MONTROSE — A mission nine years ago to recover a body from a sheer cliff face at the is paying off in a big way this week as ground is broken for a new building for the Montrose County Sheriff’s Posse.
Posse members helped recover the body of James Douglas McQueen, a North Carolina real estate developer, who was climbing in the Black Canyon with two friends from Australia in May 2003.
McQueen and his friends were 400 feet from the rim on an 1,800-foot route called Journey Home when McQueen slumped over and his fellow climbers determined he had died.
They secured him to the wall with climbing ropes and gear and climbed out of the canyon.
The next day, sheriff’s posse members, using a member’s helicopter and other equipment, worked with technical climbers to remove McQueen’s body from the wall on the canyon’s north rim. An autopsy determined he had died of a heart attack.
Six months later, a family member of McQueen’s contacted the posse to say that McQueen’s estate planned to donate funds for a storage space so the posse could properly store its equipment and vehicles. The posse had been storing these things outside the Montrose County Sheriff’s Office.
The donations came over the next eight years while McQueen’s estate was being liquidated. The money totalled abut $250,000.
Paul Gottlieb, a member of the 40-person posse, said the new building will be located close to the sheriff’s office and will allow equipment to be stored in one location indoors for the first time in the posse’s more than 50-year history.
Nancy Lofholm: 970-256-1957 or nlofholm@denverpost.com
