Victim likely chose same route as duo

The body of a 21-year-old man who died Saturday on Capitol Peak was found within 100 yards of where an Aspen couple perished on the mountain six days earlier, officials said Tuesday.

That means Zackaria White of Pine may have chosen the same highly dangerous route down the mountain as Ryan Marcil, 26, and Carlin Brightwell, 27, according to two Pitkin County sheriff’s deputies.

“I think he did the same thing as the couple who died,” said Deputy Anthony Todaro, who helped oversee the search for White. “There’s very little doubt in my mind.”

White was the fifth person to die on Capitol Peak this summer. Just four people died on the mountain between 2000 and 2016, according to statistics from the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative.

Todaro interviewed White’s climbing partner, Brandon Wilhelm of Pine. The men did not know each other well. Wilhelm was supposed to climb with White’s roommate, but that man was unable to go and White volunteered to come along, Todaro said.

White had never climbed a fourteener before, he said. He was ill-equipped for the climb, wearing flat-bottomedskateboardshoesand cotton clothing that steals body heat when it gets wet.

They got a late start from Capitol Lake on Saturday, and Wilhelm told Todaro he was concerned about White’s lack of experience.

Once the men got across the Knife Edge, they weighed whether to make the 30- to 45-minute scramble to the top or to turn back. They decided to push on and summited the mountain at 3:10 p.m.

On the descent, the men were running out of water, and fatigue started to set in for White.

There are steep rocky drainages known as couloirs on the climb between the Knife Edge — a 100-foot section of ridge with precipitous drops on either side — and the summit.

One couloir on the peak side of the Knife Edge appears to lead down to Capitol Lake. However, you cannot see that it ends at a cliff band on the north face of Capitol Peak that is not climbable, said Jesse Steindler, a commander who worked on both searchand-rescue operations the past two weekends.

White and Wilhelm had a discussion in which White insisted on taking what he thought was a shorter path, even though Wilhelm explained that there were cliffs and he might not survive if he went that way.

Wilhelm waited at the top and kept yelling to White to come back, but he continued to say he saw a path.

As Wilhelm waited, he yelled to White to shine his cellphone light in the direction of Capitol Lake if he became stuck on the cliff.

Wilhelm arrived at the lake around 7 p.m. He went into the scree field below Capitol’s North Face and called to White and shined a light up the mountain for about three hours to no avail, Todaro said.

Wilhelm called emergency dispatchers the next morning from Capitol Lake. White’sbodywasspottedby ahelicoptercrewabout11:20 a.m., Todaro said. It appearedhefellabout600feet.

The deaths of Marcil and Brightwell left sheriff’s office personnel and MRA volunteers emotionally raw during the search for the man, Todaro said.

“To hear this happen on the heels of that — it made for some tense moments in the command post,” he said. “People are sick of plucking dead people off that mountain.”