Bryan Skilinski - Great Sand Dunes National Park - Colorado - Locations Unknown

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Thousands of people have mysteriously vanished in America's wilderness. Join
us as we dive into the deep end of the
unexplainable and try to piece together what happened. If you
are listening to Locations Unknown.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
O, what's up everybody? And welcome back to another episode
of Locations Unknown. I'm your co host Joe Irad, and
with me, as always, is the guy who would never
steal fizzy lifting drinks, Mike Vanderbogart.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
A thank you, Joe, and thank you to all of
our amazing listeners for tuning in. Just a couple of
announcements before we get go in. We've got a couple
of new shows joining our network. So Joe, why don't
you fill the audience in so we have the Hike
and Seek podcast. So Kelly has been doing Instagram posts

(01:26):
for us for a while, and her and her boyfriend
Corbrn have been hitting national parks like crazy, and they
are starting a show about hiking, traveling national parks, relationships,
all the things, So that'll be a very interesting show.
Their Instagram posts has been a lot of fun. They've
also been posting like hiking workout routines, so it's gonna
be an all around good podcast. They're going to be starting,

(01:47):
I think, well it will already have been gone out
by the time this show releases, but it's going to
be tomorrow on the twentieth. Yes, and then we have Relish,
which is outside of our normal but it's Alicia Shay
and she is a health and wellness, a mental health
and wellness coach and I had the pleasure of having
her my teacher at Hoffman on a retreat and she's amazing.

(02:09):
So she's bringing her show over to our network. So
that is called the Relish Podcast. You'll be seeing more
information on notes, exciting stuff, exciting stuff. Unknown media is
growing and getting better and better every day. It's growing
and we a little bit of a challenge this evening.
We've got new microphones and a mixer and we've got

(02:30):
new everything and nothing's working perfect. So only took about
two hours to get it all working. But we hope
we don't have to record this again.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Yeah, this we'll have. We'll find out there's stuff blinking
and stuff is running. Yes, we're gonna make sure that
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Speaker 3 (02:46):
Yeah, if you want to call the show, you can
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sure to play it on an episode at a future date.
Do we have other shows on the network. You can
check out Off the Trails, Who runs this Park, Crime,
Off the Grid, And like Joe said, hike and seek.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Now and relish, relish, relish. I'll get it. You'll get there.

Speaker 3 (03:12):
If you want to support the show, you can support
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We've got a few things on there. We're going to
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Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah, we just spent all of our time setting this
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Speaker 3 (03:33):
Outside of that, I don't know any other updates from you, Joe, No, sir,
Happy Thanksgiving?

Speaker 2 (03:39):
Yeah? I think is this going out before Thanksgiving? This
is going out the day after, all right. I hope
you all had a great thanks All right, everybody, let's
gear up and get out to explore locations unknown. February eleventh,

(04:11):
twenty seventeen, a forty year old man from New York,
deep in a midlife crisis, vanishes into a brutal winter
storm at Great Sand Dunes National Park. Miraculously, he is
rescued after five freezing nights, calling it his mission to
the stars. Just three months later, he returns alone to
the same vast Colorado wilderness and disappears a second time.

(04:37):
What drove him back to the dunes that nearly killed
him the first time. Join us this week as we
investigate the strange repeat vanishing of Brian Skelinski. Two weeks

(05:00):
in a row, we've covered new parks or forests, forest parks,
We've never done Great Sand Dunes National Park. I feel like,
because you can see everybody, what do you mean, it's
just a big sand dune.

Speaker 3 (05:14):
Some of them are seven hundred and twenty feet tall. Yeah,
but like it's thirty square miles of sion.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
I'm not saying I can't get lost, obviously, but it's
not like there's brush and trees everywhere.

Speaker 3 (05:25):
Well, we'll get into it. It actually is quite alpine,
all right, all right, yeah, all right, I'm scanning up
the dunes.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
So I'm sitting down for him. Location as we had said,
is the Great Sand Dune's National Park and Preserve. We're
gonna be talking more about the one and a half
miles south of the visitor center, Milwaukee Peak and Marble Mountain.
What a great name for a peak. It is in
southern Colorado. It was established in March seventeenth, nineteen thirty two,
and expanded to National Park and Preserve status in two

(05:53):
thousand and four, so relatively recently. It sees about half
a million visitors per year as of twenty twenty three.
Some of the interesting facts about Great Sand Dunes National
Park the tallest sand dunes in North America. So Great
Sand Dunes holds the record up to seven hundred and
fifty feet tall, towering higher than a fifty story building.
The dune field itself covers thirty square miles. That's pretty gnarly. Yeah,

(06:17):
that's awesome. Did you know that they sing? I did not?
Under the right conditions, slipping sand can produce a deep, resonant,
booming sound that can be heard from miles. It causes
a synchronized grain vibration and is one of the only
places in the US where this happens naturally. That's like
ominous it's where the only place it happens naturally. Yeah,

(06:38):
where does it happen unnaturally? You'll never know. Yes, Modano
Creek creates a natural beach in the Rockies. Every spring
snowmelt creates a surge flow surge flow waves in Madonna
Creek regularly pulses of water that behave like ocean waves.
Families set up beach chairs and boogey boards at eight
thousand feet in Colorado. That's kind of fun. Yeah. The

(07:00):
sand can reach one hundred and fifty degrees fahrenheit in
the summer, so even when the air feels mild, the
surface temperature. Skyrocket rangers regularly measure between one hundred and
forty and one hundred and fifty degrees surface times on
sunny days, which is instant foot burned territory.

