Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
This is the forty six and forty six podcast October
Sessions where we'll talk all things spooky and Irondacks and more,
from bigfoot encounters on the NPT to ghostly sightings in
the trees. We'll dive deep into the heart of these
mountains and the people who.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Dare to climb them.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
From Adirondack bigfoots to haunted lakeside bar huts, it's all
here on the forty six and forty six October Sessions.
For centuries, people have gone missing in the Adirondack wilderness.
(00:49):
But sometimes the most haunting disappearances don't happen deep in
the forest. Sometimes they happen right from the road. Tonight's
story takes us to Tupper Lake, where, in twenty twelve,
a young college student home for spring break left a
(01:09):
party into the cold March night air and started walking
along Route three. But he never made it home that night.
In fact, he was never seen again. This is the
tragic story of Colin gillis a story that's left a
family without their son, without answers, and without peace. And
(01:35):
in a small town like Tupper Lake, here in the Adirondacks,
where everyone knows everyone, secrets are.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Often held close to the chest.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
People whisper that someone knows what really happened to Colin
that night un Route three, maybe even more than one person,
But for over a decade, the silence has remained, as
these things tend to do in small towns, and until
the truth comes out, that Gillis family has left waiting
(02:07):
for closure that they desperately deserve. This is the story
behind the disappearance of Colin Gillis. Colin Gillis was just
eighteen years old, a freshman at sunny Brockport, and he
(02:28):
was back home in tupper Lake for spring break. By
all accounts, he was athletic, bright and popular, the kind
of kid you'd expect to have a wide circle of
friends in a close knit town. On the night of
March tenth, twenty twelve, Colin went to a house party
in tupper Lake. Witnesses later said that there'd been some drinking,
(02:48):
as college students tend to do, and at some point
a scuffle and an argument broke out. Some friends left,
but Colin didn't go with them. Instead, he took off
on foot into the dark night alone. At around one
thirty am, Colin was seen walking towards Route three, and
(03:11):
this is a long, lonely stretch of road between Tupper
Lake and Piercefield, with deep forests on both sides, few houses.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
And almost no light.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Multiple witnesses said that he went walking down the road
that night. Some said he was even without a coat
despite the freezing temperatures.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
One driver passing.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Through reported to state police that he did see a
young man matching Colin's description walking along the shoulder. He
even offered him a ride, but Colin declined and he
kept walking. Colin wasn't lost in the back country. He
was right there on a road with traffic passing by.
(03:55):
He had options, He even had people offering him help,
and yet he kept walking by himself. Why where was
he going and who, if anyone, was he actually waiting for.
By morning, Collin's family knew something was wrong. He hadn't
(04:19):
come home, he wasn't answering calls, and by noon they
sounded the alarm.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
The New York State.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Police, forest rangers, local firefighters, and volunteers swarmed the area.
Helicopters flew overhead dogs swept the roadside in the woods.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Boats even searched the.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Rivers and ponds nearby, and they did find a few things.
They found Colin's driver's license, a long route three and
later searchers found a tobacco pipe, But Colin himself vanished.
No jacket, no backpack, no jeans, no sneakers, no footprints
(05:01):
leading into the woods, nothing to suggest a struggle or
an accident, or even where he might have left the road.
Absolutely nothing, And for the Gillis family, that silence has
stretched more than a decade later. Now there's a lot
of theories about what happened to Colin that night. Some
(05:25):
say it was exposure that got him, that he wandered
into the woods, got disoriented and succumbed to the cold.
I mean, he wasn't wearing a jacket, but searches were relentless.
This wasn't untouched wilderness. This was a well trafficked stretch
of road canvassed again and again, grid by grid by
(05:47):
searchers and for them to miss an entire body, clothing
or backpack hard to imagine.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Others wonder about a hit and run.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Could have passed in car, have struck him, but there
was no evidence of a crash, no debris, no skid marks,
and of course nobody. And then there's the theory of
foul play. Did something happen after that scuffle at the party,
(06:23):
Maybe someone picked him up, maybe there was a fight,
or worse, someone deliberately silenced him. You know, small town parties, alcohol, grudges,
and sometimes things just go too far. And in little
towns like here in the Adirondacks, people whisper that some
(06:44):
know more.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Than they've said.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Could it have been a deliberate abduction, a ride gone wrong,
an accident, a secret people are still keeping. We may
never know, but the silence and the lack of closure
is truly deafening. Years later, in twenty twenty, police even
(07:13):
dug on a property in Edwards, nearly fifty miles away,
chasing a cold lead, but nothing came of it. Today,
Colin Gillis is still missing. His case sits open, waiting
for answers that just never seem to come. And here's
the hardest part of this story.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
This isn't the story.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Of an elderly man lost in the wilderness or a
stranger wandering through a national park.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
This was an eighteen year.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Old kid walking along the road in his hometown and
then went missing, and with a lot of stories to
come because of that, a lot of secrets being held.
How does someone vanish on a road where people saw
him just minutes before, and why all these years later
(08:02):
do people still whisper that the truth is known but buried.
Colin's family has lived with this nightmare for over a decade.
