The mysterious disappearance and death of Doctor James McGrogan in Colorado
Revised June 2024
James “Jim” McGrogan disappeared March 14, 2014. Body found April 3, 2014, Booth Falls, Vail, Colorado
39-year-old Dr. James “Jim” McGrogan was visiting Vail in March 2014, a small town at the base of Vail Mountain and the center of the huge ski resort set within the White River National Forest in Colorado. During the trip, he became separated from his group on a hike, and his body was found a few weeks later. Just misadventure, bad luck, or something else?
Who was Doctor James McGrogan?
Doctor McGrogan had recently returned to Indiana from Wisconsin to work in the emergency room of St. Joseph Regional Medical Centre in Mishawaka.
The hike to the Eiseman Hut and Camp Hale
On the morning of March 14, 2014, at about 8:30 am, Jim and three hiking companions left on the 9-mile hike to the Eiseman Hut and beyond to Camp Hale. The camp is a collection of huts deep in the mountains to serve as temporary shelters for hikers or campers. The site was initially built in the 1940s as the home of the 10th Mountain Division and a mountain warfare training area.
At the time, there was a lot of snow in the area—several feet deep in some areas. There are two main routes from the Vail area to the Eiseman Hut: one via Spraddle Creek and a more westerly route via Red Sandstone Creek. It is not clear which route the group took that day, but both were used heavily and were well-marked with compacted snow.
Although the Hut was only 4 miles from the group’s starting point and right near US Interstate 70, the hike itself was up a meandering 9-mile trail through steep and treacherous wooded terrain, and the hut is not considered easy to reach, one of the reasons it is such a popular target for hikers. Although it was to be a challenging hike, McGrogan and company were experienced with the outdoors and well prepared. McGrogan had a cell phone, basic medical supplies, a sleeping bag, an avalanche beacon, GPS, warm clothing, and plenty of food and water.
Eiseman Hut, Vail, Colorado
Doctor McGrogan begins to hike alone
At about 10 am, with the hikers still about 5 miles from the hut, the group stopped to rest. According to his companions, Jim decided to hike ahead of the party, and they expected to catch up with him along the way.
After Jim left the others behind to hike alone, he vanished. When the rest of the group reached the Eiseman Hut in the late afternoon on March 14th, there was no sign of McGrogan.He was never seen alive again.
The search for James McGrogan
By 5.30 pm, the hikers had notified the Vale Department of Public Safety and, subsequently, the Eagle Valley Sheriff's Department. A rescue operation was started over an 18-square-mile area.
McGrogan was well equipped, so the authorities were not concerned about food, water, and warm clothing. He was also carrying a split snowboard (a snowboard that divides lengthwise), plus skins and other equipment from Confluence Kayaks in Denver, and was wearing the boots that went with the board.
McGrogan's cell phone pinged once the day he went missing, but after that, it went dead.
Over the next three days, teams of searchers on foot, snowmobile and three helicopters from the National Guard's High Altitude Aviation Training Site (HAATS), based in nearby Gypsum, Colorado, searched the area. But by Tuesday, March 18th, bad weather forced the search to be suspended.
Crews had spent a combined 1,000 hours searching for McGrogan. A five-day search failed to find any sign of him despite snow in the area which would have indicated if someone was hiking or skiing off trail.
McGrogan’s body recovered
Twenty days later, McGrogan’s body was found by a group of backcountry skiers about 4 1/2 miles from the trail on April 3rd, 2014, near the Booth Falls area, way to the east of the Eiseman Hut.
The reporting party told authorities that he and two others were skiing the Booth Falls area when they located the dead body in an icefall below Booth Falls, lying on top of an ice sheet (an icefall is a frozen waterfall which flows down a steep slope). He was found wearing his helmet, no coat, no gloves, and very strangely, with no boots. His cell phone was discovered in his backpack, and in this area, there appeared to be active cellular reception. Jim's snowboard was also found nearby, but his boots were never located.
James McGrogan location of body Booth Falls, Vail, Colorado
Autopsy and cause of death
On April 7th, 2014, Eagle County Coroner Kara Bettis said that James McGrogan died of multiple injuries, including head trauma to the left side of his chest and a broken femur. His death was ruled an accident.
What happened to Dr. Jim McGrogan?
What happened to Dr. Jim McGrogan on March 14, 2014? He hiked 12-14 miles (4.5 miles as the crow flies) across the backcountry in deep snow (up to 8 feet in places) and lost his boots. Perhaps he succumbed to hypothermia and began to undress paradoxically? Why didn't he use his cell phone or GPS tracker, which were fully functional? Why did he become separated from his hiking group and decide to leave for Eiseman Hut? A very mysterious case from the mountains around Vail.
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Sources
http://www.nbc15.com/home/headlines/UPDATE-Rescue-search-for-missing-hiker-turns-into-recovery-mission-251109751.html
https://www.postindependent.com/news/local/missing-ind-hikers-body-found-just-1-5-miles-from-the-booth-falls-trailhead/
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/porter/duneland/chesterton/chesterton-man-missing-on-hiking-trip-in-colorado/article_a280b58e-3ec5-5ac4-a042-88b75ec09dbc.html
https://www.vaildaily.com/news/severe-weather-hampers-vail-area-search-for-missing-man/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TlGc4slOMo
http://guardianlv.com/2014/04/missing-indian-hiker-dr-james-mcgrogan-found-dead-in-colorado-mountains/
