Donaldson: Extreme Reporting Is How Dave Cawley Puts Himself In A Stranger’s Shoes
Aug 27, 2025, 1:16 PM
Photo courtesy of Dave Cawley
SALT LAKE CITY –Telling other people’s stories is difficult.
It’s also a privilege.
It can be educational. And quite often, it is incredibly inspiring.
But in my 35 years as a journalist, I think one of the most difficult aspects of telling another person’s story is making sure my writing reflects a stranger’s truth. And many times, it means exploring who they are or what happened to them through verbal descriptions of things I’ve never experienced.
Most journalists have various ways to try and, as the saying goes, try to walk a mile in their subject’s shoes. But very few have literally walked in another’s shoes like my colleague Dave Cawley did in his newest podcast – Uinta Triangle.
In fact, what Dave created with Uinta Triangle isn’t just a podcast. He calls it an audio documentary, and that’s because he’s not just telling the story of an Australian hiker who went missing in 2011.
He wants you to experience what 64-year-old Eric Robinson did when he disappeared in 201, and that required him to hike the same trail – on his own – where Eric lost his life. Unlike Dave’s other podcasts, he doesn’t just tell a story – he literally lives it, at least as much as he can.
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“I insert myself into the story in a way that we don’t usually do in journalism,” Dave said of the podcast that was released in association with Lemonada Media in May. All nine episodes – and bonus content – are available on all podcast platforms and at KSLPodcasts.com. “I’m literally putting the listener on my back and carrying them on this trail. And the reason I felt that was necessary is because there was no other way to get the experience right, to share with somebody what traveling through that landscape is.”
He wasn’t trying to defend Robinson’s decision to hike the Uinta Highline Trail alone.
He was simply trying to ensure if listeners were going to judge him, and you know they were, they had a chance to understand him – and the outdoor adventures he yearned to have.
“Why did he make the choice (he did)? That’s what I’m trying to answer for you,” he said. “You can agree or disagree with it, but, but I need to understand why. What is it about doing this that motivates and drives him?”
While the first few episodes introduce listeners to Eric Robinson and his wife, Marilyn Koolstra, later episodes are where Dave pairs his investigative reporter skills with his love of the outdoors.
“I told myself … I’m going to follow his path as closely as I know it, so that I can try to glean something from that for the storytelling,” he said. “Now, I’d hiked this trail before, so I’m not giving you his eyes of having never seen it. But …there are unscripted moments.”
If there is one thing any outdoor lover will tell you, it’s that regardless of how well you prepare, there is always the chance that Mother Nature will surprise you. Uinta Triangle has more than a few moments that Dave didn’t plan – and didn’t always appreciate at first.
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“That whole experience is unscripted,” he said of the solo hike re-tracing Robinson’s last trek. “I wasn’t out there with a paper script. …A lot of times I’m just stream-of-consciousness talking about things. And there were (some) very much, unplanned moments, like one of my favorite moments of the whole show.”
That moment comes about halfway through Dave’s solo hike. He’s just set up camp for the night.
“So I’ve just done this long diversion off the Uinta Highline trail,” he said. “I’ve done this big, long loop following a diversion that Eric did, trying to wrap my head around why he was off the trail. …I’ve got my own thoughts and theories about that. And you know, somebody who’s listened to the whole show will know that I’ve held back some information in the storytelling to this point, but I basically set my tent at the end of this day in the spot where I believe Eric set his tent, and I’m laying there after dark and I can’t sleep. Physically – I’m just exhausted.
Emotionally – I’ve bottomed out because it was raining all day. I’m sick and tired. I’m four days in. I want to be done. I don’t want to do this for four more days, but I’m committed, right?”
Then, as he tossed and turned, he heard something.
“This coyote starts yipping in the distance, and I had this … I don’t know that you’d call it an epiphany moment,” he said, “but I thought I’m the only person who’s hearing that. That sound exists in space, and I’m the only human who’s perceiving it. And Eric would have had his own set of unique experiences that we will never know …on that trail, and there was a feeling of connection to this man I’d never met in that moment that was not something I expected.”
Dave was filled with gratitude for the connection – and what he learned about the process of discovery.
“When you go out on a story, you don’t know how it’s going to turn out,” he said. “You are chasing an idea. You’re chasing curiosity, and hopefully… the world, the universe, whatever it is, will deliver something that allows us to connect to another human being.”
And it is through that connection, that journalists like Dave Cawley are able to tell the stories of people they’ve never met living experiences they’ve never had.
