{"id":44498,"date":"2021-09-28T00:41:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-28T06:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/missing-durango-man-found-dead-on-blanca-peak\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:19:38","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:19:38","slug":"missing-durango-man-found-dead-on-blanca-peak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/missing-durango-man-found-dead-on-blanca-peak\/","title":{"rendered":"Missing Durango man found dead on Blanca Peak"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Vaughn
Vaughn Fetzer of Durango was reported missing Monday in the area of Blanca Peak. Several search and rescue teams conducted their second full search Wednesday. (Courtesy of Alamosa County Sheriff\u2019s Office)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A Durango man who had been missing for about a week near Blanca Peak in Alamosa County was found dead Monday on a treacherous portion of Colorado\u2019s fourth highest peak.<\/p>\n

The body of Vaughn Fetzer was recovered Monday by search and rescue teams from Alamosa, Costilla and Huerfano counties, said Alamosa County Sheriff Robert Jackson. Fetzer was officially reported missing Sept. 20.<\/p>\n

During the first four days of the search, rescue teams endured sub-freezing temperatures on the 14,351-foot Blanca Peak and traversed treacherous terrain containing large, loose boulders and near-vertical cliff faces, Jackson said.<\/p>\n

Fetzer, 57, was a nurse at Mercy Regional Medical Center who worked on the medical surgical floor, according to work colleague Tawny Borkowski.<\/p>\n

\u201cVaughn is a loving, happy, energetic man with lots of love for the outdoors along with his passion in nursing,\u201d Borkowski said in an email last week to The Durango Herald.<\/em><\/p>\n

The sub-freezing elements led teams to believe the rescue mission was likely becoming a recovery operation, Jackson said.<\/p>\n

Fetzer\u2019s body was found in an area that was \u201cvery dangerous,\u201d Jackson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rocks moved there all the time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Early Monday, Alamosa Volunteer Search and Rescue members were taken into the area by a state Department of Fire Prevention and Control Helitack chopper. The crew scaled up to Fetzer\u2019s body, placed it into a body bag and extracted it with the helicopter. From there, the body was turned over to the Costilla County deputy coroner.<\/p>\n

It was a risky operation that resulted in one injury. On Wednesday, the Gunnison search and rescue team was moving over a scree field \u2013 a landscape covered in broken rock fragments \u2013 when multiple large boulders slipped loose and pinned a crew member\u2019s leg.<\/p>\n

To Jackson\u2019s knowledge, the man did not suffer any broken or fractured bones. Other crew members were able to remove the boulders and rappel the injured man down several more scree fields to the area of Winchell Lakes, where an ambulance was waiting.<\/p>\n

After the incident with the Gunnison crewman, the search and rescue teams and sheriff\u2019s offices made a joint decision to suspend the search, Jackson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThursday, I talked to his sister,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cThey (Fetzer and his sister) were estranged, but I talked to her in South Carolina, and she agreed with the decision they made.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jackson said Fetzer\u2019s sister told him that Fetzer \u201cdied doing what he loved\u201d and that she did not want anyone else\u2019s life jeopardized by trying to rescue Fetzer\u2019s body.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvidently just a great guy, a mountain climbing guy, and that\u2019s what he lived for,\u201d Jackson said.<\/p>\n

Jackson said the incident involving the Gunnison crewman demonstrates how dangerous high-mountain search and rescue missions can be.<\/p>\n

\u201cRemember, some of this is almost vertical stuff, almost straight up and down,\u201d he said. \u201c\u2026 All these big, fancy search and rescue teams from the metro areas, they don\u2019t understand how precipitous and vast this is. You can\u2019t drive through any of this, you know? You\u2019ve gotta be able to climb and be inserted by chopper.\u201d<\/p>\n

cburney@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

was a nurse at Mercy Regional Medical Center and an experienced mountain climber<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44499,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[2748,255,28,1130],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-44498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-climbing","tag-death-and-dying","tag-headlines","tag-missing-person"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44498"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86118,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44498\/revisions\/86118"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44498"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=44498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}