Speaker 3 (07:17):
Yeah, you might not want to wear your cracks if
you're hiking in the sand dunes. You want to get
that hot sand in those toes well, and they'll just melt.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
Yeah. This is one of the dark nights, one of
the darkest night skies in lower forty eight. On moonless nights,
the Milky Way looks like a solid cloud running across
the horizon. Yeah, it's classified as a dark sky park.
I've gone to one of those before and hiked up
to a fire tower. It's really awesome. The dunes exist
because of a perfect storm of geology prevailing southwest winds

(07:45):
pushing sand towards the mountains. Sangree de Cristo a walls
blocking the escape cold valley down drafts which push the
sand back into the basin. This sandtrap has been recycling
grains for thousands of years, so they just kind of
just go around in circles and surface this and.

Speaker 3 (08:00):
Just kind of gets pushed back and forth and kind
of ground down. Because I I before I researched this,
I was really curious how the heck those sand dunes
got there, because I mean, it's so out of place
for everything else in the US.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
Yes, well, now you know, have you ever been there?
I have not. I haven't either. I want to go
snowboard there or sand on the board. That's both the
driest and snowiest place in the valley. So the dunes
area sees low annual precipitation, so it's less than eleven inches,
but storms smashing into the Sangree de Cristo dump heavy
snow at higher elevations directly behind the dunefield. A true

(08:36):
climate duality desert in the front, winter in the back.
It's kind of like the mullet you you were gonna say,
it's because we've been together for a party in the
front or partying in the back. Business in the front.
The dunes actually migrate, but extremely slowly, so dune ridges
can shift several feet per year depending on wind patterns
over centuries. The entire dune mass creeps across the valley

(08:58):
floor like a geological glacier made of sand. A little
bit about the climate. The area where Brian went missing
sits at the collision of high desert and high alpine
down near the main dunes and Medano Creek around eighty
eighty five hundred feet. The climate is cold and semi arid,
with big daily temperature swings and relatively low precipitation. Summers

(09:20):
are warm, but usually not brutally hot in the air
typically seventy five to eighty two degrees fahrenheit, while winters
are freezing, with lows often in single digits or below zero.
Even when the air is mild, the dunes and valley
floor can be deceptive. The sand surface as we said,
can reach up to one hundred and fifty degrees fahrenheit
on sunny summer afternoons, while nights often plunge to twenty

(09:40):
five to thirty degrees colder than daytime highs. Classic high
desert behavior that punishes anyone who misjudges layers, hydration, or timing.
Spring and early summers are volatile. March is usually the
snowiest month, and even into April and May you can
see a wild mix of sun, high winds and sudden
snow squalls. The The National Park Service warns at late spring,

(10:02):
roughly when Brian's second trip occurs, still brings snow and
powerful afternoon winds, even as Madonna Creek is running and
the dunes looks spring like. From below. Between Milwaukee Peak
and Marble Mountain in the Sangree to Crystal Range, the
climate ships from dry foothills to full alpine elevations climb
above eleven thousand to twelve thousand feet, where snowpack can

(10:24):
persist into late May and June and permanent slash lingering
snow often starts around ten thy seven hundred feet, depending
on the year. Storms here bring rapid temperature drops, white outs,
and avalanche prone snow. Even when the valley floor feels
like late spring. The broader Sangrie de Cristo region often
sees strong May precipitation in the form of mountain snow,

(10:47):
with state and federal reports noting that May can deliver
some of the highest winter year totals to these peaks,
even though statistically it's not the deepest part of winter.
That means a solo hiker in early May can counter fresh,
deep and unstable snow over older layers with rapidly changing
avalanche and footing conditions. Wind is a defining feature springett

(11:09):
Great Sand Dunes is known for high afternoon winds that
can sand blast the dunefield and drive ground blizzards or
blowing snow higher up. That would just be terrible. It's
like walking through a sand blaster that's freezing and snow.

Speaker 3 (11:23):
Also, this was really cool for me to read about
because I didn't think I thought Great Sand Dunes was
just the sand dunes. I didn't think it was this
dynamic with thirteen thousand foot peaks and sandstorms and all
this kind of stuff. Just a hellish environmental Yeah, but
it sounds really cool.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
I definitely want to go so. Climate data sets for
the peak show frequent, moderate to strong winds year round,
especially in the shoulder seasons. For someone high on ridges
or traversing steep snow, those winds mean faster heat loss,
reduced visibility, and much higher fatigue. So The area where
Brian first went missing starts in a basin of sand
and sage and ends in low foothills near the main

(12:05):
parking and horse trailer lots. The land is flat sand
sheet and grassland at about seventy five to eighty two
hundred feet into the Madonno Creek in the base of
the dunefield. From there the ground rises gently into pinion
juniper and pine forests in soft sandy soils, giving way
to rockier slopes and drainages like Cold Creek where lower

(12:25):
shoulders of Mount Herod. The dune field itself is a
moving labyrinth, about thirty square miles of sand, with the
tallest dune rising up to seven hundred and fifty feet
above the valley floor. Ridges are steep and constantly reshaped
by the wind. The trail quote unquote is more of
an idea than a line, and every crest hides another
set of bowls and spines under the top dry layer.

(12:48):
The sand is often moist and compact, but the surface
can be loose and exhausting, turning simple navigation airs into long,
energy sapping detours. That's like when you step into slide
step slide.

Speaker 3 (13:00):
Yeah, hiking in canyonlands way back in the day it
was exhausting because a lot of that was kind of
sandy trarain and anyone that's hiked in that you move
a lot slower.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
Yeah, it just sounds well, and your landmarks are changing. Yeah,
and the dunes.

