In the summer of 2017, two climbers ascending the eastern face of Mount Hooker in Wyoming’s Wind River Range discovered something that would rewrite the story of a disappearance that had haunted the mountaineering community for 4 years. Suspended nearly 800 ft above the ground, frozen in time on the sheer granite wall, were two portaledges, their fabric weathered and torn by years of wind and ice.
Inside each hanging tent was a sleeping bag, and within those bags were the remains of two people who had simply vanished without a trace. The discovery would reveal a mystery far darker than anyone had imagined. On July 15th, 2013, 28-year-old structural engineer David Kramer and his girlfriend, 26-year-old medical student Jessica Parson, left the small town of Lander, Wyoming, with plans to attempt a 5-day climb up Mount Hooker’s notorious eastern wall.
The couple had been climbing together for 3 years and were known in their local climbing community as cautious, experienced, and well-prepared. David worked for a construction firm in Boulder, Colorado, and Jessica was in her final year of residency at Denver General Hospital. They had saved for months to take this trip, scheduling it during Jessica’s only week off that summer.
According to the owner of the Wild Peak Climbing Shop in Lander, the couple came in 2 days before their climb to purchase additional gear. The shop owner, Thomas Green, later told investigators that they spent over an hour reviewing their equipment list, checking ropes, carabiners, and their portaledges, the hanging tents that would serve as their beds on the vertical wall.
Thomas remembered that David seemed particularly focused on weather forecasts, asking multiple times about incoming storms. Jessica was quieter, but she smiled often and seemed excited. They bought extra water purification tablets, energy bars, and a backup headlamp. Thomas said they looked like any other experienced team preparing for a big wall climb, thorough, careful, and confident.
On the morning of July 16th, David and Jessica checked out of the Mountain Rest Inn where they had stayed for two nights. The motel manager, an older woman named Claire Hudson, recalled that the couple left early, around 5:30 in the morning. They were carrying massive backpacks filled with climbing gear, ropes, food, and camping equipment.
Claire asked them when they planned to return, and David told her they would be back by July 21st at the latest. He paid for the room in advance and left a contact number for his brother in case of emergency. Claire said they both seemed in good spirits, talking about the route and the views they would see from the wall.
The drive to the trailhead took about 90 minutes. David’s blue Ford truck was later found parked at the base access point, locked and undisturbed. Inside the glove compartment was a handwritten note with their planned route, emergency contacts, and an estimated return date of July 20th or 21st.
The note also included a reference to their climbing permits, which had been filed with the Bridger-Teton National Forest Service 3 weeks earlier. Everything was in order. Everything was planned. On the afternoon of July 16th, a group of day hikers saw two climbers beginning their ascent on the lower section of Mount Hooker’s east face.
The hikers did not speak to them, but watched for several minutes as the pair moved steadily upward, one belaying while the other climbed. The description matched David and Jessica, one wearing a red helmet, the other in blue. That was the last confirmed sighting of them alive. By July 22nd, when the couple had not returned, David’s brother, Andrew Kramer, a 32-year-old accountant from Fort Collins, drove to Lander and contacted the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office.
Deputy Sheriff Raymond Cole took the initial report and noted that the couple was now 2 days overdue. He immediately coordinated with the National Park Search and Rescue Team. Within hours, a search operation was launched. The search team included 15 people, park rangers, volunteer climbers, and two helicopter pilots experienced in mountain rescue.
They focused on the eastern wall of Mount Hooker, a granite face over 1,200 ft high, known for its technical difficulty and unpredictable weather. The helicopters flew close to the wall, scanning for any signs of the climbers, bright clothing, gear, or movement. They found nothing. Ground teams hiked to the base and began searching the lower sections of the wall and the surrounding forest.
On the third day of the search, rescuers discovered a single climbing anchor wedged into a crack about 300 ft up the wall. It was new, consistent with the type of gear David and Jessica had purchased. But there were no ropes attached, no signs of a fall, and no other equipment nearby. It was as if they had simply started climbing and then disappeared into the rock itself.
The search continued for 2 weeks. Teams scoured the base of the wall looking for bodies or gear that might have fallen. Helicopters returned again and again, flying in different light conditions, hoping to spot something that had been missed. Volunteers checked every ledge, every crack, every possible place where a climber might have taken shelter or become stranded. They found nothing.
