Missing Glacier Park hiker found dead

Pennsylvania man committed suicide

By JIM MANN/Daily Inter Lake

A Pennsylvania man was found dead Wednesday near Kintla Lake in Glacier National Park, and officials have determined the death was a suicide.

"The coroner's office has confirmed that the death is considered a suicide as the result of a single, self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest," said Amy Vanderbilt, Glacier's public information officer.

The Flathead County Sheriff's Office identified the man as Bruce Colburn, 53, of Reading, Pa.

Colburn was reported missing on Oct. 23 by a local acquaintance who had expected to pick him up from the park. A search was launched in the Kintla Lake area, where Colburn was last seen.

Colburn flew into Glacier Park International Airport on Oct. 7 and was taken to the park the next day, where he told a park ranger he intended to go hiking. The ranger informed him that a permit is required to camp overnight in the park's backcountry.

Colburn spent the night at the Kintla Lake Campground and left the next morning.

"The park staff had no other contact with the man since the morning of Oct. 9," a park press release states, adding that Colburn did not get a backcountry permit.

Colburn left luggage and other belongings at an area hotel and had told his acquaintance that he would be calling in a couple of weeks.

When he failed to call, he was reported missing and the search was launched on Oct. 23. Efforts were concentrated on the main trail corridors in the Kintla and Bowman lake drainages, as well as the trail leading to Goat Haunt on the park's northern boundary.

On Wednesday, Vanderbilt said, searchers spotted a backpack just off the trail near the head of Kintla Lake.

"That was relayed to aerial searchers, and the body was spotted from the air as a result of locating the pack" on a slope above the trail, she said.

"This is a tragedy. It's very sad," Vanderbilt said, noting that so far, rangers have no indication that Colburn had ever been to Glacier before.

National parks have become final destinations for some who commit suicide. According to a report in the New York Times earlier this year, there were at least 26 suicides in the national park system's 391 units in 2007.

Another hiker has been missing in Glacier Park since Aug. 11.

Yi-Jien Hwa, 27, from Kentucky and Malaysia, has been missing in Glacier's backcountry since Aug. 11. Comprehensive search efforts started Aug. 19 but ended in early September.

Hwa had drawn up an itinerary that encompassed nearly 100 miles of hikes as well as climbs and descents of more than 14,000 feet.

After Hwa was reported missing by his family, the park sent teams of hikers and professional alpine searchers into the most forbidding areas of its backcountry to look for him or for evidence that he had passed through areas he planned to hike.

Searchers spent more than 2,500 man-hours scouring difficult terrain looking for Hwa.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com