Speaker 3 (13:14):
That's crazy, Like your trail is not really a trail,
it's kind of like a go that direction in between
the dunes.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
Yah, you might want to have a compass. Yeah. Around
sand Pit picnic area, aptly named where Brian's second trip began.
The train is a transition zone, a narrow strup where
deep vehicle churned sand, Medano creeks, braided channels, cottonwood, willow, thickets,
and rising flank of the mountains all overlap. The Medano Pass.

(13:41):
Primitive road from here is a rough four by four
track that crosses deep sand, cobbles and Medano Creek multiple times,
immediately committing you to a more remote backcountry environment than
the main visitors area. Climbing away from the dunes along
Medano Pass, the land steepens into dense forests, valleys and
rocky ridges. Forests and meadow pockets sit in a tight

(14:03):
fee shaped canyon with slopes that are steep enough for
slow to linger and slide, and enough timber to hide
both trails and people. Trails towards Madonno Lake and Mount
Herod gain about two thousand feet to the lake, then
another fifteen hundred feet to the summit, quickly moving from
sandy forest to boulder strewn alpine basins. Higher up, between

(14:24):
Milwaukee Peak and Marble Mountain, the terrain becomes pure high
alpine thirteen thousand foot summits, thin air, in a mix
a tundra of benches, talus slopes, boiler plate rock, slabs,
and broken cliffs. Route descriptions for these peak mentions difficult
to follow trails, cairn sections through slabs, loose rubble, and
occasional scrambling. The sort of country where missteps can mean

(14:46):
a long fall and where an injured person can be
invisible from just a few hundred yards away. The whole
landscapes decks vertically in short horizontal distance and just a
few miles. You go from desert like sand and cottonwoods
to dense connifer for four and then windswept tundra and
rock at thirteen thousand feet, So that steep gradient creates
natural train traps, narrow drainages, cliff bands, and convex snow

(15:09):
slopes where a solo hiker can easily get cliffed out,
funneled to the wrong basin, or force into a hazardous
side hilling above steep drops. Adding the remoteness and low
visibility from below from the valley floor, the dunes draw
all the attention, and the high peaks and preserve area
our backdrop rather than obvious objectives. Trip reports from Martin Herrod,

(15:29):
Milwaukee and surrounding peaks emphasize how little traffic these ridges
sea compared to the dunes, meaning fewer tracks to follow,
fewer eyes in the landscape, fewer chance encounters that might
observe a spot or distressed hiker. So I want to
go there. I know, it sounds really cool, It sounds
super backcountry. You see it all. Yeah, some of the
animals in the area. We have elk, black bear, mountain lion, bobcats, coyote,

(15:53):
big horn sheep, golden and bald eagles, and the desert tarantulas. Ugh,
never mind, I don't want to go there. One we
got a rack noophobia. I had a big spider fan. Yeah, nope, nope,
I'm a big fan of Spider Man. You won't hike
there because of translats. I'll hike there. I went hiking
through the Amazon rainforest. Yeah, it's filled with spiders.

Speaker 1 (16:12):
I know.

Speaker 2 (16:12):
We went at night. It was absolutely I've just sucked
it up. I still don't like. I mean, they look disgusting. Yeah,
I don't like any spiders. So tips to stay safe
will hip dinnerthday gift pet Transla Yeah, yeah, totally. You
know you want to avoid hiking on the dunes midday
and summer. The sand service can reach one hundred fifty degrees.
Plan hikes for early morning or evening. You want to

(16:33):
wear clothed toed shoes and use high elevation sun protection.
So it sits at eighty two hundred feet at the
visitor center and sun and sand can burn skin and feet.
Stay hydrated. Carry extra water. The backcountry is dry and
water sources are limited. Many guides recommend one gallon per person.
For overnight trips, you want to check weather and watch
for wind, lightning, and storms. These areas have frequent strong

(16:55):
winds in summer afternoon storms, which are a lightning hazard.
I want to make sure you're packing the appropriate gear
for sand and variable terrains. So things like sand steaks
for tents gators, or shoes that can with stand exposure
of hot sand, trekking poles, and heat layers for cold
nights gators would be huge. So you're not just getting
sand packed in your shoes. Yeah, that'd be the worst. Yeah,

(17:15):
I know. The wildlife and terrain hazards black bear are
present in the mountain areas and mountain lions and foothills.
Edges of the dunes also hazards like heat burned sand,
collapsing dunes, tick insects, and forested zones. Now, if you
don't survive at all, then the dune just collapses on
you and buries you in the sand. As always, you
want to file a trip plan or permit for backcountry

(17:36):
overnight's trips, especially in less traffic zones, letting someone know
your plan. Improve safety guides emphasize this, even if the
park's official permit process may differ, be tolerant of special
footing and terrain. Loose sand makes travel slower and more exhausting.
In the dune zone, you may only gain a few
feet up a dune ridge for each step. Factor in

(17:56):
a slower pace and fatigue. So if you normally do
twenty miles on the hard ground, maybe you're only going
to get twelve to fifteen in the dues. You don't know.
Respect water source rules and treat drinking water so snow
melt Alpine creeks may carry bacteria such as Jiardia, filter
or boil if using and as always leave no trace
and respect the wilderness etiquette. So camp out, day use zones,

(18:18):
stay off fragile vegetation, pack out all waste, and respect
the desert alpine ecosystem. So Mike tell us about Brian.
So his name was Brian Skalinski.

Speaker 3 (18:28):
We don't have an official date of birth that was
not publicly available. He went missing twice, so his first
disappearance was February eleventh of twenty seventeen. His second disappearance
so he was last seen on May eighth of twenty
seventeen and was officially declared missing on May fourteenth of
twenty seventeen. He was male, believed to be age forty.

(18:52):
There was no body description actually provided. Based on the
public information that I found. There are a few pictures
of him online. Joe's looking at one of them right now.

Speaker 2 (19:04):
I'll pull it up in a second.

