Dad and Daughter Vanished Climbing Mt Hooker, 11 Years Later Their Cliff Camp Is Found
In the summer of 2012, Garrett Beckwith and his 19-year-old daughter, Della, embarked on what was supposed to be another unforgettable adventure — a climb up the formidable Mount Hooker in Wyoming’s Wind River Range. For the Beckwiths, the wilderness was sacred ground. Garrett, a seasoned climber, had raised Della among mountains and pine forests, teaching her to read the wind, trust her instincts, and find beauty in the raw silence of nature. That shared passion was the thread that tied them together — and, ultimately, the one that led them into the unknown.
The Climb
Mount Hooker isn’t a casual climb. Rising nearly 12,500 feet, its sheer north face looms like a fortress of granite, demanding both skill and endurance. It takes days just to reach the base, through unmarked trails and unpredictable weather. For climbers, it’s both a challenge and a rite of passage — the kind of mountain that punishes arrogance and rewards respect.
Garrett and Della set out well-prepared. They were last seen by another group of hikers near the base camp, cheerful and confident, discussing their route for the following morning. They planned to summit and descend within three days. But when those days passed and no one heard from them, concern quickly turned to alarm.
The Search
By the fifth day, search-and-rescue teams were deployed. Helicopters combed the ridgelines, rescue dogs tracked faint scents through forest and snow, and climbers volunteered to scour dangerous faces of the peak. The effort was massive — dozens of people working around the clock — but after weeks of searching, there was nothing. No gear, no camp remnants, no bodies.
The official report called it “unresolved.” The mountain had swallowed them whole.
For Garrett’s wife, Susan, and their two sons back home, the lack of answers was unbearable. “You can grieve when there’s a grave,” she said years later. “But when there’s just silence — that’s torture.”
The Theories
Over the years, speculation filled the vacuum left by their disappearance. Some climbers believed the pair had been caught in one of the mountain’s infamous afternoon storms. Others thought they might have misjudged their route and fallen into one of the deep, hidden crevasses that lace the cliffs — a place where even helicopters can’t see.
There were stranger theories too: that they’d decided to vanish intentionally, that they’d stumbled into a hidden cave system, that Mount Hooker itself — unpredictable, remote, and treacherous — had become their unmarked tomb.
One rescuer later admitted, “That mountain has places no human should ever stand. It’s not built to give people back once it takes them.”
A Father and Daughter Defined by Wilderness
Before their disappearance, Garrett and Della were known locally as an inseparable pair. He was a quiet man who worked as a contractor, but outside of town, he was a legend in the climbing community — fearless, disciplined, methodical. Della, on the other hand, was a spark of youth and determination, constantly pushing to prove herself worthy of her father’s skill.
Their bond wasn’t just about adventure. After Garrett’s wife was diagnosed with a chronic illness, he had spent years balancing caretaking and parenting. For Della, climbing became their language — their way of saying the things that words couldn’t. On those high granite walls, they understood each other completely.
Eleven Years of Silence
For more than a decade, Mount Hooker held its secret. Every year, on the anniversary of their disappearance, climbers left flowers at the trailhead — a quiet tribute to two souls lost somewhere above the treeline. Then, in 2023, a group of hikers stumbled upon something that reignited the mystery.
Halfway up an isolated slope, hidden beneath a tangle of fallen rock, they found what looked like the remains of a small bivouac camp — two weathered sleeping bags, a rusted climbing stove, and a faded journal sealed in a plastic pouch. Rangers confirmed the gear matched the models sold around 2010–2012.
Inside the journal were only a few entries, written in Della’s looping handwriting. The last one read:
“The storm’s coming in faster than we thought. Dad says we’ll ride it out here. He’s calm — I’m trying to be. The wind sounds like the mountain’s alive.”
After that — nothing.
What the Mountain Keeps
The discovery reignited hope for a proper recovery, but when the next expedition reached the site, further searching proved impossible. The surrounding cliffs were unstable, and rescuers deemed it too dangerous to continue. Once again, the Beckwiths vanished — this time beneath shifting stone and snow.
Today, Mount Hooker remains one of the most challenging and least forgiving peaks in North America. For climbers, it’s a symbol of raw beauty and danger — a place that demands reverence. For the Beckwith family, it’s a grave without a marker, a monument to love, loss, and the call of the wild that both binds and breaks.
Those who knew Garrett and Della choose to remember not how they disappeared, but how they lived: two souls inseparable, chasing the horizon together. The mountain may have claimed them, but it also became their final shared adventure — a place where, even in silence, their story endures.
More than a decade later, the north face of Mount Hooker still glows pink at sunrise, untouched and immense. And somewhere within its ancient granite, the wind still carries the echo of a father and daughter who climbed into the wild — and never came back.