Dead & Gone in Wyoming

On September 17, 2024, 22-year-old Austin King stood on the summit of Eagle Peak, the highest point in Yellowstone National Park. In the summit register, he wrote about numb fingers, fogged glasses, rain, sleet, hail, wind, and a route he knew was “not the right path.” Then he wrote one final line that would come to define the search for him: “Life is beautiful. Go out and LIVE IT.”

Three days later, Austin missed his scheduled boat pickup near Yellowstone Lake’s Southeast Arm. His camp and personal effects were found in the upper Howell Creek area, but Austin was gone.

In this episode, we follow Austin’s final known route, the search around Eagle Peak, the volunteer effort at Eagle Creek, the theories and limits of public speculation, and the reason this story matters now: Yellowstone fills with millions of visitors every summer, and one careful witness may still notice something the mountain has not yet given back.

Resources

Join the public Facebook group: Help Bring Austin King Home
https://www.facebook.com/groups/helpbringaustinkinghome/

Support the family’s search fund: Please help bring my son Austin King home
https://www.gofundme.com/f/Help-Resune-Searching-For-Austin-King-Fund

If you have information related to Austin King’s disappearance, contact Yellowstone National Park through current official channels or call 911 in an emergency.

In 1982, a pipe bomb exploded in Green River, Wyoming, badly injuring a 23-year-old woman and destroying an apartment.

Stephen Craig Campbell was soon after arrested, charged with attempted first-degree murder. Then, after being released on bond, he failed to appear in court — and vanished.

For more than forty years, Campbell’s wanted poster remained on a wall at the Sweetwater County Sheriff's Department, but Campbell remained at large.

In 2025, federal investigators say they found out why.

In October 1997, 14-year-old Amanda Gallion disappeared on her way to school in Gillette, Wyoming. Six days later, 20-year-old Patrick Ghering vanished too. Nearly three decades on, the space between those two disappearances remains one of Wyoming’s most haunting unsolved mysteries.

In November 1982, a Chevy Blazer was found running along Interstate 80 near Elk Mountain, Wyoming. The doors were open. A single set of footprints led north into the prairie.

The vehicle belonged to 35-year-old Don Kemp, a former New York advertising executive who had set out west to write a book. Days later, a storm shut down the search.

Months after Don was believed to have died, a turn in the case raised a startling possibility: that he might still be alive.

In August 1976, twenty-year-old Celeste Hensley Greub disappeared while backpacking in Wyoming’s Cloud Peak Wilderness. She was last seen waiting near Misty Moon Lake as her companions climbed toward the summit. When they returned, she was gone.

What followed was one of the largest search efforts the Bighorn Mountains have ever seen.

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