Speaker 3 (19:05):
So we also don't So this is an interesting case.
We usually have more information on the subject of the case,
but this one we don't. No news sources or NPS
sources provided specific clothing descriptions for the May eighth disappearance.
It was reported that he didn't have a backcountry permit,

(19:28):
he didn't leave an itinerary, and based on his February disappearance,
we know that he typically carried very minimumal gear. In
his February disappearance, he had no shelter, sleeping bag, he
had limited food, but we do not know the gear
that he had for his May disappearance. Personality wise, he
was described as introspective and searching, so he spoke openly

(19:50):
about having a mid life crisis and trying to find
motivation for the next forty years of his life by
testing himself at the dunes. Is often known as being
stubborn and determined. He was quoted about the first trip,
he said, three feet isn't going to stop me. Four
feet isn't going to stop me. I'm going to keep
going even as the snow and conditions worsened. He was

(20:14):
goal driven but prone to over commitment, so willingness to
continue deeper into hazardous train instead of turning back or
adjusting his plans. And he was capable of gratitude and reflections.
So this really comes from interviews with him post his
February disappearance, and he publicly thanked the search and rescue

(20:35):
teams and acknowledged the mistakes he made in interviews.

Speaker 2 (20:38):
So kind of interesting.

Speaker 3 (20:40):
We don't usually we don't usually have a subject to
get interviewed on their first disappearance when we're talking about
their second disappearance.

Speaker 2 (20:47):
This is kind of a unique case.

Speaker 3 (20:49):
Yeah, I was thinking about the odds, So what are
the odds of the same person going missing in the
same park in the same year. It's got to be
like one in a million. Yeah, I'd say even more
than that. Yeah, medical issues. We do not know if
he suffered from any chronic medical conditions. Nothing was reported

(21:12):
in any of the sources I could find. Occupation and hobby.
We're not sure what his current occupation was, but he
was retired US Navy, so he did have some military experience.
What that experience was, I don't know, but he obviously
has some training. When we get in the timeline and
you go through what happened to him in the first disappearance,

(21:34):
it's kind of shocking he survived that, to be honest
with you. Okay, so experience in the wilderness, experience of
that location, We're not quite sure on his level of
experience in the wilderness. We obviously know he went missing
twice in the location, so he was very familiar with
it on that second trip. And we'll jump right into timeline.

(21:57):
So it's early February twenty seventeen. Brian drives west amid
a midlife crisis. He's looking for motivation, Like I said,
for the next forty years, he drives all the way
straight from New York to Great Sand Dunes National Park
in southern Colorado, specifically to clear his head and challenge
himself physically. I couldn't find any public reporting on exactly

(22:20):
when he left New York or where he might have
stayed before entering the park. We only really know that
he got to the park by February Saturday, February eleventh
of twenty seventeen, and during his first disappearance, he planned
a rough He planned roughly a ten mile hike around
the park's perimeter to Cold Creek drainage at the base

(22:40):
of Mount Herod. This would be east of the Dunefield.
Like I said earlier, he carried minimal gear. He had
no shelter, no sleeping bag, no extra clothes, and only
enough food for about two small meals. So it was
reported he had a breakfast bar and a small package
of oreos, so that's the only food he had. So
I had a good start, no, And to make things worse,

(23:03):
conditions were pretty bad at this time. So it was
very wintry, very severe weather, deep snow drifts in the backcountry, snowstorms,
high winds, and nighttime temperatures down into the teens. Really
you could kind of start to get a picture not
prepared gear wise, and he picked probably one of the
worst times to go hiking in the park that there's

(23:26):
probably I can't imagine a worse condition to go hiking there.

Speaker 2 (23:30):
Yeah, it didn't seem like he did a lot of research,
but he just kind of went and did just showed
up and it's like I'm hiking it. Just yep. I'm
gonna figure it out when I get there. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:38):
Saturday, February eleventh, twenty seventeen. This would be the day
one of his first disappearance. Multiple reports state he arrived
and entered the dunes on Saturday morning or on February eleventh.
He parked in the horse trailer lot at Madonna Road.
As he hiked towards Cold Creek, he encountered increasingly deep snow,
but did not turn back. He was later interviewed and

(24:01):
admitted this was a serious mistake. With no tent or
sleeping bag, he reportedly spent the first night in a
tree well, sheltering in the Then the hollow formed by
snow around the tree trunk. So that is wild. That's insane.
I know, I can't even imagine.

Speaker 2 (24:20):
It's now.

Speaker 3 (24:20):
Sunday of February twelfth, of twenty seventeen. This would be
day two, So this is when his very limited food
supplies started dwindling. He decided to eat the breakfast bar
on day one, and then he finished it.

Speaker 2 (24:34):
Only had oreos left, which.

Speaker 3 (24:36):
He finished on day two, and he had no food
after this point.

Speaker 2 (24:40):
At least from what I read. So he was without food.

Speaker 3 (24:45):
And it's now Monday, February thirteenth of twenty seventeen. This
is day three. So after taking his boots off at night,
his boots froze solid, so he had to cut out
the laces and tongues to get them back on his feet.
At at this point, he's desperate and lost. He abandoned
his original loop route and decided to cut straight across

(25:06):
the dune field, going over the largest dunes instead of
returning via his inbound path. He tried to use the
Ingrey Day Cristo to the East as a visual reference
to guide himself out, but lost sight of the mountains
amid terrain and weather, and then he became turned around
even more and began wandering. So you've probably heard us,

(25:27):
if you've listened to us a long time. This is
something that can really get you lost and mess up
the search and rescue operation is once you realize you
lost and you just began wandering around. I guess I
kind of see why he did it here, because you're
in the middle of a sand dune, like where are
you going to shelter in winter? But usually your best

(25:48):
best thing you can do is hunker down at the
moment you figure out you're lost, and that would give
you the best chance of search and rescue finding you,
assuming you gave them an itinerary and told people where
you're gonna be. So it is now Tuesday, February fourteenth
of twenty seventeen. This is day four, so he's been
out there for four days now. He was out of

(26:10):
food by day two. He This night is even worse
for him. He spends the night directly on the dune's
surface in single digit temperatures and high winds with no shelter.

