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After nearly 19 years, the search for Michelle Vanek may be over. A team of women from the Vail Mountain Rescue Group finished the job in a little more than three weeks.

Vanek, a 35-year-old mother of four, went missing on Sept. 24, 2005, while on a hike to Mount of the Holy Cross — Eagle County’s tallest peak and lone 14er. Vanek was hiking the mountain with a friend, Eric Sawyer. The two separated, with Sawyer heading to the summit. Before heading to the summit, Sawyer told Vanek which route she should follow back down. She was never seen again.

Vanek’s disappearance was followed by a large search, with the initial effort taking eight days. No trace of her was found.

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In October 2022, a local man and his son were hiking off-trail in a boulder field when they found a boot that was later identified as belonging to Vanek. That clue prompted another search, but no other clues were found.

In the fall of 2023, Vanek came in a dream to Vail Mountain Rescue Group Board President Scott Beebe, saying she didn’t want to be found by men. Taking the dream to heart, Beebe turned over the case to the group’s growing number of female members.

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Group chief of staff Emily Brown was asked to lead that team to Mount of the Holy Cross, and sent an email to the other women in the group, proposing a female-led search.

Building the team

If nothing else, it would be a great bonding opportunity, she said.

With winter coming on fast last year, the group met a couple of times in May and June of this year and looked frequently at all the maps and files from the previous years of searching.

The group set Aug. 20 as the date of its first organized search, just a few days on nearby Fancy Pass. A team of six women were flown into the area. Because of weather and wind, the group was set down close to where Young had fallen.

It “felt eerie,” Brown said. After hours of hiking, the group sat down, and “we all felt that was where (Vanek) was,” Brown said.

The team “worked hard to get to (Vanek’s) last known point,” Brown said. “We were feeling what she was feeling.”

The six members of the team headed in different directions from that last known point, and all ended up in the same general area, Brown said. That area wasn’t where previous searches had been.

The team had plans to go back out Sept. 24, but member Erika German went out several times both before and after the Aug. 20 mission.

German had a particular interest in the Vanek case because she’d lived for a time in 2011 and 2012 with Betsy Cochrane, the widow of Vail Mountain Rescue pioneer Tim Cochrane.

“Ever since I lived with her I’ve heard this story,” said German, who joined the Mountain Rescue team in 2012. This year, she said, she “really felt the calling” to try to bring Vanek’s story to an end.

Shaking at the find

German and Zach Smith — with German in the lead — went out Sept. 13 into the area where the female team believed Vanek may have been. There they found what are believed to be her belongings. There’s enough certainty now that the Vanek family has been notified.

The first thing German and Smith found were Vanek’s ski poles. Both said they started shaking at the find.

“We had to sit down and take a moment,” German said. “You’ve just made a huge find, so your nerves are a little bit shaky.”

Unlike the boot discovery, German and Smith brought the belongings down for forensic examination.

“It’s going to be an ongoing thing to figure out some more answers,” German said.

Beebe said Michelle’s husband, Ben, is “profoundly grateful” for the news.

And, Beebe added, taking a different approach to search and rescue could mark a new direction for those groups.

“In search and rescue, guys tend to take charge,” Beebe said. “We tried something different, and put the (women) in charge … they took this to heart … they figured it out and they found her.”