No clothing, no backpacks, no ropes, no bodies. The forest and the mountain offered no answers. On August 5th, 2013, the official search was suspended. The case was classified as a missing person’s investigation, and the file was left open. Deputy Cole, who had led much of the ground operation, told reporters that the couple had likely fallen from the wall, and their bodies had landed in a location that was inaccessible or hidden by terrain.
He suggested that further searches would be conducted in the spring when snow melted and visibility improved. But spring came and nothing changed. In 2014, Andrew Kramer returned to Wyoming and hired a private search team. They spent a week combing the area with drones and climbing specialists. They found old gear from other climbers, remnants of campsites, and weathered ropes, but nothing that belonged to David or Jessica.
The investigation went cold. Theories spread among the climbing community. Some believed the couple had been caught in a sudden rockfall. Others thought they might have miscalculated their route and become stranded on an unclimbable section of the wall. A few suggested that they had fallen during the night and their bodies had been carried away by wildlife or buried under shifting debris.
But none of these theories explained the complete absence of evidence. In online forums and at climbing gatherings, people still mentioned their names, two skilled climbers who had simply vanished on a wall that dozens of others had climbed before and after them. Jessica’s mother, Linda Parson, a retired school teacher from Pennsylvania, kept a small website updated with photos of her daughter and pleas for information.
Every few months, she would post a new message asking anyone who climbed in the Wind River Range to keep an eye out for any signs. David’s father, a quiet man named Gerald Kramer, visited the mountain twice a year, hiking to the base and sitting for hours, staring up at the wall where his son had last been seen.
Neither family held a funeral. Without bodies, they couldn’t bring themselves to say goodbye. The years passed slowly. By 2016, most people had accepted that David Kramer and Jessica Parson were gone, lost somewhere in the wilderness, their final moments known only to the mountain. Then, on June 8th, 2017, two experienced climbers from California, 34-year-old photographer Nathan Cross and his climbing partner, 29-year-old software engineer Riley Webb, began their own attempt on Mount Hooker’s eastern face. They had planned the climb
for over a year, studying route maps and reading reports from previous ascents. Neither of them knew about the couple who had disappeared 4 years earlier. They started their climb early in the morning, moving efficiently up the lower pitches. By mid-afternoon, they had reached a point about 600 ft up the wall and were preparing to set up their portaledge for the night.
Nathan was leading a pitch when he noticed something unusual about 200 ft above and to his right. At first, he thought it was a shadow or a discoloration in the rock. But as he climbed higher and the angle changed, he realized he was looking at fabric, weathered and gray, flapping slightly in the wind. He called down to Riley, who was belaying from below, and told him what he saw.
They decided to finish the pitch and then traverse across the wall to investigate. It took them nearly an hour to reach the spot. What they found stopped them cold. Suspended on the granite face were two portaledges, hanging side by side about 15 ft apart. The fabric of the tents was torn in places, faded by years of sun and wind.
The aluminum frames were still intact, holding the platform steady against the wall. Nathan pulled himself level with the first portaledge and looked inside. There, partially visible through the open flap of a sleeping bag, was a human skull. The rest of the skeleton was still enclosed in the bag, the bones undisturbed, as if the person had simply gone to sleep and never woken up.
Nathan’s hands were shaking as he clipped into the anchor point and called out to Riley. His voice, according to Riley’s later testimony, was barely steady. Riley climbed across and looked into the second portaledge. Inside was another sleeping bag, and inside that bag was another skeleton. Both bodies were still dressed in climbing clothing, the synthetic materials preserved by the cold and dry air.
There were no signs of trauma, no visible injuries, no indication of a struggle or a fall. The climbers looked as if they had simply laid down to rest. Nathan took several photographs with his camera, carefully not to disturb anything. Then he and Riley retreated to a ledge about 50 ft below and called for help using a satellite phone.
The call was received by the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office at 4:47 in the afternoon. Deputy Raymond Cole, now a senior officer, immediately recognized the location. He had been part of the original search in 2013 and knew that this was likely the missing couple. A helicopter was dispatched within the hour, but the location of the portaledges made a direct recovery impossible.
