver, at an elevation of 10,119 feet. The college said Matsuda and Donlon became friends there and shared an interest in the outdoors. Classmates and faculty members described Matsuda as kind, intelligent and welcoming, according to the college. “They came here to learn, to explore and to build their futures,” Ben Cairns said in a statement.