The Photo That Split a Shadow - Who Stayed at Cairn Notch?

The Photo That Split a Shadow - Who Stayed at Cairn Notch?

Cold air and a sealed emergency blanket: a hiking pack was found leaning against an 11,400-foot survey marker with no footprints around it, and inside was a photograph showing a woman's shadow splitting into two on a boulder. Who carried the pack up Cairn Notch in November 2011, and why was the one survival item left unopened?

In this episode, we follow the chain of discoveries from the surveyor Robert Hansen who photographed the pack at the marker, to journalist Rhonda Sanders who brought the print to Carol Collins, the woman in the photo. The episode covers the contents of the pack, the unaltered photograph that shows a baffling double shadow, and the unanswered questions about the missing person and the man named Jeff.

Person: Robert Hansen Person: Carol Collins Person: Rhonda Sanders Date: July 22, 2009 Location: Cairn Notch Pass, elevation 11,400 feet

- The pack was found upright against a stone survey marker with no footprints in the surrounding snow. - Eleven days had passed since the last above-freezing overnight temperature before the pack was found. - Carol Collins had been fifty-four years old in autumn 2011 and kept 63 hand-sewn paper logbooks. - The photograph in the pack was examined and found to have no digital or darkroom manipulation. - Pack contents included a collapsed trekking pole, an empty dry water bottle, a laminated trail map for a park system three states away, a waterproof sleeve with the photograph, and one factory-sealed foil emergency blanket never opened.

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