John Scarffe, Boulder County. On April 2, 2019, just before 10 a.m., the Boulder County Communications Center received a call reporting a deceased female near a ski trail at the Brainard Lake Recreation Area in unincorporated Boulder County. According to a Boulder County news release. “A female passerby came across the deceased female at the west end of a ski trail.”

According to the Boulder Daily Camera, the body of Kim Ha Thi Pham, 50, of Toronto, was found by a passerby at the west end of the Colorado Mountain Club Trail south of Brainard Lake.

Boulder County Sheriff’s Office, Rocky Mountain Rescue Group and the Boulder County Coroner’s Office responded to the scene. Snowmobiles were used to recover and transport the body from the recreation area, according to the release.

The Boulder County Coroner’s Office will determine the cause and manner of death. At this time, no foul play is suspected, according to the release.
The Camera reported that Pham may have actually been trying to hike to Blue Lake further west. Pham’s older brother James told the Camera his sister was on a road trip from Toronto to California, but she had stopped in Colorado and was trying to go see some scenery at a “popular blue lake.”

According to the Toronto Sun, on April 10, 2019, police are trying to unravel the mystery of Pham and have not released any information on what Pham was doing in the location. According to friends on Facebook, Pham was the mother of two daughters and drove from Toronto to Colorado alone.

The Vietnamese Saints of Toronto said in a release that she was a very friendly, open, enthusiastic person in the parish’s charity activities. Most of the dead woman’s family lives in the United States and Vietnam. “(The children are) very upset, confused about the mother’s passing,” the church said.

Visitation and mass were held last week.

(Originally published in the April 18, 2019, print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)