Colorado Mountain College students Kaden Matsuda, 19, left, and Jackson Donlon, 20, died in late October after a climbing anchor failed during their descent of West Apostle Mountain in Colorado's Sawatch Range. ( riff's Office) The two Colorado Mountain College students found dead in Colorado’s Sawatch Range last week fell to their deaths after a climbing anchor failed on West Apostle Mountain, authorities announced November 3. Kaden Matsuda, 19, and Jackson Donlon, 20, died instantly from multiple blunt force injuries, according to a November 3 joint statement from the Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office and Coroner’s Office. According to the release, investigators pieced together what happened on West Apostle Mountain, the 13,597-foot peak where the students were climbing after leaving Colorado Mountain College’s Leadville campus on October 23.
The pair were descending the mountain when Donlon began to rappel, using a rope secured to an anchor in the rock to lower himself down the steep terrain. Matsuda was clipped into the same anchor system through his personal anchor device. The setup appeared to have two backups, including a piton—a metal spike driven into rock—and a second rock anchor.
But despite those apparent safeguards, the anchor system suffered what investigators described as a “catastrophic failure,” sending both climbers falling down the mountainside. Authorities have not determined why the anchor failed or exactly how far the students fell. Search crews discovered their bodies on October 28 in a snow-filled basin below West Apostle Mountain.
A helicopter recovered them the following day. Investigators now say the storm was not a direct contributing factor in the students’ deaths. In his November 3 statement, Rohrich also praised the students’ preparedness, saying his staff had found no obvious mistakes to point to.
That was not the case with Kaden and Jackson.”
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