Speaker 2 (26:21):
If you've ever been on cold sand, yeah, it's like terrible.

Speaker 3 (26:24):
In like single digit fahrenheit temperatures and high wind No boy, no,
So it's amazing he's still alive at this point. It's Wednesday,
February fifteenth of twenty seventeen, so this is day five.
At some point after he failed to return, rangers noticed
his unattended vehicle in the horse trailer a lot near

(26:46):
Madonno Road and began an investigation. And this is kind
of when they started treating him as a missing visitor.
It's now Thursday, February sixteenth of twenty seventeen MPs rangers,
Elpaso County, SAR Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control,
and other organizations mobilized at least twenty eight people. They

(27:10):
had dog teams which actually picked up his scent and footprints,
and aerial crews were scanning the dunes around sunset. Teams
found him amazingly about one to one and a half
miles south of the visitor's visitor center, and he had
essentially wandered onto the searchers after sighting a road he had.

(27:31):
He was suffering from frostbite and exposure, but searchers said
that he was in relatively good health given that he
spent five nights out there in the winter conditions, and
amazingly he declined hospital care and ended up staying in
a local hotel, then drove back to New York, and

(27:53):
in interviews after the original disappearance, he emphasized how quickly
conditions over overwhelmed him, and he praised rescuers and I
think I read somewhere. I don't know if I have
it in here. He did suffer some pretty decent frostbite
on fingers and toes, I could imagine, but he declined

(28:16):
to hospital cares. Now we're in between disappearances, so it's
February to May of twenty seventeen. We know that public
reporting indicates that he returned to New York after the
February rescue, and a lot of media covered the ordeal
and his reflections about midlife crisis, near fatal mistake, but
we don't really have any other public documentation of what

(28:39):
happened with him in the follow up. And I can't
believe I don't remember hearing about this case, because it's
pretty wild. Yeah, just if just the fact that he
survived that ordeal. I mean, he spent a night just
on the sand dune in single digit tempts. Joe's got
a picture of it up a map up here, and yes,

(29:00):
I am excellent, good, good work, thank you. It's pretty
wild looking. See this is this. I just feel like,
and obviously I'm wrong.

Speaker 2 (29:12):
I feel like you could fly over this with a
helicopter a few times and pick out somebody.

Speaker 3 (29:16):
Well, and they pretty quickly found him. They found him
on day five, and they didn't really start searching for
him right away. But I think that can be deceiving,
because you know, some of those dunes are seven hundred
feet tall.

Speaker 2 (29:28):
Yeah, that's why I'm getting a shot right here.

Speaker 3 (29:31):
But you're right, look at it. There's no vegetation, there's
nothing out there. You fly, it's thirty square miles. You
should be able to you can see these people? Yeah,
Like I can see those people right there. That's like
a mile away. Yeah, even more.

Speaker 2 (29:44):
And I could imagine if it had snow, I'd be
able to see him even better. Yeah, I don't know.
I mean it's yeah, yeah, there's people right there, people
right there, people right there. This is the easiest I've
ever been able to see people on a grainy Google photo.
H how far away that is? Like those are look
at three four people? Two people?

Speaker 3 (30:05):
Oh and look the photos even from twenty seven to
February twenty seventeen. Oh no, wow, what are the odds
of that, Joe, I don't know that was pure Look.

Speaker 2 (30:14):
How wild the scenery is. That isn't really cool though,
those the way that cliff there's a person. Yeah, I'm
gonna try and find another spot to look. So yeah,
it's crazy. You.

Speaker 3 (30:26):
I guess the pictures probably if we had been there,
we'd be like, oh no, I could see how I
could get lost. The pictures probably don't do it.

Speaker 2 (30:34):
Justice. Well, I could see how you could get lost
if there was a white out, yeah, because if you're
looking like look at this now, if you can only
see fifty feet in front of you, yeah, you don't
know which way you're going. So if it's white out conditions,
even when they're searching, okay, yes, you can't see anything.
But if anyone who has it's a clear day. Yeah.

(30:55):
And if you as a person, there's a person, there's
a person.

Speaker 3 (30:58):
And if you have even kind of basic ability with
a compass in how to you know like northwest, east south,
like before you start hiking, you can orient yourself and
be like, all right, that's where the mountains are.

Speaker 2 (31:11):
They're north. You have to do it. If I had
a compass, I could get out of here just fine.

Speaker 3 (31:16):
Because those mountains are much higher obviously, they're twelve thirteen
thousand feet. If you're anywhere in the dunes and you
get lost and you know the mountains are on now,
I don't know if you're any if you're anywhere out
of dune twenty north here, I'll reorientate north.

Speaker 2 (31:30):
Okay. If you're anywhere in the dunes, you just go
east and then you hit mountains, and if you don't
hit a road, you go along the mountains. So you
hit a road. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (31:40):
Now the counter to that is or south. It's thirty
square miles. So if you're in the western part of
the dunes, you're hiking over hundreds of feet of dune
for thirty miles. Yeah, that's tough, but I could do
it in two days if you want to bet. Yes, yes,
you gotta go over the dune. It's not the trail.

