Most people think of Pikes Peak as a tourist destination – the Fourteener with a highway and a donut shop on top. But for many local mountaineers, climbers and skiers, Pikes Peak is also a wilderness playground. For backcountry skiers Dan Crossey, Mike Houston, Bill Blair, and Nate Porter Pikes Peak was like their backyard. But on April 25, 1995, what should’ve been a routine day of Spring skiing on Pikes Peak quickly turned into a nightmare.

Episode 12: Avalanche On America's Mountain

A 12-year-old girl in blue jeans probably isn’t the first thing you picture when you hear the word paleontologist. But in 1979, young India Wood discovered a bone on a ranch in northwest Colorado that would change her life. For the next three years, Wood single-handedly excavated a site that would yield one of the finest Allosaurus fossils ever found. This is her story.

Episode 13: The Girl Who Dug Up Dinosaurs

On this special episode of Wish We Were Here: Tales and Investigations from the Shadows of America's Mountain, we worked with Nathan Ward at Grit and Thistle Film Company to produce an audio version of last year's documentary The Rider and the Wolf about the life and disappearance of Hall-of-Fame mountain biker Mike Rust. Rust went missing from his home in Colorado's remote San Luis Valley on March 31, 2009. On January 8, 2016, the remains of a body that may be Mike Rust's were discovered after a tip came in to the Saguache County Sheriff's Department.

If you're interested in setting up a screening of the documentary, or if you want to buy a copy of the DVD, head to http://www.gritandthistle.com/

Many thanks to Nathan Ward, Grit and Thistle Film Company, and to the family of Mike Rust.

Episode 14: Shorty - The Life and Disappearance of Mike "The Bike" Rust

Wish We Were Here: Tales and Investigations from the Shadows of America's Mountain is a documentary radio program and podcast from NPR member station KRCC, devoted to unpacking the strange, overlooked and forgotten stories of Colorado Springs, Colorado and the Pikes Peak region.  Produced by poet Noel Black (Uselysses, Ugly Duckling Presse, 2011; and La Goon, Furniture Press, 2014) and  Jacob Brownell, Wish We Were Here puts a twist on the traditional hour-long weekend storytelling formats by choosing one pinpoint on the map of the United States as the archetype for the American experience as a whole. Each episode also features original music composed and recorded by artists in the Pikes Peak region.


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