The wall was too steep and the anchors too fragile to risk landing or lowering rescue personnel from above. It was decided that a specialized recovery team would ascend the wall the following morning. That night, Nathan and Riley stayed on the wall, setting up their own portaledge about 100 ft below the site. Neither of them slept much.
Riley later said that the wind sounded different that night, as if the mountain itself was exhaling something it had held for too long. On the morning of June 9th, a team of five climbers, including two forensic specialists and a deputy sheriff, began the ascent. They reached the portaledges by early afternoon.
The lead investigator, a forensic expert named Dr. Paul Jennings, carefully documented the scene before anything was moved. His report, later filed with the county coroner, described the site in detail. Both portaledges were securely anchored to the wall using bolts and cams placed in the rock. The anchors showed no signs of failure or slippage.
The sleeping bags were high-quality models designed for cold weather, and both were zipped closed from the inside. Inside the first portaledge, the skeleton was lying on its back, arms at its sides. The clothing included a thermal base layer, a fleece jacket, and climbing pants. A small headlamp was clipped to the edge of the sleeping bag, its battery long dead.
Next to the body was a water bottle, empty, and a small notebook with a pen tucked inside. The second portaledge contained a similar scene. The body was positioned almost identically, lying flat with the sleeping bag zipped up. There was a half-eaten energy bar in a plastic wrapper near the head of the bag, and a pair of gloves tucked under the edge of the sleeping pad.
Both portaledges also contained climbing gear, ropes coiled neatly, carabiners organized on a gear loop, and a small stuff sack with personal items. Dr. Jennings noted that there were no signs of panic, no scattered equipment, and no indication that either person had tried to escape or call for help. Everything was orderly, almost peaceful.
The bodies were carefully removed from the sleeping bags and lowered to the base of the wall in separate operations that took most of the day. By evening, both remains had been transported to the State Medical Examiner’s Office in Cheyenne. The portaledges and all the gear were also taken as evidence.
That same day, Deputy Cole contacted Andrew Kramer and Linda Parson. According to his report, both families had been waiting for this call for 4 years, but hearing it was no less devastating. Andrew asked only one question, were they together? Cole told him yes. The next morning, dental records confirmed what everyone already knew.
The remains belonged to David Kramer and Jessica Parson. The news spread quickly. Local and national media picked up the story, and within days it was being discussed on climbing forums, news websites, and social media. The mystery of how two experienced climbers could disappear on a well-traveled route and remain undiscovered for 4 years captivated the public.
But the bigger question was why? Why had they died in their sleeping bags with no signs of injury or distress? The Medical Examiner’s Office began a full investigation. Dr. Raymond Holt, the chief examiner, conducted autopsies on both sets of remains. His findings were released 3 weeks later in a detailed report.
Both skeletons showed no signs of trauma, no broken bones, no fractures, no evidence of a fall or strike from rockfall. The teeth were intact, the skulls undamaged. Toxicology tests were impossible due to the decomposition of soft tissue, but Dr. Holt was able to analyze bone marrow and residual material from the stomach area.
In both cases, he found traces of a substance that gave him pause. It was a compound consistent with over-the-counter pain medication, but in concentrations that suggested a significant quantity had been ingested. He could not determine whether the levels were lethal, but he noted in his report that the findings were unusual. The clothing and gear were examined by a forensic analyst named Tracy Gwyn, who specialized in outdoor and survival equipment.
Her report noted that all the gear was in excellent condition, well-maintained, and appropriate for the climb. The ropes showed no signs of damage or wear that would suggest a fall. The anchors were placed correctly, and the portaledges were set up according to standard practice. There was no mechanical failure, no equipment malfunction.
Everything had worked exactly as it should have. But Tracy found something else. In the small notebook recovered from David’s portaledge, there were entries written in pencil. The handwriting was shaky in places, but legible. The notebook had been kept in a waterproof pouch, which preserved it despite years of exposure.
When investigators opened it, they found a log of the climb written day by day. The first entry was dated July 16th, 2013, and read, “Day one, started climb at 7:00 a.m., weather clear, made good progress, reached first bivy site by 4:00 p.m., feeling strong, Jess is happy, everything going smooth.” The second entry, dated July 17th, was similar in tone.
