A search is on for two experienced elk hunters who went missing in the Rio Grande National Forest in Conejos County on Sept. 11, and the fiancée of one is imploring people with experience hunting, hiking or traveling by horse in the rugged terrain on the New Mexico border north of Chama to head to the Rio de Los Pinos trailhead or surrounding area to help search.
Andrew Porter and Ian Stasko, both 25, were last heard from Thursday afternoon at around 2:45 p.m. when Porter shared his location with his fiancée, Bridget Murphy, from his Garmin InReach satellite communication device.
Andrew Porter
Ian Stasko
Porter, from Asheville, North Carolina, by way of Montana, and Stasko, from Salt Lake City, were hunting southwest of Monte Vista in Game Management Unit 81, which stretches from the Continental Divide on the west to the Rio Grande River on the east and down to the border of New Mexico. It is characterized as having extremely rugged terrain.
During a phone interview Wednesday morning, Murphy said Porter had been sending brief updates to her and his family every few hours until the afternoon of Sept. 11.
The last ping came from near Stasko’s car, which was parked at the trailhead. But Murphy said she believes she has pieced together what might have happened that evening, based on gear police found in the car when law enforcement officials broke into it after she and Porter’s mother called the Conejos County Sheriff’s Office and the local Colorado Parks and Wildlife game warden Friday evening.
Officials found wet clothes in the car, which told Murphy the men had been in inclement weather and had come back to change, likely when they sent their location Thursday. But none of the gear Porter would need to hunt, harvest or pack out an elk was in the car, which told her they’d likely gone back out hunting.
“We didn’t find his bow, his butchering knives, his game bags or binoculars, things he would take with him to go kill an elk with the hope that they could start packing it out to the car that night,” she said. But when she had hunted with the men before, she said they’d come back to the car and slept in it.
She isn’t sure what “backups” the men took with them, including a tent, she added.
But Thursday night, when she believes they were out, the weather turned inclement, with “bad, cold storms and fog that came in quickly and continuously until Sunday morning,” she said. “So if they were fine, he would have come back to the car, and if his Garmin was dead he would have charged it, and he would have sent me one message. But no, that’s not the case.”
Murphy said Porter and Stasko are very resourceful outdoorsmen, as in “people who’ve been building shelters in the woods since they were 12 for fun.”
“We now live in North Carolina,” she added, “but when we were in Montana, we got into elk hunting and have experienced similar terrain, and Ian has come out to Montana to backcountry hunt with us before. And last year, Ian and Andrew went hunting for a month in the crazy mountains in Montana. So this is not some willy-nilly trip that they took. They are very prepared outdoorsmen.”
Because of that, Murphy said she and the men’ s families “have a little bit of hope that they know how to do all of the random survival things of trying not to get hypothermic,” she said. But whatever happened “depends on if they were in sound mind, if they were disoriented or panicked, or if they were already hypothermic. We’re just not sure. So there’s a lot of teams out looking.”
Bridget Murphy and Andrew Porter in Montana. The two are engaged to be married. (Courtesy of Bridget Murphy)
As of Wednesday morning, those include search and rescue teams from New Mexico and La Plata County, the Conejos County Sheriff’s Office, the Rainbow Trout Ranch and volunteer hikers, hunters and horseback riders who Murphy on Facebook said “have been INCREDIBLE and working hard.”
They still urgently need more able and willing searchers with experience and the proper gear, however, including thermal drones, laser lanterns, horses or other resources, she said.
“If you cannot be here in person, you can still make a huge difference,” Murphy wrote on Facebook. “Please reach out immediately to search & rescue groups, forestry services, or other organizations in Colorado and nearby states (Utah, New Mexico) and ask them to assist.
“Please come if you are experienced and prepared — we cannot risk anyone else getting lost. When you arrive, check in first with the sheriff at the Rio de Los Pinos trailhead.”
The families are offering a $10,000 reward to the person or persons who find the men.
Call the Conejos County Sheriff’s Office at 719-376-2196 for information on how to help.
Type of Story: News
Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.