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The Granite Stone That Named Her - Found While She Was Alive · Adoption Reunion Stories

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: La Piedra appareció de la noche a la mañana. Brit. Wow.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Pallet granite, the size of a hardback dictionary, hand-carved with
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: three lines, a name, a date, and a second date.
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  Speaker 1: It sat on the kiosk at Sutter Basin Trailhead, as
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: if it had always been there. Nobody signed it. Nobody
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: left a note. And the woman whose name it carried...
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: was alive in a hospital 40 miles away. There is
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: a particular kind of grief that moves before it has
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: all the facts. It builds something before confirmation arrives. In
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: this case, it built in stone. The carved dates were wrong,
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  Speaker 1: not near, but completely mistaken. Britt, that is intense. And
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: that error, chiseled by hand into pale Montana granite, would
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  Speaker 1: be the first thread investigators and searchers pulled when they
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: tried to understand what had happened on a mountain in
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: the first two weeks of June 2016. What they found
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  Speaker 1: was not what anyone expected. Not the rescue, not the stone,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: and not the 40-minute conversation that happened one month later
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: in a diner whose contents no one has ever made public.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: This is the story of Brenda Lane, 22 years old,
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  Speaker 1: Raised in Ridgecroft, Montana, a woman who showed up for everything,
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  Speaker 1: and the 11 days that proved it. Ridgecroft sits in
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  Speaker 1: the valley below the Bitterroot Range, close enough to the
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  Speaker 1: peaks that on clear mornings the snow line is visible
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  Speaker 1: from the parking lot of the food shelf on Mineral Street.
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  Speaker 1: The town is the kind of place where a missing
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  Speaker 1: person means something personal to almost everyone who hears the name.
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  Speaker 1: Brenda Lane grew up the second of three children in
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  Speaker 1: a house on the east side of Ridgecroft. Her mother, Patricia,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: raised all three largely on her own after Brenda's father
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  Speaker 1: relocated to Nevada when Brenda was nine years old. That
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  Speaker 1: departure left a specific kind of quiet in the house.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Brenda filled it, according to people who knew her, by moving,
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  Speaker 1: by going outside, by climbing. She started at 16. through
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  Speaker 1: a community outdoor program based in Ridgecroft. Within three years,
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  Speaker 1: she had summited four peaks above 12,000 feet in the
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  Speaker 1: Bitterroot Range. These were not casual hikes. They were technical
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  Speaker 1: ascents that required gear checks, good weather windows, and the
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  Speaker 1: kind of patience that most teenagers don't have. Brit, impressive,
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  Speaker 1: Brenda had it. By 22, she had built a small,
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  Speaker 1: reliable circle of climbing partners. One of them was Charles Rafferty, 26,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: a resident of the neighbouring town of Crestfall. They had
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  Speaker 1: climbed together seven times. Rafferty was known among people who
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: went into the backcountry with him as methodical, meticulous about equipment,
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  Speaker 1: meticulous about equipment, obsessive about return time windows, the kind
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  Speaker 1: of person who checked the forecast twice before agreeing to
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: a summit date. He also kept a workshop in his
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  Speaker 1: backyard where he carved stone as a hobby. He had
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  Speaker 1: been doing it for five years. Bench grinder, chisels, pale
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  Speaker 1: granite blocks he sourced locally. On Tuesdays between five and
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  Speaker 1: eight in the evening, Brenda volunteered at the Ridgecroft food shelf.
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  Speaker 1: She had held that shift for 36 consecutive months without
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  Speaker 1: missing once. Not a single Tuesday. Eugene Catt said, who
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: coordinated the food shelf for years before retiring, described her
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: the way people describe furniture that has always been in
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  Speaker 1: the room. You just knew she'd be there, he said later.
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  Speaker 1: You stopped checking. That sentence matters. Not as a tribute,
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  Speaker 1: although it works as one. It matters because reliability, when
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  Speaker 1: it breaks, breaks loudly. Brit, ugh. When Brenda Lane did
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  Speaker 1: not appear, people noticed immediately. They had stopped expecting her
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  Speaker 1: to disappear because she never did. On the 2nd of June, 2016,
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  Speaker 1: at 7.18 in the morning, Brenda Lane and Charles Rafferty
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  Speaker 1: signed the register at Sutter Basin Trailhead. They were heading
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  Speaker 1: into the back country above the glacial basin, toward the
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  Speaker 1: Northwest Ridge. The plan was a multi-day technical route. Weather
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  Speaker 1: windows had been checked. Return time was calculated. Rafferty had
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  Speaker 1: done this kind of preparation before, with Brenda and without her.
