The son of Colorado’s pre-eminent landscape photographer was found dead after apparently committing suicide Tuesday in a mountain valley where he had been skiing.
John Fielder III, 26, whose father is renowned for his coffee-table photography books depicting Colorado’s mountains, was found dead about 8 p.m. Tuesday evening after a three-hour search prompted by the elder Fielder’s missing-person call to the Clear Creek County sheriff’s department.
He had headed out alone on a backcountry ski trip into Butler Gulch, near Empire, about 7:30 that morning, and authorities were alerted by mid-afternoon that something was wrong, said Bill Barwick, spokesman for the Alpine Rescue Team and one of the searchers.
“We had the advantage of one of his friends knowing the area that they would normally go skiing into, and he was able to take us up into the general area,” Barwick said.
Searchers found his body about 8 p.m., and spent the next three hours carrying Fielder down treacherous snow slopes and over trail to the Jones Gulch trailhead, just off U.S. 40, Barwick said.
Sheriff’s Lt. Rick Albers declined to reveal the cause of death or any details of the case while it remains under investigation.
Fielder said his son committed suicide.
Friends and collaborators indicated that the younger Fielder, known as “JT” was his father’s pride and joy and as passionate about the mountains as his father.
His website on MySpace.com carries several photographs of him skiing in France and Italy and off cliffs in Colorado.
He was a 2002 graduate from the University of Colorado with a marketing degree.