“Day two, woke at dawn, continued up the main dihedral, rock quality good, placed solid pro, reached 500 ft by midday, set portaledges early, weather still holding, beautiful sunset, we’re right on schedule.” The third entry, dated July 18th, was where the tone began to shift. “Day three, Jess woke up with a headache, gave her ibuprofen, she says it’s just altitude, we’re moving slower today, made it another 150 ft, sky is getting hazy, might be weather coming in, will assess in the morning.
” The fourth entry, July 19th, was shorter and the handwriting less steady. “Day four, Jess is worse, says her head is pounding, nausea, dizziness, I don’t think it’s altitude, we’re not that high, gave her more meds, she’s resting now, I’m going to wait and see how she feels tonight, if she’s not better, we might have to descend.
” The fifth entry, dated July 20th, was only a few lines. “Day five, Jess can’t climb, she’s too weak, throwing up, can’t keep water down, I’m scared, tried the sat phone, no signal, we’re too close to the wall, going to try to get her down, but she can’t move, she keeps saying she’s sorry, I told her it’s okay, we’ll figure it out.
” The final entry, dated July 21st, was written in a shaky, nearly illegible scrawl. “She’s not waking up, I gave her everything I had, all the meds, she’s breathing, but barely, I can’t get her down alone, I tried calling again, nothing, it’s getting cold, I’m staying with her, I’m not leaving her, if anyone finds this, we didn’t fall, we didn’t fail, she just got sick, tell her mom we love the mountains, tell my brother I’m sorry.
” The notebook ended there. When Deputy Cole read the entries aloud to the investigative team, the room went silent. The pieces were falling into place, but the picture they formed was heartbreaking. Dr. Holt reviewed the findings again in light of the journal. He consulted with specialists in wilderness medicine and high-altitude pathology.
His supplemental report, issued in early July 2017, concluded that Jessica Parson had likely suffered from a sudden and severe medical event, possibly cerebral edema, a condition where fluid builds up in the brain, or a rapid infection that caused neurological symptoms. Without proper medical intervention, the condition would have been fatal.
The high concentration of pain medication in both bodies suggested that David had given Jessica everything he had to try to ease her suffering, and when she died, he had taken the rest himself, choosing not to attempt a solo descent. The scenario was consistent with the evidence. Jessica had become ill, David had stayed with her, and when it became clear she would not survive, he made the decision to remain by her side.
The report stated, “The positioning of the bodies, the lack of trauma, and the written account all indicate that the male subject chose to stay with the female subject until the end, and subsequently succumbed either to exposure, dehydration, or intentional overdose. It was not a murder. It was not an accident in the traditional sense.
It was a tragedy born of love and isolation. If you’re finding this story as haunting as we are, please take a moment to like this video and subscribe to the channel so you never miss stories that reveal the thin line between adventure and tragedy. The families were given the full reports. Andrew Kramer read his brother’s journal entries and wept.
He told investigators that David had always been protective, always the kind of person who would never leave someone behind. Linda Parson, Jessica’s mother, requested a copy of the final entry and kept it in a frame on her desk. She said it gave her peace to know that her daughter had not been alone. A memorial service was held in Boulder, Colorado, on August 3rd, 2017.
Over 200 people attended, including climbers, friends, family and members of the search and rescue teams who had looked for them four years earlier. Nathan Cross and Riley Webb, the climbers who had found the bodies also came. Nathan gave a short speech in which he said, “We climb because we love the mountains, but the mountains do not love us back.
They are indifferent and sometimes that indifference is cruel. David and Jessica understood that and they climbed anyway together.” The bodies were cremated and the ashes were scattered at the base of Mount Hooker in a quiet clearing surrounded by pine trees where the wind carried them up toward the peaks. The investigation officially closed in September 2017, but the story did not end there.
Climbers who frequent the Wind River Range began leaving small tokens at the base of the Eastern Wall, carabiners, notes, flowers, a tradition that continues to this day. On online forums, the case of David Kramer and Jessica Partson became a topic of deep discussion. Many climbers debated what they would have done in David’s position.
Some said they would have tried to descend alone and get help. Others said they would have stayed just as he did. There was no right answer, only the cold reality that in the mountains sometimes there are no good choices. In late 2017, a journalist named Owen Fletcher wrote a long-form article about the case for a national outdoor magazine.
