On a crisp August morning in 2013, Garrett Beckwith, a 45-year-old structural engineer with a passion for climbing, and his 19-year-old daughter, Dela, drove their green Ford F-150 toward Wyoming’s Wind River Range. Their goal: Mount Hooker, a towering granite beast known for its unforgiving routes and sheer drops. Garrett, a planner to his core, had climbed it before, mapping every move with precision. For Dela, a bold college freshman with her father’s grit, this was her first major expedition—a bonding adventure before school resumed. They promised Garrett’s wife, Maryanne, a check-in by satellite phone at 7:00 p.m. two days later. When the call never came, a chilling mystery began, one that would linger for 11 years until a shocking cliffside discovery in 2024 revealed a story of love, bravery, and tragedy.
Garrett wasn’t a reckless thrill-seeker. His climbing logs were meticulous, his gear top-notch, his routes studied like blueprints. Dela, equally driven, had trained alongside him, her confidence growing with every ascent. Mount Hooker was their challenge, a father-daughter milestone. They packed ropes, carabiners, and a dry sack with journals, leaving nothing to chance—except the mountain itself. When Maryanne heard nothing by the second night, her worry turned to dread. She called the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office, and Deputy Miles Corbin raced to the Big Sandy trailhead. There sat the Beckwiths’ truck, dusted with pine needles, as if waiting for their return. Inside, a gut-punch: two fully charged satellite phones in the glove compartment. Garrett, the man who triple-checked everything, would never leave their lifeline behind.
The search kicked into high gear. Helicopters buzzed over the rugged peaks, while ground teams and volunteers scoured trails. Mount Hooker’s terrain—jagged, remote, and brutal—offered no mercy. For 10 days, they found nothing: no gear, no tracks, no sign of life. Then an early snowstorm slammed the range, grounding choppers and burying clues. Defeated, teams retreated. Garrett’s climbing buddy, Alistair Finch, refused to quit, leading elite climbers to probe obscure routes Garrett might have chosen. Even they came up empty. The Beckwiths had vanished, leaving Maryanne to preserve Dela’s room—posters, books, dreams—and Garrett’s workshop, tools untouched, as if frozen in time.
Years ticked by. In 2016, a backpacker found a climbing nut in a creek, matching Garrett’s preferred brand, but without serial numbers, it was a dead end. In 2020, a cruel online rumor claimed Garrett, drowning in debt, had harmed Dela and fled. Maryanne, heartbroken, watched investigators clear his pristine financial records, but the gossip stung. The case grew cold, the satellite phones locked in an evidence box, their batteries dead. Hope faded—until July 2024, when two young climbers, Khloe Vance and Ben Carter, set out to conquer an uncharted face of Mount Hooker. Three days in, Ben spotted a rusted bolt on a cliff with no recorded climbs. More bolts led to a shadowed alcove, and there, dangling 2,000 feet up, was a weathered camp.
Inside a tattered sleeping bag lay a human skull, faded red nylon, and a carabiner etched with “GB.” Khloe, trembling, nearly slipped. They snapped photos, noted coordinates, and descended to call 911. “We found a body,” Khloe said, voice shaking. Within 24 hours, a recovery team rappelled to the ledge. The skeletal remains, preserved by the cold, were Garrett’s, confirmed by dental records. A crushed dry sack held two journals and a dead GoPro. But Dela was missing. Maryanne dared to hope: could her daughter have survived? Garrett’s journal, miraculously legible, painted a grim picture. August 21, 2013: “Roped due to ice. Took Southern bypass. Dela’s shaken but managing.” August 22: “Storm moved in fast. No signal. Rations tight.” August 23: “Dela saw something—a shadow. Neither of us slept.” August 24: “Dela left this morning. Said she’d go for help. My knee can’t move.”
Dela’s departure stunned rescuers. Had she made it down? A new search targeted the Southern bypass, an unmapped route Garrett had theorized from old guides. Two days in, a ranger found a titanium bracelet in mountain laurel, engraved “Garrett and Dela, Hooker 2013.” Rock slides had recently exposed it. The search zeroed in on a narrow chute below a granite slab. There, buried in brush, was red nylon—a jacket like Dela’s. After six hours of careful excavation, they found her skeletal remains, a frayed pack nearby. Inside: a compass, energy bars, and her journal. Dela’s entries were raw: August 24: “Dad’s not doing well. I’m scared to leave him.” August 25: “No trail. Wind howling. I miss Mom.” August 26: “I saw the lake. I was close, but I slipped. Ankle broken.” August 28: “Tell them I didn’t run. I wanted to live.” A final, undated line: “Dad, I made it farther than we thought.”
Medical examiners determined Dela died of hypothermia days after leaving Garrett, having descended nearly 1,200 feet with a broken ankle, no rope, and no food. She was 2 miles from the trail. The climbing community mourned her courage, a 19-year-old pushing beyond human limits to save her father. Garrett likely succumbed to exposure after his injury. Their journals, displayed in a Lander, Wyoming, exhibit, became a testament to their bond. In 2025, Khloe and Ben returned to the ledge, finding a faint carving: “We stayed together.” Experts believe Dela etched it before her descent, a final vow.
The discovery exposed flaws in the 2013 search. Teams had focused on popular routes, missing the obscure Southern bypass. The storm hid the ledge from aerial view, and erosion later shifted clues. Khloe and Ben, chasing a new path, succeeded where others couldn’t. Wyoming revamped its search protocols, adding AI mapping and off-grid routes. A plaque now stands at Hooker’s trailhead: “In memory of Garrett and Dela Beckwith, climbers, dreamers, explorers. They stayed together.” The Ledge Project, a nonprofit in Dela’s name, equips young female climbers, with Maryanne on its board. “They weren’t reckless,” she says. “They were human. The mountain took them, but they never gave up.”
The Beckwiths’ story is a piercing reminder of nature’s power and humanity’s resilience. Garrett’s planning, Dela’s bravery, and their unbreakable bond echo in every line of their journals. Mount Hooker, once a place of fear, now carries their legacy—a call to explore with caution, love fiercely, and never stop searching for those lost in the wild.
