Missing hiker s family gives back to mountain rescue organizations Rachel Leuthauser
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In September 2016, Dave Cook set off to conquer a couple of 14ers in the Aspen area. It was a normal venture for the experienced climber from New Mexico who has always been drawn to the mountains.
His plan was to climb Pyramid Peak and Maroon Bells. He took off on a Monday and planned to return to a friends place in Aspen Tuesday night. But when Tuesday night came, he wasn t back. The next morning we talked to search and rescue and decided he had just gotten a late start and his trip probably got pushed out, said Maureen Cook, Dave s wife. We waited a day then kicked off the search. We just didn t have good news and then ran into weather constraints during the week.
Photo by Kelsey Brunner / The Aspen Times
ASPEN As Sunday, May 16, marked the beginning of Search and Rescue Week established by the United States Senate over a decade ago, the family of a man who’s been missing for nearly five years after presumably falling from the Maroon Bells is launching an awareness and fundraising campaign that highlights the work of rescue organizations and their importance in locating those injured, lost and deceased in the backcountry.
Maureen Cook, whose husband and father of their three children went missing in September of 2016, has launched the “Dave Gives Back” search and rescue campaign.
.... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ....ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. When we lose someone we love, grief is a path lined with friends and family offering their hands, shoulders, ears, thoughts and prayers that often cannot reach beyond our darkness and our numbness, so, at times, it feels our journey is traveled very much alone.
Members of the Cook family of Corrales – from left, Ryan, 16; Sara, 11; mother Maureen; and Kate, 19 – wear the T-shirts that will be available for sale starting Sunday to raise funds for the Dave Gives Back initiative. (Courtesy of Jesse Zuretti)
Maureen Cook of Corrales has been on such a journey since September 2016 when her husband, Dave Cook, set off on what was to be a happier journey of his own high into the iconic Maroon Bells in the Elk Mountains near Aspen, Colorado, and never returned.