His parents, his friends, the Tupper Lake community. They all
deserve answers. His parents deserve to know what happened to
(08:23):
their son that night. But sometimes in small towns secrets
just run deep. People protect their own, Rumors circulate, but
proof never surfaces. And the tragedy is that when secrets
are kept, the truth dies with them. Colin Gillis was
(08:46):
my age, a little younger. He'd be thirty one years
old today. Instead, his name is frozen in time, forever,
eighteen years old, forever missing, forever while looking down Route
three into the Adirondack night, and somewhere out there someone.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Knows what really happened to Colin Gillis.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Colin's case remains open, and if you have any information
about what might have happened that night, no matter how small,
it could be the piece of information that unlocks the
case and ultimately brings closure to Colin's story and to
his parents that are wondering what happened to their son.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
If you know anything, call the New York State Police.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
And that will wrap up my Leftno Trace series on
the October Sessions this year. All four of these stories
are tragic. May their stories be a reminder to us
all about how sacred life is and how we can
never take life for granted. We can also never take
a walk in the woods for granted either, because for
(10:04):
all we know, it might be our last. It's important
to always be aware of your surroundings and treat these
mountains with respect. The Adirondack Mountains know exactly what happened
to all four of these people, but we may never
find out.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
That'll do it.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
For this October Sessions, remember to always leave no trace,
do the rock walk, and if you carry it in,
carry it out and go hug your loved ones tonight.
I'll see you on the trails.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Hi.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
I'm Amanda Be I'm thirty six. I'm from Plattsburgh, New York,
and this is my seek to Do More story. I
started my adironic forty six or in twenty twenty, and
by the end of twenty twenty one I had twenty
one done. By the end of that year, I had
started feeling fatigued and having trouble exercising. I went to
my primary care who referred me to a cardiologist and
(11:08):
I had some testing done. In early twenty twenty two,
while I was waiting for those test results to come back,
I bagged nine more high peaks. I ended that year
with Cliff and Redfield from the Lodge, which was a
twenty five mile day and about four thousand feet a gain.
The following week, I had the appointment with the cardiologist
and I found out I had an arrhythmi induced cardio monopothy.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
My doctor told me that my heart.
Speaker 5 (11:34):
Was pumping at fifty percent a normal persons. So in
the summer of twenty twenty three, I hiked Mount Coldon.
When I hiked Mount Cold and I knew that that
was the last forty six er I was going to
be able to hike.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
With my heart being the way it was, it was
just really hard to breathe.
Speaker 5 (11:53):
I was unable to get oxygen to the parts of
my body that I needed to and it was just
it was so tough and it was one of the
hardest things that I've ever done. Later on that year,
I had my second ablation, which also failed. I started
getting progressively worse. I was less and less able to
(12:18):
tolerate exercise, and that caused me to go into a
pretty bad depression. By the end of April twenty twenty four,
I had my third ablation to treat my heart arrhythmia,
and that one was successful. I was able to completely
get rid of my arrhythmia. So immediately after that I
(12:41):
started my health journey and I was making some progress.
By October of twenty twenty four, my heart was fully
recovered and back to normal, and by March of twenty
twenty five, I was finally able to run one mile
without walking. But my progress was not going the way
I needed it too. If I was going to be
(13:01):
able to finish my forty six er in the summer
of twenty twenty five, I felt like I had hit
a plateau. I am a big fan of James's podcast,
and I followed his Instagram accounts.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
I saw his post to join his program.
Speaker 5 (13:17):
I had done some research on his programs before I
knew that he had programs geared towards mountain fitness. I
knew it was specific to hiking in the Adirondecks, it
was like everything I needed at the moment I needed it,
So I decided to pull the trigger.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
I started the program in April. I'm no stranger to
hard work.
Speaker 5 (13:37):
I'm a very accountable person, but I just wasn't sure
I was training right or doing the things that I
needed to to get myself to this end goal.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
And the program works if you put in the work,
it works.
Speaker 5 (13:51):
By May first, I had ran two full miles without walking.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Later on in the month of May, I had signed
up to do a ten k race.
Speaker 5 (14:01):
It was my first ten k race and I was
able to successfully run it. I had the goal to
do it in an hour and a half with a
run walk strategy.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
I did it an hour and twenty two.
Speaker 5 (14:10):
By the end of June, I ran six miles without stopping,
no walking, and I also ran my longest distance of
nine point four miles, And by day ninety I summited
my first high peak. James was there that day in
the parking lot with a great range team, so I
got to.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
See him the morning before and at the end of
that hike.
Speaker 5 (14:31):
And it was just a really great way to rein
in my first ninety days of seek to do more.
And then six months of Seek to Do More got
me to my forty six er. I finished on October
fourth with Marcy Gray and Skylight. I will say that
the doctors gave me my body back, they healed my heart,
(14:54):
but Seek to Do More gave me myself back. This
program was able to help me get my physical self back,
which is very important to who I am as person,
the person I want to show up as it's shown
me that I'm really capable of doing anything that I
(15:15):
put my mind to. There's so much grit building, there
is so much overcoming that you definitely feel like your
unstoppable self by the end of it. And as I
said to James once and I'll say it again, the Adrondacks,
these mountains are relentless, but so am I.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
You just heard Amanda's story how she went from being
sidelined and struggling to reclaiming her strength, her confidence, and
her identity not just as a hiker, but as a person.
She has become unstoppable and she has achieved her goal
of becoming an Adirondack forty six er against all odds,
all because she took action, she bet on herself, and
(15:57):
she got the help she needed and followed a plan
that worked. If her story resonates with you and you
know it's time to reclaim your best self, or it's
time to finally step into that version of you that
you know you're capable of becoming, and it's time to
take your next step as well, book a call with
me at seek to Do More dot com and you
can see if this program is the right fit for
(16:19):
you to help you become your best self out on
the trails and in your life.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
I'll see you on the call.