(32:01):
That's why I said two days. Okay, all right, we'll
do a GoFundMe. We'll have Joe will time him. Thirty
miles and two days in the dunes, I could totally
How fast do you think you could go up a
seven hundred foot dune?

Speaker 2 (32:14):
Oh? Very slowly but sliding down? I guess, Do I
get cardboard? Nope, you gotta go and like Brian did
with nothing, all right, two and a half days. Okay,
But I get what you're saying.

Speaker 3 (32:31):
Anywhere in those dunes you should be able to see
those mountains to the north or the east.

Speaker 2 (32:35):
Yeah, and if you have a compass. Well, he didn't
have anything, so I knet that I understand that. And
it was this.

Speaker 3 (32:40):
It was winter and it was storming and you couldn't
see anything. Yeah, so I get it.

Speaker 2 (32:45):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (32:45):
But I get your point though. You know, seeing this,
you wonder how could someone get lost there? But it happens.

Speaker 2 (32:51):
It happened twice.

Speaker 3 (32:52):
Yeah, all right, we're gonna keep going on theme. Oh
that's a cool picture. This is a beautiful picture. It's
crazy to think that's in Colle Dorado. This is January. Yeah,
that looks so cool. I want to hike there.

Speaker 2 (33:05):
Yeah. Yeah, man, if you go along a ridge too,
just follow ridges. Yeah, that looks super cool. Yeah, we
gotta go.

Speaker 3 (33:12):
I mean, if you didn't tell me this is Colorado'd
be like, is this this Sahara or the Gobi Desert.

Speaker 2 (33:18):
Yeah, that's so cool. It's very cool.

Speaker 3 (33:21):
All right, Okay, back to the timeline. All right, we're
moving on to disappearance number two. So it is Monday,
May eighth of twenty seventeen. Sklinsky re enters Great Sand
Dunes National Park. He is last seen departying from the
sand Pit Picnic Area. This is a backcountry access point
along the Madonna Pass primitive road near the Madonna Creek.

(33:44):
This time around, he did not obtain a backcountry permit.
He didn't tell anyone where he was going, he didn't
leave an itinerary with the park, and he didn't even
tell family or friends of his exact locations. So those
are all big no nos in Mike and Joe's Hiking
one oh one book.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
Yeah, it's a perfect storm of getting lost not getting found.

Speaker 3 (34:03):
Yes, And obviously because of this, searchers initially had no
clear idea where he intended to hike, which later complicated
and delayed their response. So some reports from the Alamo
Alamosa Valley Courier Park that's a newspaper, note that he

(34:24):
was captured on the park entrance station camera entering alone
on May eighth, which is pretty much why that date
is treated as the firm last scene date, even though
his car may have been spotted a day earlier. It's
now between May eighth and May thirteenth. His car remained
at sand Pit. A ranger eventually noted the unattended vehicle

(34:47):
after several days. One early report said the car had
been seen there since May seventh, which slightly conflicts with
the May eighth last scene date. And I read something
that the the park rangers that found his vehicle for
the second time, were flabbergasted when they realized it was

(35:08):
his car. Oh, because they had just because they just
had spent days searching for him a few months earlier,
and it was still fresh in their minds and all
of a sudden, this guy's car is back in the
park and it's been unintended for several days. Yeah, They're like,
oh man, here we go again. So it is just
kind of crazy. That's just another thing that we don't
really come across. And we're covering these cases. It's now

(35:31):
May fourteenth of twenty seventeen, and the hiker they reported
just a generic hiker missing in Great Sand Dunes and
it was later identified as this person was Brian Skolinsky.
And this was around the time a park ranger notes
his vehicles still parked in the lot and another multi

(35:53):
agency search is initiated. So between May fourteenth and May seventeenth,
crewse searched a fourteen square mile area around Mount Herod
which is thirteen three hundred and forty five feet and
the Sangre de Cristo Wilderness, which is very high rugged
preserve east of the dunes. Agencies included dog teams from

(36:15):
Larimire Park and el Paso County's US Forest Service Monument
Hell Attack Flight for Life, and Colorado dfpc's multi mission aircraft. Unfortunately,
and we see this a lot in our cases, as
high winds and snow hampered flight operations, scentwork, and ground safety.
And because of a lot of the bad weather conditions

(36:40):
and a lack of evidence, the search actually was scaled
back on Thursday, May eighteenth of twenty seventeen. An official
NPS incident summary, which they called the Morning Report, notes
the operation, which began May fourteenth, had been scaled back
last Thursday due to snow and strong winds, with the
focus area described like I said, is fourteen square miles

(37:01):
around Mount Herod. It is now late May to June
twenty seventeen. After the first week, full scale efforts wound
down due to weather, safety and lack of leads. The
case remained open while Cruz continued targeted checks as feasible,
but sadly, Sunday, June twenty fifth of twenty seventeen, two

(37:22):
hikers reported finding a deceased person in steep alpine terrain
between Milwaukee Peak and Marble Mountain in the Great Sand
Dunes National Park. This is well east of the dunefield
and outside of the initial focus near Mount Herod. So
I don't know if you can find Milwaukee Peak in

(37:42):
Marble Mountain. It's very interesting for yeah, that his remains
were found over here, which is way out.

Speaker 2 (37:51):
Of Yeah, it's like real far away. Yeah, so that's
Marble Mountain, Milwaukee Piece right there, So zoom out because
he started by the dunes, I mean that.

Speaker 3 (38:02):
There's the dune's there, that's he started at. Did you
find the he started at the picnic what was it called?
You find it here? Sand pit picnic area? Because I'm
just curious if that is towards the north end of
the dunes or if Okay.

Speaker 2 (38:20):
So that's that's one heck of a hike. Yeah that yeah,
I mean not only crazy.