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  Speaker 1: Patricia Lane expected a text on the 4th of June.
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  Speaker 1: It did not come. She waited two days, which is
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  Speaker 1: longer than she wanted to wait, because she knew her daughter.
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  Speaker 1: Then she called the sheriff. What followed would last 11
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  Speaker 1: days and involve two ground teams, a helicopter, a suspended search,
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  Speaker 1: a stone placed in the dark, and a sheep farmer's
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  Speaker 1: border collie. named Stu. The 7th of June brought two
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  Speaker 1: ground teams and a helicopter into Sutter Basin. Vincent Marsh,
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  Speaker 1: the County Sheriff SAR Coordinator, had been here before, not
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  Speaker 1: this exact basin, but this exact kind of search. Two
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  Speaker 1: climbers overdue, a terrain that could swallow a body and
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  Speaker 1: return nothing. Brit, how terrifying. The helicopter made its first
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  Speaker 1: pass over the Northwest Ridge at first light. The teams
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  Speaker 1: moved on foot below, but what they found on the
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  Speaker 1: 8th of June stopped everyone cold. A single trekking pole,
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  Speaker 1: handle pointing down into the snow, planted or fallen into
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  Speaker 1: the debris field, roughly 200 yards below the Northwest Ridge.
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  Speaker 1: On its own, a trekking pole means nothing. But the
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  Speaker 1: avalanche fracture crown was visible from there. A clean break
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  Speaker 1: in the snowpack at approximately 11,400 feet, high on the ridge.
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  Speaker 1: The pole was below it. The geometry was clear and terrible.
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  Speaker 1: Both climbers were presumed trapped. One pole recovered. One not. Brit.
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  Speaker 1: How bleak. Here is the thing that the evidence could
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  Speaker 1: not answer. Where were the bodies? The team searched the
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  Speaker 1: debris field thoroughly. The helicopter swept the glacial basin east
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  Speaker 1: and west. They found the poles. They found the crown.
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  Speaker 1: They did not find Brenda Lane or Charles Rafferty. On
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  Speaker 1: the 7th, late in the day, a storm moved in.
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  Speaker 1: It cost them 24 hours. When the teams went back up,
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  Speaker 1: the debris field had shifted and settled. Avalanche terrain is
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  Speaker 1: not static. It breathes and buries on its own schedule.
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  Speaker 1: The search ran through the 12th of June. Five days,
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  Speaker 1: two teams, a helicopter. and the mountain gave back exactly
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  Speaker 1: one object. Marsh suspended active operations on the 12th. Both
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  Speaker 1: climbers were presumed dead. Families were notified. Brit, I can't
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  Speaker 1: believe it, that call. The one Patricia Lane received is
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  Speaker 1: the kind of call that does not leave a person
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  Speaker 1: the way it found them. But there was a crucial
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  Speaker 1: detail that nobody on the search team knew. Charles Rafferty
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  Speaker 1: had left those mountains on his own, He had been
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  Speaker 1: admitted to Crest Falls Hospital as a solo hiker, the
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  Speaker 1: record lists him that way, and discharged before the search
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  Speaker 1: teams even reached the glacial basin. The registration book at
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  Speaker 1: Sutter Basin Trailhead showed two names on the 2nd of June.
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  Speaker 1: The SAR teams were looking for two people. Only one
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  Speaker 1: of those people had told anyone he was back. At 2.17
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  Speaker 1: in the afternoon on the 8th of June, While Marsh's
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  Speaker 1: teams were documenting the trekking pole and the fracture crown,
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  Speaker 1: Rafferty was buying a block of pale granite at a
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  Speaker 1: supplier in Crestfall. The receipt exists. The time is on it.
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  Speaker 1: He brought the stone back to his workshop. The bench
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  Speaker 1: grinder was already there. The chisels were already there. Five
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  Speaker 1: years of practice were already there. He set the granite
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  Speaker 1: on the work table and began carving three lines into
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  Speaker 1: its face. Each letter roughly a quarter of an inch deep.
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  Speaker 1: Brenda Lane. A date in August 2014. A second date.