The piece explored not only the events on the wall, but the psychology of commitment, love, and decision-making in extreme environments. Owen interviewed Andrew Kramer, Linda Partson, Deputy Cole, and several of the climbers involved in the recovery. The article ended with a quote from Andrew. “My brother didn’t die because he made a mistake.
He died because he refused to leave the person he loved. I don’t know if that makes him a hero or a fool, maybe both, but I know he wouldn’t have done it any other way.” The article was widely read and sparked conversations about safety, rescue protocols, and the ethics of risk in climbing. Some argued that David should have tried harder to save himself.
Others saw his choice as the ultimate act of devotion. There were no easy answers, only the stark truth that the mountains are unforgiving and love does not guarantee survival. Meanwhile, forensic analysts continued to study the gear in the site. Tracy Gwyn, the equipment specialist, published a technical report noting that the portaledges had remained functional for over four years in harsh conditions, a testament to their design.
She also noted that the placement of the anchors was textbook, which meant that David had set up their final camp with care even in the face of crisis. The satellite phone recovered from David’s pack was sent to a lab for analysis. Technicians determined that the device had been functional, but the location on the wall, deep in a granite corner, had made it impossible to acquire a signal.
The phone’s call log showed 11 attempted calls between July 19th and July 21st, all of them failed. On the last day, David had tried four times in a row, each attempt lasting less than 10 seconds before the signal dropped. It was a detail that made the tragedy even more crushing. Help had been just out of reach.
In early 2018, the National Park Service installed a small plaque at the trailhead leading to Mount Hooker. It read, “In memory of David Kramer and Jessica Partson, climbers, partners, lost July 2013, found June 2017, the mountains remember.” The plaque became a pilgrimage site for climbers passing through the area. People would stop, read the inscription, and leave small stones stacked in cairns nearby.
Some left notes tucked into cracks in the rocks, messages of respect, sorrow, and solidarity. Dr. Paul Jennings, the forensic investigator who had led the recovery operation, gave a lecture at the University of Wyoming in March 2018 about the case. He spoke to a room full of students studying criminal justice, wilderness medicine, and search and rescue techniques.
His lecture was titled, “When the Mountain Becomes the Crime Scene.” In it, he explained the unique challenges of investigating deaths in remote, vertical environments. He showed photographs of the portaledges, the skeletal remains, and the positioning of the bodies. He read excerpts from David’s journal, his voice quiet and measured.
At the end of the lecture, a student asked him what he thought David’s final hours had been like. Dr. Jennings paused for a long time before answering. “I think he knew exactly what was happening,” he said. “I think he made a conscious choice to stay, not because he had given up, but because leaving would have meant abandoning everything he believed in.
In the end, he chose love over survival and I’m not sure any of us can judge that.” The room remained silent after he finished speaking. Some students wiped their eyes. Others sat staring at the images on the screen trying to comprehend the weight of such a decision. The case also prompted changes in climbing safety protocols.
Several guide services and climbing organizations began recommending that all multi-day climbs include backup communication devices, personal locator beacons, and updated emergency action plans. The Wind River Climbing Coalition published a safety bulletin that specifically referenced the Kramer-Partson case urging climbers to carry redundant systems and to establish check-in schedules with people on the ground.
Some criticized these measures as overreach arguing that part of climbing’s appeal is the acceptance of risk and self-reliance. But others, particularly those who had lost friends in the mountains, welcomed the changes. One climbing instructor in Jackson, Wyoming began including a segment in his courses called The Decision Point where he discussed real cases including David and Jessica’s and asked students to consider what they would do in similar situations.
There were no right answers in these discussions, only hard questions. Meanwhile, the personal belongings recovered from the portaledges were returned to the families. Andrew Kramer received his brother’s notebook, his headlamp, and a small silver ring that David had worn on a chain around his neck. The ring had belonged to their grandfather, a World War II veteran, and David had carried it on every climb.
Andrew later had the ring mounted in a shadow box along with a photograph of David and Jessica taken at the summit of a peak in Colorado, both of them smiling, wind in their hair, the world spread out below them. Linda Partson received her daughter’s climbing harness, her journal, which contained notes about medical school and sketches of mountains, and a small leather pouch that held a folded piece of paper.