Speaker 3 (38:26):
I don't know if he took roads to get there,
but his car was at the picnic area, so he
was on foot at some point he had to go
over some crazy mountains. Yeah, there's that's wild. What's the
crow fly distance? I'm curious, it's gotta be fifty miles.

Speaker 2 (38:43):
Let me make sure you get the right spot Marble Mountain.
Is that ridge right there? I would say fifty miles?

Speaker 3 (38:49):
No, maybe not no, thirty okay, never mind thirteen. But
as a crow flies. As a crow flies, yeah, he's
not going to go straight. You'd be going over some
so there is a road he could have taken.

Speaker 2 (39:02):
I was pretty close, like got close. I was like
that guy on the internet who just picked spots and
they're road close.

Speaker 3 (39:09):
Yeah, it was only so it's about thirteen and a
half miles as the crow flies.

Speaker 2 (39:15):
Oh wow, and I kneeled this one right on Marble Mountain.
Well he was. His remains were found in between Marble
and Milwaukee. Yeah, but that's yeah, as a crow fly
thirty miles, that's still no small feet.

Speaker 3 (39:25):
No, and in terrible conditions. The weather was pretty bad,
with no gear, with presumably no gear, we don't really
know what he had on the second disappearance. But like
I said, sadly he was found. I'm guessing he was
on this trail maybe, Yeah, that's what I would guess. Yeah,
it just says he was found between Marble Peak and

(39:46):
Milwaukee Peak and Marble Mountain.

Speaker 2 (39:48):
Okay, get a view from there.

Speaker 3 (39:50):
Monday, June twenty sixth of twenty seventeen, a Flight for
Life helicopter performs a technical recovering airlift of the remains.
This was confirmed by a park spokesp person. That is beautiful,
it really is. And any of the dunes out there,
it's crazy. I want to go now.

Speaker 2 (40:09):
I don't think that's the dunes either, that's it. I mean,
those are dunes, but it's not the Great Sand Dunes. No, no,
oh no, it's just a sand patch. Yep, that's the
other side. It's wild.

Speaker 3 (40:19):
Monday, June twenty sixth, his remains were airlifted out of there,
and Tuesday the twenty seventh and Wednesday the twenty eighth,
the Suwach County Corner Tom Parrin officially identifies the remains
as Brian Skolinski. In states no foul plays suspected, but
cause and manner of death are still under investigation, and

(40:44):
there has been no public statement ever made on this
case about cause of death.

Speaker 2 (40:50):
Since then.

Speaker 3 (40:51):
I was thinking this would be a good Foyer request
to try to get that information because I'd be curious
to know what happened to him. And then finally just
I had two brief little notes on the case. Estimates
put the cost of both search operations between one hundred
and eighty and two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, So
just put that into perspective. Whenever you start getting helicopters involved,

(41:15):
the cost goes up quickly.

Speaker 2 (41:17):
I can't.

Speaker 3 (41:18):
I think we once found out it was something like
eighteen hundred dollars an hour for the helicopters to operate everything,
the fuel and the pilots. And then I talked to
this earlier. But this case is it's so extremely rare
to have the same person going missing in the same
park in the same year that almost never happens.

Speaker 2 (41:41):
Do you think he was like emboldened by surviving the
first time? I don't know.

Speaker 3 (41:45):
We're gonna get into the theories, all right, all right,
we'll get int the theories quick. So here's likely theories
that you know, and we're just going to cover the
second disappearance, because obviously he was rescued after the first one.
So the main theory is exposure. He basically got off
route in serious train, ran out of energy in gear,
and succumbs a cold and exposure. This fits perfectly with

(42:07):
this case for many reasons. So he was last seen
departing in the sand Pit picnic area on May eighth,
with no permanent itinerary The main search area focused on
the fourteen square mile zone near Mount Herod, and that
was a steep, high elevation country east of the dunes.
He was ultimately found weeks later between Waukie Peak and

(42:28):
Marble Mountain and even more rugged alpine area that hadn't
been heavily searched, and search operations this whole time were
constrained by snow and high winds, which means you know,
almost he was certainly dealing with that in the higher elevations,
and he was a solo hiker with a known history
of underestimating conditions, wandering into complex terrain with the May

(42:51):
storms rolling in very strong risk of hypothermy exposure, and
so that's leading theory. Another one is fall or accident,
so he might have slipped or fell in a steep gully,
snowfield or cliff section and died from the trauma. This
fits again pretty good with this case. The Milwaukee Peak

(43:12):
Marble Mountain zone is steep, broken country with snowfields, talus
and potential cliffs. Hikers didn't find him until late June,
which really suggests he was in a place that wasn't
easily visible or obvious during the initial search. And in
a fall scenario, injury and mobilization often combined with cold
and hypothermia in the first twenty four hours, so it's

(43:33):
very plausible at the corners no foul play suspected. Note
could still be consistent with a death from trauma or exposure.
Another theory that kind of piggybacks into the first theories
is the route finding air plus the storm equalled he
was trapped and then exposed, so he may have climbed
too high or too far from obvious exit routes, then

(43:55):
got pinned by weather or snow conditions or terrain traps.
The storm's o will reduce visibility. It could easily erase
his tracks and can block steep snow slopes from safe descent.
He could have hunkered down, become hypothermic, and died without
a dramatic fall in this type of theory, and sadly,
given his past patterns of pushing on when he should

(44:18):
have turned around or overruling caution, this theory kind of
makes a lot of sense in this case.

Speaker 2 (44:25):
Here's a few theories.

