Chapter 1: Gone Without a Trace

My best friend—my college roommate for four years, my closest pal for ten years—is gone.

The words echo in my mind like a voice I can’t shake. Sometimes I still reach for my phone, half-expecting a text from him, or I catch myself waiting for his voice to pop up in a new video. But he’s gone. There’s no getting him back. The absence is a physical thing—a weight pressing on my chest that just won’t let up.

Not even his body was found.

That’s the part that haunts me most. There’s no closure—just this blank where an answer should be. Sometimes I catch myself wondering if maybe he’s just lost out there somewhere, waiting for someone to find him. But I know that’s just wishful thinking—a kid’s hope I can’t seem to let go of.

His name was Aaron Price, and he was a YouTuber who made videos about outdoor adventures.

He was the kind of guy who’d climb a tree just for the view. Classic Aaron. He’d sleep under the stars because pitching a tent felt like cheating. His channel was all about pushing boundaries, testing gear, chasing adrenaline. He’d built up a decent following—enough to scrape by, but not enough to get reckless. Or so I thought.

The accident happened in the Black Ridge Mountains, Montana—a place locals say you just don’t go. Jagged peaks, dense pine forests, cliffs everywhere you look. Black Ridge has a reputation.

I remember Aaron showing me pictures before he left. Maps with routes drawn in Sharpie. Google Earth screenshots. Even a couple of old, blurry postcards he’d scored on eBay. He was obsessed. But when you mentioned Black Ridge to the locals, they’d give you this wary look, like you’d just said you were planning to play hopscotch on a minefield.

Last year, four professional geologists died there, too.

It made the local news for a few days. People called the place cursed, or just plain unlucky. Even the search-and-rescue folks seemed hesitant to go in. That should’ve been enough of a warning. But Aaron? He saw it as a challenge.

The two guys who were with him recorded the whole thing on video.

That’s the part that still makes my skin crawl. I wish I could unsee it. It’s one thing to lose a friend; it’s another to watch it happen on a screen, over and over, searching for something you missed—a warning, a sign, some way it could have gone differently.

There were two videos. In the first, Aaron stood on a high cliff, trying to scout the way. Then he lost his footing. He fell.

I watched that clip a dozen times, hoping somehow the ending would change. The way he tries to steady himself, his arms flailing for a second—then nothing but open air and the sound of wind. That image is burned into my mind.

In the second, his two companions had already climbed down to the bottom of the cliff and walked up to where Aaron had fallen.

Their voices were shaky, the camera jostling as they picked their way over the rocks. Honestly, even the birds seemed to know something terrible had happened. The silence was thick.

He was lying motionless on a rock by the mountain stream below. I felt my stomach clench. The air in the video seemed colder, sharper—like I could almost smell the pine and blood.

His body looked small, almost childlike from that angle. The water rushed past, indifferent. As if nothing had happened at all.

The cliff was a thousand feet high. From that height, surviving was basically impossible.

You don’t walk away from a fall like that. Not in this world. The math is simple, brutal, and final.

One of them reached out to check if Aaron was breathing. There was a pause. Then he turned and said, “He’s dead.”

The words came out flat, like a verdict. Even on video, you could hear the defeat in his voice. For a second, I just sat there, numb.

Honestly, you could just tell. He was already gone.

His body was twisted, his limbs at odd angles. My gut twisted, too. There’s a kind of stillness that only comes with death. I remember feeling sick, like I’d swallowed a rock.

His head was a bloody mess, even deformed from the fall. I had to look away. The image stuck with me, burned behind my eyelids.

I had to pause the video. Couldn’t look at it for more than a second. That wasn’t the Aaron I knew—the one always cracking jokes or pulling stupid faces for the camera. This was just... awful.

The two had planned for one to stay behind while the other went for help.

It was the logical thing to do. That’s what you’re supposed to do, right? But logic doesn’t mean much when you’re standing next to your dead friend on a mountain.

But that afternoon, of course, storm clouds rolled in, threatening a heavy downpour.

Montana weather is no joke. The sky can turn on you in a heartbeat, and out there, you’re a long way from help.

After talking it over, just to be safe, they decided to bury Aaron’s body right there and then leave together to find the rescue team.

I can’t blame them. The ground was already turning to mud, and the rain was coming in sheets. They did what they could, with what they had. Sometimes survival means making impossible choices.

A few days later, when the search and rescue team arrived, Aaron’s body was gone.

Just like that. No trace, no closure. I just sat there, stunned. The kind of thing that makes you question everything you thought you knew about the world.

The grave they’d dug was too shallow. The rain just washed it open.

Montana storms don’t mess around. The earth turns to soup, and anything not anchored gets swept away.

Aaron’s body must have been swept into the mountain stream and carried downstream. I tried not to picture it. But my mind wouldn’t let go.

I tried not to picture it, but my mind wouldn’t let go. I imagined him tumbling through the water, lost in the dark, carried further and further from the people who loved him.

Downstream, the stream connects to underground rivers, and those rivers lead to all sorts of sinkholes. No one knows where Aaron’s body might have ended up. But keeping the search going would’ve meant pouring in more time, more money—maybe more lives. It just wasn’t possible.

The search teams did what they could. But the mountains don’t give back what they take. At some point, you just have to accept that some mysteries stay buried.

After a lot of thought, Aaron’s family chose to stop searching.

I know that decision tore them apart. There’s a kind of pain in not having a grave to visit, in not being able to say goodbye. But what choice did they have?

His YouTube channel—Wilderness Quest Aaron—stopped updating three days ago.

The comments section turned into a digital wake. Fans posting memories, condolences, wild theories. The channel banner is still there, frozen in time.

His profile still says: “Where people won’t go, that’s where Aaron Price heads.”

That line always made me laugh. Now it just hurts. He really meant it, right up until the end.

Well, now you’ve truly gone somewhere no one else can reach.

I whispered that to myself the night I found out. Sometimes I still do, when the house is quiet and I miss him most.