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  Speaker 1: June 3rd, 2016. He carved her name and two dates
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  Speaker 1: into a stone. The first date, according to later accounts,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: was the year she started climbing seriously. The second was
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: the day of the avalanche. The day Rafferty believed she
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  Speaker 1: had died. He worked through the days that followed. Marsh's
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  Speaker 1: teams were still on the mountain. Patricia Lane was still waiting.
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  Speaker 1: Rafferty was in his backyard, carving. On the evening of
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  Speaker 1: the 13th of June, he drove to Sutter Basin trailhead
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  Speaker 1: and left the stone on the kiosk shelf. No note,
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  Speaker 1: no signature. He drove back to Crestfall in the dark.
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  Speaker 1: That same morning, hours before he made that drive, Eugene
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  Speaker 1: Katz bored a collie named Stu had found Brenda Lane alive.
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  Speaker 1: Rafferty didn't know. Brit? No. Picture the depression in the terrain,
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  Speaker 1: where Brenda Lane spent 11 days. A granite overhang above her,
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  Speaker 1: just wide enough to block the worst of the debris load.
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  Speaker 1: She had half an emergency bar. and water from glacial
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  Speaker 1: melt running in a thin seam along the rock. Her
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  Speaker 1: radio had disappeared, destroyed in the initial impact. Brit, poor thing.
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  Speaker 1: Her left wrist was fractured. Three toes on her left
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  Speaker 1: foot had frostbite. She had a concussion that kept her disoriented.
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  Speaker 1: for the first several days, which means the worst stretch
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  Speaker 1: of the 11 days was also the stretch she can remember,
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  Speaker 1: least clearly. She had a whistle. It worked. She used
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  Speaker 1: it when she heard anything that might be a helicopter.
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  Speaker 1: The mountain was large. The sound of a whistle carries
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  Speaker 1: less far than you think at altitude, and the teams
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  Speaker 1: were working the debris field 200 yards above and to
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  Speaker 1: the northwest. So consider what Rafferty knew when he began carving.
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  Speaker 1: He had been on that ridge. He had seen the
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  Speaker 1: crown fracture. He had survived. The record confirms he came
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  Speaker 1: out and he had come back to town carrying the
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  Speaker 1: specific knowledge of what had happened above the glacier. He
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: believed the avalanche had taken Brenda. The evidence available to
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  Speaker 1: him from where he stood on that mountain supported that
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  Speaker 1: belief entirely. He made a memorial stone. That is what
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  Speaker 1: the object is, factually. Not a threat, not a confession,
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  Speaker 1: not a marker for a burial site. A handmade memorial,
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  Speaker 1: placed at the trailhead where they had signed in together
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  Speaker 1: for a climbing partner he believed was dead. But the
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  Speaker 1: dates on the stone are wrong, and they remain wrong.
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  Speaker 1: The first date, August 2014, does not correspond to any
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  Speaker 1: verifiable event in Brenda's climbing record as documented. The second
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  Speaker 1: date is June 3rd, the day Rafferty believed the avalanche occurred,
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  Speaker 1: according to the verified timeline. The avalanche happened no earlier
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  Speaker 1: than the morning of the 3rd and possibly later. The
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  Speaker 1: date is approximately correct, but the precision Rafferty brought to
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  Speaker 1: everything else, the equipment checks, the weather windows, the return
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  Speaker 1: time calculations, did not carry over to those carved numbers.
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  Speaker 1: No one has explained that, not publicly. Brit, how odd.
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  Speaker 1: When Beverly Harrison found the stone the morning of the 14th,
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  Speaker 1: she brought it to the sheriff's office. Marsh drove to
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  Speaker 1: Rafferty's workshop the same morning. He found Rafferty at the
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  Speaker 1: bench grinder. The stone chips were still on the floor.
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  Speaker 1: There was no crime to charge. The county prosecutor reviewed
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  Speaker 1: the case and refused to act. A man had carved
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  Speaker 1: a stone for someone he believed dead. Brit, I get it.
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  Speaker 1: By the time the stone was found, that person was
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  Speaker 1: alive in a hospital, 40 miles away, her wrist already
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  Speaker 1: in a cast, asking for her mother. The stone was
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  Speaker 1: retained briefly by the Crestfall Sheriff's Office, then released. Patricia
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  Speaker 1: Lane collected it. She drove it home to Ridgecroft and
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  Speaker 1: placed it in her backyard, face turned toward the fence,
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  Speaker 1: half hidden behind a rosebush. The dates are still wrong.
