Missing skier dead
Longmont woman's body is discovered 150 feet from trail
Bill Scanlon, Rocky Mountain News
Published January 3, 2007 at midnight
The body of a cross-country skier found in a rudimentary snow cave just 150 feet from a ski trail at Cameron Pass and a half-mile from a major highway has been identified as Tricia Lehman, whom friends describe as a budding academic superstar.
Search-and-rescue teams from Larimer County followed tracks off the main ski trail and came upon the 40-year-old woman's body, said Larimer County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Eloise Campanella.
Lehman, of Longmont, was last seen on Christmas Day going up the Montgomery Pass Trail shortly after she told friends she was going skiing.
Investigators found no obvious signs of injury and are tentatively suggesting that the woman may have become disoriented in the heavy snow and suffered hypothermia, Campanella said Tuesday.
Lehman didn't tell friends where she was going skiing, Campanella said.
Lehman's husband, who is separated from her and lives in Denver, went to Longmont on Dec. 30, realized that no snow had been shoveled and worried that she might be at any number of cross-country ski areas, Campanella said.
He reported his concerns to Longmont police, who put out a bulletin.
A couple saw the bulletin and told police they'd seen a woman matching Lehman's description on Christmas Day.
Larimer County sheriff's deputies and search-and-rescue teams were dispatched and found Lehman's car at Zimmerman Lake Trailhead on Cameron Pass on Monday. They searched the trails near the car but were stymied by an avalanche and later by nightfall.
They started again Tuesday. At 11 a.m., they saw some ski tracks that led off the trail.
"The tracks led right to the body," Campanella said. "There was a snow cave of sorts that she had apparently built."
There was about 6 to 8 inches of new snow in the area, Campanella said.
The academic education world lost a very bright light, say the people who knew Lehman at the University of Colorado School of Education, where she was a candidate for a doctorate.
"She is universally thought of as a shining star in the program," said Ed Wiley, her professor and academic adviser.
Lehman specialized in research in education methodology, with an eye toward a career in analyzing policy and testing systems to improve school performance.
Lehman "distinguished herself as just being an incredibly kind person," Wiley said.
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