75-year-old vanishes hiking steep trail with dog, Colorado cops say. Now search is on
UPDATE: A 75-year-old woman who was reported missing after failing to return from a hike with her dog has been found safe, Colorado deputies say.
After Jennifer Hearn’s dog was found in the morning, deputies said they were able to focus their search “in a more targeted area” and found her at about 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 11, two days after she was reported missing, according to a Facebook post from the sheriff’s office.
The original story is below.
A 75-year-old woman was reported missing after she never returned from a hike with her dog, Colorado deputies say.
A family member flagged down a Pitkin County deputy shortly before 9 p.m., Sunday, June 9, to report Jennifer Hearn missing, the sheriff’s office said in a June 10 news release.
The family member told the deputy Hearn had not returned from a hike on Triangle Peak, a steep trail that she regularly trekked three to four times a week.
“She was last seen with her brown Irish Setter, Tawny,” the sheriff’s office said in a June 11 Facebook post.
While the family didn’t know Hearn’s exact plans, they found her car parked at the trail head, the sheriff’s office said.
Volunteers from Mountain Rescue Aspen searched the area that evening and into the early morning hours, deputies said.
The search continued the following morning with multiple agencies, including 30 rescuers, a helicopter and a search dog and handler from Search and Rescue Dogs of the United States, deputies said.
Hearn, who is described as standing 5 feet, 10 inches tall and weighing 125 pounds, “is possibly wearing a green t-shirt or long sleeve shirt and jean shorts,” according to the sheriff’s office.
Deputies urged the public to stay away from the area while the search is ongoing.
“We understand, and are immensely thankful for the public’s desire to aid in the search efforts,” Undersheriff Alex Burchetta said in the release. “Our focus is to search for and find Jennifer. We want to avoid someone else possibly being injured and distracting our efforts from that goal.”
Triangle Peak Trail is a 5-mile round-trip trek that “sees limited foot traffic due to its difficult and rocky terrain,” according to deputies.
The trail, located a 10-mile drive north from Aspen, is “considered a challenging route” that takes more than three hours to complete, according to the hiking website AllTrails.
This story was originally published June 11, 2024 at 2:44 PM with the headline "75-year-old vanishes hiking steep trail with dog, Colorado cops say. Now search is on."
