Colorado Mystery: Climbers Vanish in the Mountains, Torn Tent and Dogman Suspicions Haunt the Case

Some stories begin with mystery and end in tragedy. Others start with tragedy and end with something much worse—a chilling question with no answer. This is such a story, one about mountains that do not forgive mistakes and about what may lurk in their shadows. This is the story of Eric Davis and Matthew Carson, two friends who went hiking in 1998 and encountered something that does not fit our idea of the wilderness. Their tent was torn to shreds, and the only traces left at the scene led nowhere and belonged to a creature that should not exist.

The Last Climb

Eric Davis and Matthew Carson were not amateurs. Eric, a methodical engineer, planned every trip with precision; Matthew, a freelance photographer, was the soul of their expeditions, always finding beauty in the harshest landscapes. Together, they had conquered dozens of peaks. In September 1998, the San Juan Mountains of Colorado beckoned—fewer tourists, crisp air, and the promise of solitude.

Handies Peak, rising over 14,000 feet, was their goal. They registered at the Ranger Station, left a copy of their route and expected return date, and Eric called his wife, promising to be home for dinner on Sunday. Everything was by the book.

Sunday evening came, but their car remained parked at the trailhead. By Monday morning, neither Eric nor Matthew had returned home or appeared at work. Their families raised the alarm.

The Search

The first two days of searching yielded nothing. The weather deteriorated—low clouds and cold winds hampered rescuers and helicopters. Search teams combed sector after sector along the planned route, but found no trace. No gloves, no wrappers, nothing. It was as if the two men had vanished into thin air.

Experienced mountain rescuers know the dangers: accidents, falls, sudden illness, or weather turning bad. But Eric and Matthew were too experienced for such mistakes.

On the fourth day, as the operation shifted from rescue to recovery, a helicopter pilot spotted a bright spot on a slope at 10,000 feet—off the presumed route, in a small wooded hollow. A ground team was dispatched.

The Torn Tent

What they found did not fit any standard explanation. It was the climbers’ camp, but its appearance was shocking. The tent, designed for harsh conditions, was shredded—the durable synthetic fabric torn from the outside in. Something had tried to get inside with incredible force. The aluminum frame poles, built to withstand hurricane winds, were snapped like matchsticks. A piece of tent fabric hung from a bush twenty feet away, as if thrown by a powerful hand.

Inside and around the tent, chaos reigned. Sleeping bags were empty and tossed aside. Backpacks were open, but food, water, and warm clothes were almost untouched. It didn’t look like robbery, but a furious, blind attack.

And the most disturbing discovery: footprints. On the soil damp from night rain, a chain of prints unlike anything rescuers had seen before. Large and elongated, they vaguely resembled a bare human foot—but at the ends of the toes were deep, clear indentations: long, non-retractable claws. The stride was enormous, about seven feet, indicating a large and fast creature. The prints led from the tent down a steep slope, ending where soft earth gave way to rocky scree. Beyond that, nothing.

No blood. No clothing. Only these impossible tracks and the ravaged camp—a silent witness to a nightmare.

The Investigation

The camp’s discovery changed everything. Now it was a crime scene. Investigators from the Hinsdale County Sheriff’s Office and wildlife experts arrived. The more they examined the camp, the fewer answers they found.

The first step was to identify the tracks. An experienced trapper, who had studied local animals for decades, examined the plaster casts. His verdict: not a bear. Grizzly tracks, though large, are shaped differently; cougars’ tracks are smaller, and their claws retract when walking. He briefly considered a deformed or sick bear, but dismissed the idea—no North American predator could take a seven-foot stride.

Experts from the tent manufacturer, sent photos and samples, concluded that the tears required enormous force and something sharp—not a knife, but claws. The damage to the poles was like the impact of a car at low speed. No human or known animal could have done this so neatly and purposefully.

The official version given to the press was vague: a possible attack by a large predator. It reassured the public and allowed the investigation to continue, but in reality, it had reached a dead end. The case was quietly shelved as “unsolved.”

Behind Closed Doors

Privately, opinions were different. In an internal report never published, a predator behavior specialist wrote: “The nature of the attack does not correspond to any known predator. The absence of blood, the untouched food, and the selective destruction of the shelter indicate the purpose was not hunger, but possibly intimidation or abduction. The tracks, combining anthropomorphic and animal features, cannot be classified.”

Rumors leaked from the sheriff’s department and were confirmed by rescuers. Years later, some admitted that during night shifts in the search area, they felt inexplicable anxiety—the sense of being watched from the darkness was almost physical. Several claimed to have heard strange sounds: a low, throaty bark unlike any dog or wolf, sometimes turning into a vibrating hum that seemed to shake the ground. The sounds were never repeated or recorded.

About half a mile from the destroyed camp, a search party found Eric Davis’s bright red jacket hanging from a spruce branch. The jacket had massive tears on the shoulders and back, as if grabbed and pulled off with great force. Again, no blood.

If Eric was running, why remove his jacket in the cold? If attacked, why no biological traces? It seemed as if something was playing with them, leaving eerie clues that led nowhere.

The Legend Grows

The investigation stalled, becoming a local legend retold around campfires. The facts remained: two experienced climbers vanished, their camp destroyed, and the only clues pointed to a creature that did not officially exist.

Years passed. The case was classified as cold. Authorities did everything to ensure the story was forgotten—San Juan is a tourist region, and rumors of an unknown predator could hurt the economy. The public was left with the version of a lone bear attack, despite the contradictions.

The families received no answers, left with grief and endless “what ifs.” But in the mountains, memories outlast paperwork. Among locals, hunters, and rangers, the story became an ominous legend—a warning to those too cocky about the wild.

A Second Encounter

Almost a year later, in October 1999, a middle-aged geologist hiking alone near Handies Peak came to the sheriff’s office. Frightened but clear, he described what he saw at dawn: movement on a nearby slope, half a mile away. In the morning fog, he was sure it wasn’t a bear or deer. It was a tall, dark creature moving at incredible speed on all fours, then, for a few moments, standing upright on two legs. Even at a distance, he felt its gaze. Frozen in terror, he watched as the creature dropped to all fours and vanished into the forest.

His statement was filed but not taken seriously. “Perhaps it was just a bear, sir,” the officer said. No investigation was launched.

But for those who remembered the clawed tracks and huge stride, this was not fantasy—it was confirmation. A creature moving on both four and two legs, matching the seven-foot stride, exactly described the tracks left at the climbers’ camp. In narrow circles of researchers of the unexplained, the word “Dogman” began to be whispered.

Dogman: The Legend

This legend, or series of sightings, is widespread across North America. Not a mythical werewolf, but a real creature according to eyewitnesses: tall, muscular, moving on both two and four legs, with features reminiscent of both human and wolf or dog. Intelligent, cunning, incredibly strong.

Viewed through this lens, the Davis and Carson case makes sense—the inhuman strength that tore the tent apart, footprints like human but with claws, the absence of blood, the nighttime barking, and the eyewitness account of a two-legged creature.

All these details formed a single terrifying picture.

The Warning

Today, more than a quarter-century later, the mystery of Eric Davis and Matthew Carson’s disappearance remains unsolved. Officially, they are listed as victims of the wild. But the facts suggest that on that September night, they encountered something more than just a predator—something ancient and primitive that still lurks in the most remote corners of our planet.

Their story is not just a tragedy—it is a warning. A warning that there are places where humans are not at the top of the food chain, but intruders in a territory that sometimes fights back.