Colorado Mountain College students fell to their deaths while rappelling, authorities say

Shelly Bradbury, The Denver Post on Nov 3, 2026

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DENVER — The two college students who died during a backcountry trip in the Colorado mountains fell to their deaths while rappelling, Chaffee County authorities said Tuesday.

Search teams found Kaden Matsuda, 19, and Jackson Donlon, 20, dead in a basin of West Apostle Mountain on Oct. 28, two days after they were reported missing when they failed to return from their trip.

The Colorado Mountain College students died when a climbing anchor suffered a “catastrophic failure” during an attempted rappel, the Chaffee County sheriff’s and coroner’s offices said in a joint statement Tuesday.

Donlon was beginning to rappel from a primary anchor point on rock substrate — a mix of rock, stone, gravel, sand and mineral deposits — when the anchor failed, according to the statement. The pair had backed up the primary anchor with a piton and a secondary anchor made of rock substrate. Matsuda was anchored to the same points.

The two men fell together when the anchor “had a catastrophic failure of unknown cause,” according to the statement.

They fell an unknown distance and died instantly, suffering multiple blunt force injuries, according to the statement.

Authorities said the heavy snowstorm in the area did not play a direct role in the students’ deaths, but could not rule out that it may have had a “negative impact leading up to the incident,” according to the statement.

Officials noted that the two men were well-prepared for their trip.

“In most similar cases that have led to a devastating conclusion, we find it easy to pick apart what was done wrong,” the statement said. “That was not the case with Kaden and Jackson.”

Matsuda, of Ridgway, and Donlon, of Queensbury, New York, were reported missing Oct. 26 after Colorado Mountain College staff learned they hadn’t returned from their hiking and climbing trip.

Chaffee County sheriff’s deputies found Matsuda and Donlon’s tent near Lake Ann and believed the men set up camp on Oct. 23, before a snowstorm dropped 8 inches of snow on the trailhead on Oct. 24.

When authorities found the empty tent on Oct. 27, it had collapsed under the weight of the snow and still had some gear inside, officials said. The men’s bodies were found the next day and recovered on Oct. 29.

Lake Ann sits at the base of the mountains, west of both the West Apostle Mountain and Ice Mountain peaks.

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