Two former Camas residents, Duane and Linda Buhrmester, were killed last week in a mud- and rock slide while climbing Crestone Needle, a 14,000-foot mountain in the Sangre de Cristo mountain range in Colorado.
It’s believed the two were retreating from a severe thunderstorm when they fell about 500 feet with the sliding rocks and mud on July 27, according to the Associated Press and several other news stories. A search and rescue team found them under rocks and mud Sunday, one day after a family member reported they hadn’t returned from their camping trip.
Duane Buhrmester, 57, was a longtime psychology professor at the University of Texas at Dallas. Linda Buhrmester, 56, ran a in-home child-care company. They lived in Plano in the Dallas area.
Family members said the couple had been climbing mountains for about 30 years.
“Every year they sent me a Christmas card of a mountain they climbed that year,” said Jean Wollam, a Camas resident and Linda Buhrmester’s sister. “Every year they would go somewhere and climb a mountain. That was their vacation.”