Uinta Triangle: Australian vanishes into the Uinta Triangle

KAMAS — Search and rescue missions for missing hikers occur every summer in the Uinta Mountains. Oftentimes, they begin with a simple phone call alerting the local sheriff’s office that a person is overdue. Most of those searches conclude with the safe recovery of the missing person.

There are a small number of cases, however, where the missing are not recovered. One of the highest profile such cases was the 2004 disappearance of 12-year-old Garrett Bardsley. In spite of an intense 10-day search and additional efforts in the decades since, Bardsley has never been found.

The search for missing Australian trekker Eric Robinson in 2011 was another outlier. Robinson traveled to Utah intending to hike across the length of the range on the Uinta Highline Trail, but failed to emerge at the far end as scheduled. Efforts to locate him proved futile.

Robinson’s case is detailed in the new KSL Podcasts series, Uinta Triangle. Episode 3, which releases this week, recounts the events of Robinson’s disappearance and the first two days of the search effort.

Eric Robinson’s Uinta Highline Trail hike

Robinson’s wife, Marilyn Koolstra, said her husband was a meticulous planner who took every safety precaution when preparing for his adventures.

“Everything was recorded on Excel spreadsheets,” Koolstra said. “Where to, who he’s meeting, accommodation, where he was staying.”

The plan Robinson prepared before departing Australia en route to the United States showed he expected to spend 10 days hiking the Uinta Highline Trail, from July 28 to August 6, 2011. However, he altered that plan by adding an additional day because the friend who’d agreed to pick him up at the end of the trail was not available to do so on August 6.

Robinson’s route was to begin at Chepeta Lake, near the eastern boundary of the High Uintas Wilderness Area. From there, he would hike westbound on the trail to its terminus along Utah State Route 150, also known as the Mirror Lake Highway. His friend, Julia Geisler, agreed to meet him there at noon on August 7.

Geisler hosted Robinson in Park City before he started his trek, and saw him off at a Greyhound bus stop on the morning of July 28.

“From Australia, he arranged to have a rancher dude pick him up in Vernal and take him to the Highline Trailhead,” Geisler said. “That’s the last time I saw Eric was dropping him off at that bus stop.”

Eric Robinson overdue in the High Uintas

Geisler drove up the Mirror Lake Highway to the Highline Trailhead on Sunday, August 7, 2011. However, she discovered Robinson was not there. Noon came and went, with no sign of him.

Geiser was not concerned at first, as she figured Robinson might’ve simply been delayed somewhere along the trail. As nightfall approached, she realized the situation was growing more serious.

“That’s when you really start thinking, ‘What was his plan B,’” Geisler said.

Late that night, Geisler contacted the Summit County Sheriff’s Office and reported Robinson missing. Summit County notified neighboring Duchesne County shortly before 11 p.m., because the Uinta Highline Trail is primarily located in Duchesne County.

In an official report, a Duchesne deputy wrote, “Mr. Robinson is 11 hours overdue… As this individual is barely overdue, a full scale search at this point will not occur.”

When Robinson failed to emerge from the trail the following day, Duchesne County launched at official search and rescue mission.

A big snow year in the Uinta Mountains

Late July and early August are typically the best times of the year to hike the Uinta Highline Trail. Eric Robinson planned his trek with this in mind. However, 2011 was an abnormal year.

“It was a pretty treacherous year for the snowpack,” Geisler said. “When you’re looking at going over passes on a high alpine trail, that gets hairy quickly.”

The Uinta Mountains received a record-setting amount of snow the prior winter, and cool, wet weather in May significantly delayed the snowmelt. As a result, snow drifts that in most years are gone by June were still covering portions of the Uinta Highline Trail well into August.

Robinson’s Uinta Highline Trail itinerary required crossing 7 passes: North Pole, Anderson, Tungsten, Porcupine, Red Knob, Dead Horse and Rocky Sea. At the time of Robinson’s trek, potentially dangerous drifts covered portions of the Uinta Highline Trail at Anderson, Dead Horse and Rocky Sea.

Robinson carried a personal locator beacon, a distress signal device he could use to summon help if he became lost or injured. His wife, Marilyn Koolstra, could not understand why he hadn’t triggered it.

“Why didn’t it go off? Why haven’t we had a beacon? Because something significant has stopped him from doing that,” Koolstra said.

Retracing Eric Robinson’s steps

The winter of 2022-2023 shared many similarities with that of 2010-2011. Heavy snowfall and cool spring conditions meant many High Uinta trails were not accessible until mid-July. This provided an opportunity to better understand the conditions Eric Robinson likely encountered during his ill-fated trek.

Uinta Triangle host Dave Cawley arranged to hike Robinson’s itinerary, beginning from the same place, on the same date: Chepeta Lake on July 28.

Official reports note a pair of hikers encountered Robinson at Fox Lake two days later, on July 30. Fox Lake is due west of Chepeta Lake, along the Uinta Highline Trail.

“(One of the hikers) indicated that he spoke with Eric Robinson and he seemed to be in good spirits and excited to finish his hike,” Duchesne County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Dave Boren wrote in the report. “(The hiker) told us that he took a picture of Eric before leaving to continue their hike.”

This was the last known photograph of Eric Robinson.

However, it was not the last sighting of Robinson. A Boy Scout group encountered Robinson several miles off the Uinta Highline Trail a few days later. One of the adult leaders from that group spoke exclusively about that meeting. His account will feature in a future episode of the Uinta Triangle podcast.