On the paper in Jessica’s handwriting was a list. It read, “Things I want to do: finish residency, climb El Capitan, marry David, see the northern lights, learn to play piano, have a garden.” The list was unfinished, the ink slightly smudged as if she had written it quickly during a quiet moment. Linda kept the paper in a frame on her bedside table.
She said it reminded her that her daughter had lived fully even if her life had been cut short. In the years following the discovery, several documentaries and podcasts covered the story. One podcast called Elevation dedicated an entire episode to the case interviewing Andrew, Linda, Nathan Cross, and Deputy Raymond Cole.
The episode was downloaded over a million times and sparked renewed interest in the dangers of remote climbing. A short documentary titled The Wall premiered at the Banff Mountain Film Festival in 2019 featuring interviews, recreation footage, and haunting aerial shots of Mount Hooker’s Eastern Face. The film ended with a slow pan across the wall, the camera lingering on the spot where the portaledges had hung, now empty, the anchors still visible as small metal points against the gray stone. The film won awards for
cinematography and storytelling, but more than that, it became a tribute, a way of ensuring that David and Jessica were remembered not just as victims, but as climbers who had loved the mountains and each other. Nathan Cross, the photographer who had discovered the bodies, continued to climb, but he said the experience changed him.
In an interview two years later, he admitted that he thought about David and Jessica on every climb. “You can’t unsee something like that,” he said. “It stays with you. It makes you more careful, but it also makes you more aware of why we do this. We climb because we’re alive and sometimes the price of that is higher than we want to pay.
” Riley Webb, his climbing partner, eventually stopped climbing big walls altogether. He said the discovery had taken something from him, a sense of invincibility perhaps, or the belief that preparation and skill were always enough. He shifted to shorter routes, day climbs, places where he could always see the ground.
He did not regret finding the bodies, he said, but he wished the mountain had kept its secret a little longer. For the families, life moved forward, but slowly. Andrew Kramer became involved in mountain safety advocacy giving talks at climbing gyms and outdoor clubs about the importance of communication, planning, and knowing when to turn back.
He spoke openly about his brother’s choice and the pain of losing him, but also about the strength it took to stay. “David wasn’t weak,” Andrew would say. “He was the strongest person I knew and he made the hardest choice anyone can make.” Linda Partson retired from teaching and moved to a small town in Montana closer to the mountains.
She said she felt closer to Jessica there. Every year on the anniversary of her daughter’s death, she hiked to a nearby peak and sat at the summit for an hour, looking out at the ranges in the distance. She said it helped her feel connected not to the tragedy, but to the part of Jessica that had loved the wilderness and the height.
In 2020, a team of climbers completed the same route on Mount Hooker that David and Jessica had attempted. They carried a small banner with the couple’s names on it and left it tied to one of the anchors near the spot where the portaledges had been. The banner read, “David and Jessica, you are not forgotten.
” A photograph of the banner was posted online and shared thousands of times. Climbers from around the world commented, offering condolences, sharing their own stories of loss, and reflecting on the fine line between adventure and disaster. The case became a reference point in the climbing community, a reminder that even the most prepared can be undone by circumstances beyond their control.
Deputy Raymond Cole retired from the Sheriff’s office in 2021. In his final interview before leaving, he was asked what case had stayed with him the most. Without hesitation, he said it was David and Jessica. “I’ve worked a lot of cases,” he said, “but that one, that one broke my heart because they did everything right and it still wasn’t enough.
” He kept a copy of David’s journal entries in a folder in his desk drawer, and on difficult days he would read them, not because they made him feel better, but because they reminded him why the work mattered. Dr. Raymond Holt, the medical examiner, also spoke publicly about the case in a lecture on wilderness fatalities.
He emphasized that Jessica’s death was likely unavoidable given the circumstances. “She needed a hospital, advanced imaging for fluids, possibly surgery,” he said. “None of that was available. David did what he could, and when it wasn’t enough, he stayed. That’s not a failure, that’s humanity.” His words resonated with many in the medical and rescue communities, who understood that sometimes despite all knowledge and training, there is nothing to be done.