Speaker 3 (44:26):
A possible but less likely so medical event could have
been something with heart related stroke, altitude related. An eternal
medical event could have dropped him with the wilderness conditions
finishing him, and this theory works. He's forty years old
at altitude, a cardiac event, stroke or undiagnosed condition is
not out of the realm of possibilities, especially under extreme exertion, stress,

(44:51):
and cold. Altitude in that area can push twelve thirteen
thousand feet. It could easily have had an altitude related
issue that with hypothermia frostbite, you know it's not going
to end well. Another theory that's possible is maybe he
had some kind of psychological spiral so increasingly risky decision making,

(45:13):
not suicide per se, but a mindset that made him
take extreme risks without normal self preservation breaks. The main
reason why this could be a theory is based on
his February interview where he openly framed the first trip
as a midlife crisis in chasing a personal mission. He'd
barely survived being lost for five nights in the winter,
yet returned to the same park alone just a few

(45:35):
months later and again went off into the rugged backcunchy
with no permit our itinerary. So that pattern suggests at
minimum a high tolerance for risk or a strong internal
drive that might push him deeper into dangerous train rather
than turning around. This is less likely a cause of
death and more of what they called it, a risk amplifier.

(45:57):
He obviously probably succumbed to exposure, but this is pushed
him into that fate and the least likely was probably
intentional self harm. There's no evidence of this. The only
you know, there are scenarios where people use the wilderness
as their method of self harm, and we don't have

(46:19):
any evidence that's what he was doing here. But it's
a little suspicious that after a near death experience literally
two months earlier, he came back to the same park
and went into the same wilderness. I think most people
would probably never go back to that park if that
happened to.

Speaker 2 (46:37):
Him the first or they'd be overly prepared, Yeah, like
after learning a lesson the first time.

Speaker 3 (46:43):
Yeah, So I'm not saying this is a This is
just one of the theories that was floated for why
he would have gone back so soon, unprepared again and
pushed into really hard parts of the area. So there
was really no evidence. There was no public reporting, no
suicide notes, no explicit statements of suicidal intent or behavioral

(47:05):
flags from family or friends in any of the sources
currently available. So just a theory that was floated out there.
I figured I would mention it just because of how
weird this case is. We've never had this happen in
a case where someone goes back to the same park.

Speaker 2 (47:20):
Is this the only case that that's ever happened? The
only oneone got lost twice in the same park.

Speaker 3 (47:27):
I'm sure it's probably happened once or twice, but we've
covered a lot of cases. I've looked at a lot
of additional cases as I'm researching for the show, and
I've never come across one. Yeah, it doesn't mean it
hasn't happened, but it's pretty rare. Yeah, So what do
you think, Joe.

Speaker 2 (47:43):
I think this one's obvious. Yeah, I think he just
was unprepared and succumbed to the elements. I even't think
there was an injury. It is probably just the same situation,
but he wasn't as lucky this time. Yeah, I think
you're right. Yeah, that's a lot. That's a huge distance
to travel with no gear, probably not enough food in

(48:04):
treacherous conditions, and I think.

Speaker 3 (48:06):
The odds of you getting out of that scenario the
first time.

Speaker 2 (48:10):
See that's where it's and then you go back. That's
where I wonder if part of the midlife crisis was
not necessarily like a suicidal thing. He's like, I didn't
finish it, I'm gonna do it this time. No, I
think it's more of a like a blatant disregard for
his own safety. It's just like kind of I don't know.
You hear people that are not necessarily gonna purposely make

(48:32):
something bad happen to them, but they're also just going
to go into a situation and not care of the outcome.
So it's kind of like playing with fire. He's like,
I made it the first time, I'm gonna do it again,
and if I don't make it out whatever, I'm not saying,
but I'm just wondering if that's kind of the case,
because it's obviously he didn't make any good decisions after

(48:53):
what you'd think would be a huge learned lesson of
what not to do, and he just went back and
did it again, and he was so lucky the first time. Yeah,
there's no reason why he should have lived the first time.

Speaker 3 (49:05):
And props to him surviving five days out there with
the gear he had when absolutely nothing short of amazing.

Speaker 2 (49:12):
Yeah, it's that's like mental power at that point. Yeah,
I just I don't get why you would go back.
That's kind of where I just don't understand it. I think, yeah,
he had some mental thing going on. If he's if
he's openly saying he's having a midlife crisis, yeah, you
can imagine it's potentially a lot worse than that, and
he's trying to find meaning he's doing cross country trips

(49:33):
out of nowhere. Yeah. I just don't think he was
in the right mental space to making proper decisions, and
unfortunately he succumbed to the elements. Yeah, so that's the
only thing that makes sense.

Speaker 3 (49:44):
Yeah, I wouldn't say that, but we have the evidence
from the first disappearance, and he stated it himself that
he was going through something.

Speaker 2 (49:52):
Yeah, and he was on a mission.

Speaker 3 (49:54):
And I feel like maybe he he like because he
didn't complete the mission the first time, He's like, I'm
going back and I'm doing it again. Yep, I survived,
I'll get out of there again. We mentioned that he
overestimated conditions and things in the first time, so maybe
thinking like, oh it's may now, it won't be as bad,
it'll be warmer out. Yeah, I don't know. I clear,

(50:17):
I think what happened. I'm positive that I think what
happened to him is pretty clearcut. But I'm hung up
on why he would go back. That's the mystery. That's
exactly why. I think it has to do with his
just men.

Speaker 2 (50:30):
Kind of like a psychological thing going on. Yeah, like
it's not a mental illness, but he needed a compression
the huck. I don't know, he was in a completely
different spot. Yeah, I think he just I don't know.
Maybe he enjoyed the adventure, maybe he had a rush
from the first one. If he was not in a
good state, I don't know, he went back and just
did it again. Yeah. So I think all of you

(50:51):
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Bryan Skilinski - Great Sand Dunes National Park - Colorado

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