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  Speaker 1: She has kept it anyway. No one who knows her
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  Speaker 1: has asked why. Brenda Lane was recovered alive on June 13, 2016,
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  Speaker 1: at 9.41 in the morning. Eugene Catt was moving his
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  Speaker 1: sheep through the summer, backcountry east of the glacier, when
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  Speaker 1: his border collie, Stu, pulled toward a depression in the terrain.
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  Speaker 1: The dog found what the search teams had not found. Ripped. Incredible.
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  Speaker 1: Brenda was sheltered under a granite overhang. the same rock
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  Speaker 1: formation that had protected her from 11 days of exposure.
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  Speaker 1: Her left wrist was fractured from the initial impact. Three
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  Speaker 1: toes on her left foot showed frostbite. She had a
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  Speaker 1: concussion that had left her disoriented for the first several days.
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  Speaker 1: She had survived on half an energy bar and meltwater
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  Speaker 1: from the glacier. She could not move. She had stayed
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  Speaker 1: where she was because there was no other option. Kat
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  Speaker 1: radioed out on a satellite communicator. By noon, a helicopter
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  Speaker 1: was over the site. By three in the afternoon, Brenda
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  Speaker 1: was at Ridgecroft Regional Hospital. Patricia Lane spent six hours
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  Speaker 1: in that waiting room without eating. The frostbite resolved completely
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: over the following winter. She lost no fingers. The radius
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  Speaker 1: hailed cleanly. On June 22nd, nine days after she was found,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: she was discharged. The search and rescue operation had been
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: suspended on the 12th of June, the day before Kat's
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: dog found her. Vincent Marsh had notified both families. Both
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  Speaker 1: climbers were presumed dead. That was the official status for
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: less than 24 hours before it became wrong. What stayed
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: unresolved was not survival. Survival was the easy part in
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  Speaker 1: the end. The harder question was what to do with
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: everything around it. Brit, that's the point. Charles Rafferty had
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: not known Brenda was alive when he drove to Satter
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  Speaker 1: Basin Trailhead on the night of the 13th and left
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: the stone at the kiosk. He had spent 11 days
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: believing she was dead. He had carved that belief into
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: granite with tools he had been using for five years
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: in the workshop behind his house with a precision that
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: defined how he did everything else in his life except, apparently,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: those two dates. The county prosecutor reviewed the case and
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: declined to act. There was no crime. A man had
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: grieved in the only language he knew. Marsh found him
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: at the bench grinder. The next morning, the stone chips
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: were still on the floor. In July 2016, Rafferty and
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: Lane met once at a diner in Crestfall. The meeting
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: lasted approximately 40 minutes. What was said has never been
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: reported publicly. There is no record. They did not climb
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  Speaker 1: together again. Brit, what a shame. There is something in
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: that 40 minutes that resists easy framing. Two people who
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  Speaker 1: had survived the same event from opposite sides of a presumption.
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  Speaker 1: One had been under the mountain. The other had been
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: above it, injured, and had walked out alone, and had
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: then spent days making something he could not bury. Whatever
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: moved between them in that diner, it is not available
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: to us. What is available is this. In August 2016,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Brenda Lane returned to the food shelf in Ridgecroft. She
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: arrived at 4.58 in the afternoon, two minutes before her shift.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: Eugene Katt, the retired coordinator who had watched her work
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: those Tuesday evenings for three years, had once said of her,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: you just knew she'd be there. You stopped checking. She
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: was there. There is no tidy answer for what Patricia
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: Lane understood when she made that choice. But she made
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: it deliberately. She drove to a sheriff's office, signed for
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: a piece of granite carved with incorrect dates for her
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: living daughter, and brought it home. She gave it a place.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: She gave it cover. Maybe the wrong dates are not
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: the point. Maybe what the stone is, regardless of its errors,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: is evidence that someone believed the worst had happened. and
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: still wanted to mark that a person had been there,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: that Brenda Lane had climbed, that she had been real
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: on a mountain. The dates are wrong. The name is right.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: Brenda Lane was 22 years old when an avalanche buried
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: her below the Northwest Ridge of the Bitterroot Range, and
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: an 11-day survival became a 40-minute diner, conversation, and a
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: granite block in a backyard facing a fence. She is
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: the reason the stone exists. She is also the reason
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: it is wrong. Brit. Wow. This show is made by
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Oba Media.