Menu
Greencastle native missing on mountain-climbing excursion in Mongolia
A 39-year-old Greencastle man has been missing for three weeks after failing to return from climbing Altai Tavan Bogd Mountain in Mongolia.
Patrick Baumann, son of Jackie and Joe Baumann of Greencastle, set out on his climb Sept. 18 in the mountain range within the Altai Tavan Bogd National Park that follows Mongolia’s western border with China and Russia
“We’re not happy about the situation,” Jackie Baumann told the Banner Graphic, “but at this point it’s a recovery mission, not a rescue mission.”
An experienced climber who has scaled the highest peak in 49 of the 50 states and has climbed mountains for 20 years while visiting 102 countries to carry out his pronounced sense of adventure, Baumann was climbing on his own after a friend was unable to join him at the last minute.
His parents received a phone call from the U.S. Embassy in Mongolia three weeks ago after their son failed to return to a designated pickup point for a ride back to his hostel.
“He left his temporary passport with the driver,” Mrs. Baumann said, “and some other things in his hostel. He would not have come back without getting the things he left behind with the driver or at the hostel.”
His parents were told that a group of five Australians reportedly encountered Baumann on the mountain. However, they told authorities they failed to find him when they reached the top of the mountain.
The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) was informed about the missing man at about 10 p.m. Sept. 21.
A subsequent search-and-rescue operation was set in motion but the search team had to return to camp due to continuous snow, which had been falling for five hours on Altai Tavan Bogd Mountain.
Friends and other climbers were mounting a new search effort when the weather worsened, Mrs. Baumann said.
Difficult as it was to do, the search was called off, she said, adding that “it wasn’t worth risking more lives.”
“The consensus is he would not have survived,” the climber’s mother conceded.
“We tried to think as positive as we could for as long as possible,” she added, “but barring a one-in-a-million miracle …”
Baumann, a 1998 Greencastle High School graduate, won the distinguished Beering Presidential Scholarship to Purdue University, which paid for his tuition, housing and books for as long as he wished to attend Purdue.
He obtained a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering and then got an MBA at Purdue’s Krannert School of Management.
Baumann then moved to China, where he worked as a chemical engineer for two different firms. When his company was bought out, he spent the past year climbing mountains and hiking around the world.
“He did what he wanted to do, and that was see the world,” his mother said. “We quit worrying when he turned 30 because he wasn’t going to change. I was getting an ulcer thinking a day like this would come.”
His 40th birthday is next Wednesday.
“Patrick said he wanted to live a life interesting enough that if he ever wrote a book, it would be interesting to read,” Mrs. Baumann said.
Baumann, who came home to Greencastle for 10 days this past June, planned to return home next year to climb the remaining high point he had yet to visit among the 50 states -- the top of Mt. Katahdin in Maine.
He wanted to do that after completing the last 200 miles he had remaining on the Appalachian Trail from the southern border of Maine to the northern end of the trail. Baumann started hiking the Appalachian Trail from the southern point in Georgia during his freshman year in college.
“He had many self-imposed goals,” his mother added, “we wish we could have seen the list …”