If this story has moved you, please consider sharing it with others who respect the power of the mountains and the weight of the choices we make in them, and don’t forget to hit the bell icon so you’re notified whenever we post a new story. The climbing community continued to honor David and Jessica in various ways over the following years.
In 2021, a memorial scholarship was established in their names at the University of Colorado, where David had studied engineering. The scholarship was awarded annually to a student who demonstrated both academic excellence and a passion for outdoor recreation. The first recipient was a young woman studying environmental engineering who had spent her summers working as a climbing instructor.
She said receiving the scholarship felt like a responsibility to live fully and climb safely to honor those who had come before. Jessica’s medical school also created a memorial fund in her name, supporting students who showed exceptional compassion and dedication to patient care. Linda Parson attended the first award ceremony and met the recipient, a third-year student who had read about Jessica’s story and been deeply moved by it.
The student told Linda that Jessica’s dedication to both medicine and the mountains had inspired her to pursue emergency wilderness medicine as a specialty. Linda embraced her and said, “She would have liked you.” The online climbing forums where David and Jessica’s story had first been discussed continued to see new posts years after the discovery.
Young climbers who were just learning about the case would ask questions, seek advice, and reflect on what they would do in a similar situation. Veteran climbers would share their own close calls, moments when weather, illness, or injury had forced them to make hard decisions. The threads became a place of learning, not just about technique or gear, but about judgment, humility, and the acceptance of limits.
One climber wrote, “We like to think we control the outcome if we’re skilled enough, strong enough, prepared enough, but David and Jessica proved that’s not always true. Sometimes the mountain decides and all we can do is choose how we face it.” In 2022, a climber named Vanessa Cole, no relation to Deputy Raymond Cole, attempted a solo ascent of Mount Hooker’s eastern face.
She was an experienced alpinist with dozens of big wall climbs to her credit. Before beginning her climb, she visited the plaque at the trailhead and spent several minutes reading the inscription. She later wrote in her blog that the memorial had made her reconsider her approach. She decided to bring an extra communication device, a satellite messenger with GPS tracking, and she established a strict check-in schedule with a friend on the ground.
She completed the climb successfully and wrote afterward, “I thought about them every day I was on that wall. I don’t know if David and Jessica’s story made me more cautious or just more aware, but I know I didn’t take a single moment for granted.” Her post was shared widely and sparked a new wave of discussion about how tragedy shaped the culture of climbing, how the losses of others become lessons for those who follow.
In the summer of 2023, 10 years after David and Jessica had begun their final climb, a group of their friends organized a gathering at the base of Mount Hooker. Over 30 people attended, friends from college, fellow climbers, co-workers, and family members. They set up a small camp near the trailhead and spent the weekend sharing stories, looking at old photographs, and remembering the couple not as statistics or cautionary tales, but as people who had lived with passion and joy.
Andrew Kramer spoke to the group on the final evening. He stood near a campfire, the flames casting shadows on his face, and he talked about his brother. He said that David had always been the kind of person who believed in commitment to his work, to his friends, to the people he loved. “He didn’t leave Jessica because leaving would have meant betraying who he was,” Andrew said.
“I’ve spent 10 years trying to make peace with that, and I think I finally have. He made the choice that felt right to him, and I have to respect that even if it breaks my heart.” Linda Parson also spoke. She talked about Jessica’s love of the mountains, her curiosity, her determination, and her kindness. She said that her daughter had lived more fully in 26 years than many people do in a lifetime.
“She wasn’t reckless,” Linda said. “She was brave and there’s a difference. She knew the risks and she chose to climb anyway because the mountains gave her something she couldn’t find anywhere else. I miss her every day, but I’m grateful she got to do what she loved.” The gathering ended with a moment of silence, and then one by one, people walked to the edge of the clearing and placed stones on a growing cairn, a simple, quiet monument to two lives that had ended too soon.
The wind moved through the trees and somewhere high above, the eastern face of Mount Hooker stood silent and unchanging, indifferent to the grief and love gathered at its base. In the years since, the case of David Kramer and Jessica Parson has been referenced in training manuals, safety seminars, and academic studies on decision-making in extreme environments.
