EAGLE COUNTY, Colo. — Searchers have found items that are believed to have belonged to a hiker who went missing nearly 19 years ago. The Eagle County Sheriff's Office said the discovery came after a renewed search with a fresh perspective by a women-led team.
Michelle Vanek was 35 when she disappeared while on a hike up Mount of the Holy Cross in Eagle County.
"It was important for us to have a women's perspective at the top of the mountain which had not been done before," said Emily Brown, a member of the women-led search.
Vail Mountain Rescue Group tried something different after nearly two decades of few answers.
"Our President Scott Beebe had a dream last year that he thought Michelle's remains or soul did not want to be found by a male," Brown said.
Brown and other women spent hundreds of hours this year to try to find signs of Vanek. Only her boot had been found, until now.
On Sept. 13, their renewed search discovered personal items believed to be Vanek's. According to the Vail Mountain Rescue Group, two members recovered clothing items, two mittens, two ski poles, and a backpack containing a Nalgene, a digital camera, car keys and a blue hat.
A group of five women in the Vail Mountain Rescue Group and a female archeologist from the U.S. Forest Service met multiple times in May and June to create a new search plan. By that point, only Vanek's left boot had been found. Hikers found the boot in August 2022 and later it was forensically confirmed to belong to Vanek. In the fall of 2023, rescue teams returned to the area for additional searches. No clues were found at that time.
Last week, two Vail Mountain Rescue Group members recovered the additional personal items.
"There was articles of clothing, like a jacket and some of what looks like a shirt. I mean, they’ve been out there for 19 years," Eagle County Sheriff James Van Beek said. "We did find a backpack and in that backpack, we also did find a set of keys. And one of the keys in there matched the make of the car she was driving that day, which leads us to believe it’s her. But we’re still not 100%. So we’re going to process everything and see if we can get some kind of DNA analysis, forensic analysis on the articles to confirm that she at least had those articles on.”
Vanek's disappearance on Sept. 24, 2005, sparked a large-scale search effort. The first search spanned eight days and involved a team of 800 volunteers. At the time, this was the largest search in Colorado history.
Over the years, many in the community including law enforcement continued their search for answers in Vanek's disappearance.
“My predecessor had one of the original grid maps that they did for the initial search hanging on the wall in the office. And I left that there also to remind me also, that even after I took office that was still out there, it was lingering," Van Beek said.
“Since that time, there’s been multiple searches, different grids going back, double checking their work," Van Beek said. "Until a couple of years ago when a boot was found by some hikers. They were off the regular path but they found a boot. So, Vail Mountain Rescue Group went back up, located the boot and we eventually confirmed that we believed it was Michelle’s, so that gave us hope that we would be able to find more. And it’s been two years.”
The sheriff's office is now waiting for forensic confirmation of the items. That process could take months.
Members of Vail Mountain Rescue Group joined a video chat Monday to answer questions from the public. Then members of Vanek's family took a moment to say thank you.
"We know mom wanted to be found by a group of all women and it means the world and we truly can't say enough," Vanek's son said on the video chat.
Van Beek said there are plans to continue searching that area in hopes of locating further belongings or Vanek's remains. Crews plan to push into that area over the coming days and weeks as long as the weather allows in hopes of finding more answers as to what happened to her and bringing the Vanek family closure.
“We’re going to continue to search. We’re going to keep doing it. We’re going to keep going up there until we can hopefully get complete closure to this and be done with it," Van Beek said.
