Park rangers are investigating after human remains were discovered Wednesday on a trail in Rocky Mountain National Park, officials said Friday in a news release.
The bones were found on the Alpine Ridge Trail near the Alpine Visitor Center, which is near the summit of Trail Ridge Road that tops out at 12,183 feet.
Park officials said the Larimer County Coroner’s Office will confirm positive identification of the individual and release additional information when the next-of-kin have been notified. Park officials did not release any other information on the investigation.
In an email Monday morning, a spokesperson for the Larimer County Coroner’s Office said they likely won’t be releasing any more information “for a while due to the circumstances of identification and locating next-of-kin.”
In September 2023, an experienced trail runner from Fort Collins went missing and has not been found. However, his trip was planned for an area far from where the remains were found near the visitor center.
Chad Pallansch, 48, was scheduled to do a 28-mile run starting from Grand Lake and following a route that crosses the Continental Divide on and off established trails. Search officials have said Pallansch was new to this route, but he was an experienced runner who has traversed numerous trails in the park, including the 14,259-foot Longs Peak more than 30 times.
Officials called off the search after two weeks.
According to a park spokesperson, the only other open missing persons case related to Rocky Mountain National Park is James Pruitt, who went missing in March 2019 in the Glacier Gorge area, which is also not in the area where the remains were found Wednesday.
Pruitt, then 70, was visiting from Tennessee and his car was found at the trailhead just as a storm dropped two feet of snow in the area. The search was called off after six days.