Psychologists have analyzed David’s choice through the lens of attachment theory, moral philosophy, and crisis behavior. Some have called it irrational, others have called it heroic, but most agree that it was deeply human. One researcher, Dr. Ellen Frost, published a paper titled Love and Lethality: Decision-Making on the Vertical Frontier, in which she examined several cases where climbers had chosen to stay with injured or dying partners rather than attempt self-rescue.
She concluded that these decisions, while often fatal, were consistent with deeply held values of loyalty and connection. “In the end,” she wrote, “these individuals chose relationship over survival, a choice that defies evolutionary logic but affirms something essential about what it means to be human.” The paper was widely cited and became required reading in several wilderness medicine programs.
Mount Hooker itself remains a popular climbing destination. The eastern face sees dozens of ascents each year, and climbers continue to pass the spot where David and Jessica spent their final days. Some leave small tokens, others simply pause and reflect. The mountain does not judge, it simply exists, a stage on which human dramas play out, sometimes with triumph, sometimes with tragedy.
The portaledges and gear recovered from the site were eventually donated to a climbing museum in Boulder, where they are displayed as part of an exhibit on mountain tragedies and survival. Visitors can see the weathered fabric, the carefully coiled ropes, and the small notebook with David’s final words. The exhibit includes a video interview with Andrew Kramer and Linda Parson, and a timeline of the search, discovery, and investigation.
It is one of the most visited exhibits in the museum, a place where people come not just to see artifacts, but to confront the reality of risk and loss. In 2024, a feature-length film loosely based on the story was released. The filmmakers took creative liberties, changing names and details, but the core of the story remained: two climbers, a sudden illness, a choice to stay.
The film received mixed reviews. Some praised it for its emotional depth, others criticized it for dramatizing a real tragedy, but it brought the story to a wider audience and sparked new conversations about love, mortality, and the ethics of extreme sports. Andrew Kramer did not watch the film. He said he didn’t need Hollywood’s version of his brother’s death.
He had his own memories, and those were enough. As the years passed, the sharp edges of grief softened for those who had loved David and Jessica. The pain did not disappear, but it became something they could carry, a weight that was part of them, woven into their lives. Andrew continued to climb, though never on big walls.
He stuck to shorter routes, places where he could see the sky and feel the ground beneath him. He said he climbed to stay connected to his brother, to understand even a little what David had felt on the wall. Linda Parsons stopped hiking to the peaks. Her knees grew weak and the altitude became harder to bear, but she still kept Jessica’s photograph on her desk and she still read her daughter’s list of dreams, the one that had never been completed.
She said she took comfort in knowing that Jessica had died doing what she loved, with someone she loved, and that in the end that was more than many people could say. Deputy Raymond Cole, now fully retired, occasionally gave talks to search and rescue teams about the case. He emphasized the importance of persistence, thoroughness, and the need to search not just with technology, but with intuition and care.
He told the story of how the couple had been found not by drones or helicopters, but by chance, by two climbers who happened to look up at the right moment. “Sometimes,” he would say, “the mountain gives back what it takes, but only when it’s ready.” The students would nod, taking notes, and some would ask questions about the recovery, the investigation, the families, and Cole would answer patiently, remembering every detail because for him David and Jessica were not just a case, they were people, and people deserve to be remembered. In the
end, the story of David Kramer and Jessica Parsons became more than a tragedy. It became a testament to love, to the choices we make when there are no good options, and to the way the wilderness strips away everything except what is most essential. They had gone to the mountains seeking beauty and challenge, and they had found both, along with something they had not anticipated, a test of who they were and what they valued most.
They had faced that test together, and they had not survived, but they had not been alone, and perhaps in the cold logic of the mountains that was a kind of victory. If you’ve stayed with us through this entire journey, we’re grateful. Stories like these remind us of the beauty and fragility of life. Please take a moment to leave a comment below sharing your thoughts, and subscribe so we can continue bringing you true stories that matter.
The plaque at the trailhead still stands, weathered now by wind and snow, but the words remain clear. Climbers still stop to read it, still leave stones, still pause to consider the two names etched into metal, two people who climbed together, loved together, and in the end chose not to be separated even by death. The mountains remain.
The wind still moves through the high places. And somewhere on the eastern face of Mount Hooker, the anchors that once held two portaledges are still embedded in the stone, silent witnesses to a love that refused to let go.