The year-long search for 27-year-old Jack McAtee stretched from Colorado to California to Alaska, and covered emotional territory from hope to desperation to peace.
It ended this week with DNA confirmation that a skull found in August by hikers on the steep slopes above the town of Frisco was in fact the adventure-loving young man who struggled with bipolar disorder.
Though relieved that the discovery might finally lead to closure, Steve McAtee, Jack’s father, could still only speculate on the path his son followed to the place where he died. He had sought clues from one of his son’s favorite books, Jon Krakauer’s best-seller “Into the Wild.”
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“The skull was three and a half miles, as the crow flies, from the back door of the Summit County Medical Center,” he said. “He left out the back door, still in a manic state, and headed to an area he knew very well — the peaks of the Tenmile Range. I assume he walked straight to the top of Peak 1. Whether he slipped or jumped intentionally, God only knows.”
McAtee’s sudden disappearance last fall came the day after he launched his car into Dillon Reservoir and escaped with only a cut above his left eye. He claimed to have fallen asleep at the wheel.
Although the state trooper investigating the accident observed no evidence of drugs or alcohol, he did note that McAtee’s behavior fluctuated between “annoyance and happiness” and suspected the crash might have been a suicide attempt.
A friend told authorities that McAtee had talked about quitting his job in Breckenridge and hitchhiking. In fact, McAtee had asked a state trooper about hitching on the interstate and possible western destinations.
Moab, the trooper said.
After getting medical clearance, McAtee was taken on a mental health hold to jail, where his mood vacillated from tears to high spirits. He met with a psychologist the next day, Sept. 19, 2014, and was released.
Wearing blue jeans, moccasins and a hooded sweatshirt, with $64 and some credit cards, he disappeared.
That began a massive but ultimately frustrating effort by McAtee’s family, which lives in the St. Louis area, to unravel what happened to him. The search enlisted local authorities and everyone from search and rescue workers to hunters to truckers to small-town librarians.
The family also created to aid in the search.
But ultimately, it was hikers who randomly stumbled upon the skull, although no other remains were found and no cause of death determined yet in an ongoing investigation.
“I can’t think of anything we could’ve done that we didn’t,” Steve McAtee said. “We were just blessed to have so much cooperation around the country from people who cared, whose nerve was struck by the situation. We had hoped our search would end differently, but we knew going into it that it was a 50-50 chance.”
When Summit County authorities notified the family in August of the discovery of the remains, Steve McAtee termed the finding “inconsequential at this stage.”
But realistically, he suspected the news lengthened the odds of finding Jack alive, even as the family continued to pursue its search while awaiting the DNA analysis.
“I’d been waiting in suspended animation since that news came, continuing to search out West, even the last month or so, with the web site and people that were doing things for us in Alaska and northern California,” he said. “But I have to say, we were probably more in line with the possibility that (skull) was Jack.”
Jack McAtee thrived on adventure. He grew up on a 100-acre horse farm outside of St. Louis and developed an affinity for the Colorado mountains on family ski trips from the time he was 6 years old.
Eventually, he turned his attention to becoming a student pilot, and accompanied his uncle and other former fighter pilots on a flight to Alaska in home-built aircraft, an excursion called
But he also displayed an empathy for people who were down and out. Jack once spent a month living and working in a homeless shelter in downtown St. Louis. Later, he would work in Denver soup kitchens with other members of his non-denominational church in Breckenridge.
Jack’s family describes him as a gifted writer who fancied himself a poet. After high school he enrolled in the journalism school at the University of Missouri, about 90 minutes away in Columbia.
He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 20. During his sophomore year, an episode triggered a family intervention — one of three such incidents in his lifetime — and Jack left school to get help.
After that, he moved to Colorado to “start over.”
“He was a real spiritual guy with a soft heart, and at the same time, had an incredible gift for adventure,” his father said. “Jack just had such a love for the mountains. One time, he and another friend, in the middle of a really bad snowstorm at midnight, skinned their way to the top of Buffalo Mountain and snowboarded down — and lived to laugh about it.”
And so the hope, when Jack disappeared last year, was that perhaps he had sought temporary escape in the mountains that he loved. He had found a kindred spirit, in some ways, in Chris McCandless, a young man who trekked into the Alaskan wilderness, where he died and became the subject of Krakauer’s book.
Meanwhile, Steve McAtee, his wife Ellen and their four adult daughters arrived in Colorado and launched a search. For 42 days, they blanketed the trail system south of Frisco, stopping every hiker they saw and showing them a picture of Jack.
They extended the search to the Gore Range north of Interstate 70 from Silverthorne to Kremmling, relying on the help of the Summit County Sheriff’s Office and volunteers to put on a “full-court press” that plastered each trail head with Jack’s image.
They enlisted hunters venturing into the autumn wilderness. Small-town librarians printed hard copies of photos from the family’s web site and posted them on the outskirts where so-called “travelers,” individuals living off the grid, might recognize his face.
As Jack’s disappearance continued from last fall into the winter months, Steve McAtee combed through Krakauer’s book for other possible clues to his son’s actions.
But while there were similarities between Jack and McCandless — the spirit of adventure and an ability to survive in the wild for an extended time — there also were significant differences.
Jack had a strong connection with his family and a well-defined spiritual influence in his life. He also had bipolar disorder that, in a manic state, could point him toward decisions that might threaten his survival.
“The similarities have a lot to do with character, somebody who’s a principled person who does what he says he’s going to do,” Steve McAtee said. “Jack loved the book, and that’s what got us into the winter months, as we continued searching into areas prone to people who live off the grid.”
As temperatures dropped, the family clung to the hope that Jack might have headed for a homeless shelter. They sought the help of truckers and extended the scope of their search to Moab, then California, then north to Alaska. There, they contacted fisheries that often see workers seeking short-term, high-paying jobs and a life off the grid.
“We searched every avenue we could,” his father said.
Although Jack had mentioned plans to leave the area, Steve McAtee notes that likely occurred in his manic state. A relationship that Jack perceived as a budding romance did not materialize, which the family thinks may have triggered his decision to stop taking his medication.
“Jack functioned like a Swiss watch as long as took his medication,” his father said. “But like everyone who suffers from bipolar disease, that manic feeling is something they don’t want to do away with.”
Steve McAtee said that other than Jack’s bipolar disorder, the family has no history of mental illness. But Steve’s father, a former judge, nearly 30 years ago created to dozens of St. Louis-area police officers who make a positive difference in the lives of people suffering from mental illness.
“It’s a bit ironic,” said Steve, “and yet it’s a cause near and dear to our hearts — now more than ever.”
The family has asked that those wishing to honor their son’s memory make a contribution to Living Water International in Kenya.
Next year, in late summer or early spring, the McAtee family plans to return to Summit County and hike as close as they can to the area where Jack’s remains were found.
“There’s a certain closeness our family feels when we’re around that area, knowing that’s where he’s interred — just shy of the 12,900-foot peak,” Steve McAtee said. “It’s just a shale field at 45-degree slope. I know I’ll never get on the shale field, but I can get to top of Peak 1. All of us plan on getting to that.”
Both the search for their son and brother, and its resolution, have cemented the McAtees’ bonds.
“We as a family are very confident we’ll see Jack again,” his father said. “We have a strong faith, and his mirrored ours. Because of that, we have a certain amount of extreme peace knowing the end of the story.”
Kevin Simpson: 303-954-1739, ksimpson@denverpost.com or @ksimpsondp
