Vail Trail/Vail Daily Archive
30 years ago
18 August 1994
The body of 21-year-old Christian Burke of Avon was found on Mount of the Holy Cross. Burke had been missing for 10 days.
Three Vail Mountain rescuers and two hikers found Burke. Sheriff AJ Johnson said he apparently fell from the summit because his signature was found in the summit book, the Associated Press reported.
“Burke’s roommates said he had planned to hike alone into the Mount of the Holy Cross Wilderness Area on Aug. 8,” the Associated Press reported. “They reported him overdue when he had not returned home last Thursday. An initial search of more than 1,000 acres by Vail Mountain Rescue, canine teams and helicopters was called off after he was not found. The Burke family hired a medium, local hikers and rented a helicopter.”
40 years ago
24 August 1984
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The Vail Trail reported that the Vail City Council unanimously approved an annual request for cloud seeding funds to benefit Vail Associates.
“The city will share the $25,800 cost with the VA. The cost could be reduced if the area receives more snow than normal next winter,” the Trail reported. “The VA estimates that the release of silver iodide particles into the clouds by ground-based generators increases snowfall by 15 percent each year.”
The only opponents of cloud seeding came from the American Association of Retired Persons in Lake County and the Lake County Board of Commissioners, The Trail reported. “VA spokesman Joe Macy said snowmaking technology on Vail Mountain reaches up to 9,600 feet, and cloud seeding takes care of the remaining upper third of the mountain.”
50 years ago
24 August 2024
Hollywood actor and owner of Sundance Ski Resort Robert Redford attended the closing session of the fourth Vail Symposium and asked a question about solar versus nuclear energy development.
“Redford expressed the opinion that a moratorium should be placed on nuclear energy development, with the focus on solar energy,” the Vail Trail reported.
Dr. Beatrice Willard of the President’s Council on Environmental Quality and Dr. John J. Schanz, Jr. of Resources for the Future in Washington, DC, responded: “The entire society would have to be retooled to switch to solar energy, and immediate action in that direction would be ‘economically unfeasible,'” the Trail reported. “Willard added the hope that if the country invests as much in solar energy development today as it did in nuclear energy 20 years ago, it could switch entirely to solar energy by the year 2000.”
60 years ago
20 August 1964
Don Matlock of Bond was bitten by a rattlesnake while working on Texas Creek near Salida, the Eagle Valley Enterprise reported.
While working, Matlock heard an unfamiliar noise and when he looked down to see where the sound was coming from, “he felt a sting on his leg and saw a rattlesnake crawling away,” reported the Enterprise. “He cried out ‘Snake!’ and the others working with him immediately came and took him to Salida Hospital where he was given an antidote.”
Matlock recovered in hospital without serious after-effects, the Enterprise reported, and his jumpsuit probably saved his life, as the snake bit through the heavy fabric.
“There are no known rattlesnakes in the Bond-McCoy community where Don lives, so he was unfamiliar with the rattlesnake warning sound,” the Enterprise reported.
70 years ago
26 August 1954
Milton Sims Kramer, 22, was killed when his car went out of control on a curve a mile west of the intersection of Highways 6 and 24, the Eagle Valley Enterprise reported.
“The car was thrown 25 feet into the Eagle River,” the Eagle Valley Enterprise reported. “Kramer died almost instantly from a skull fracture.”
Kramer was a graduate of Dartmouth University and was scheduled to attend Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship that fall. He was also “a member of a prominent New York family,” the Enterprise reported.
About three hours later, a second gruesome accident occurred on the same curve, the Enterprise reported.
Camp Hale soldier Donald A. Naramore, 22, was the driver of the car and 18-year-old Bert Caudill was in the passenger seat. Caudill said Naramore had been drinking too much.
“Caudill said the last time he looked at the speedometer, it read 85 miles, and he crawled into the back seat,” the Enterprise reported.
“I have never prayed so fervently in my life,” Caudill said.
The car slid 35 meters, hit a cliff and traveled another 29 meters, rolling over several times.
Naramore’s leg was caught between the car frame and the door and “literally ripped out of the socket,” the Enterprise reported. “He was flown from Camp Hale to Camp Carson, where the leg was amputated and his condition was listed as critical.”
