2018 Lee’s Summit graduate killed while summiting tallest peak in Wyoming, family says

Anna Spoerre
·2 min read
2

A Lee’s Summit High School graduate was killed late last month while climbing Wyoming’s tallest peak, loved ones said.

Jason Allen Graves, 24, died Aug. 27.

Graves fell during the descent from the summit of the 13,810-foot-tall Gannett Peak in Fremont County, Wyoming, according to a GoFundMe created by his loved ones.

The Jackson Hole News and Guide reported that emergency crews found Graves’ body at 9 a.m. Aug. 28 on a glacier several hundred feet below the peak he was climbing.

“A specialized crew from Grand Teton National Park, the Jenny Lake Climbing Rangers, flew into the area and were able to recover his body from the glacier at about 12,800 feet elevation without further incident,” according to a press release from the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office.

Graves graduated from Lee’s Summit High School in 2018, where he won four state swimming medals before attending the University of Missouri and Longview Community College, family said. He moved to the mountains in spring 2020, living first in Estes Park and Winter Park, Colorado, then Jackson, Wyoming, where he worked at Teton Science Schools.

Just before his death, Graves and his girlfriend, Kasey Ervin, moved to Grand Junction, Colorado.

“Jason loved the outdoors, and he had recently shared with Kasey his desire to figure out a way to help financially disadvantaged youth experience the Teton Science School, which is where he himself had been introduced to the beauty of the mountains and caught the hiking/climbing bug that would become his passion,” says the GoFundMe.

The day he died, Graves, who family said possessed an “adventurous spirit,” had made the trip back to Wyoming to “say goodbye to a place near to his heart,” loved ones said.

Family said Graves was a cautious and experienced outdoorsman and an accomplished climber, with summits including Mt. Hood in Oregon and all the Grand Tetons in Wyoming under his belt, family said. When not climbing mountains, Graves also loved to swim and paddle board in mountain lakes - and root for the Chiefs.

“Jason lived a full life and gave and received joy every day,” says the GoFundMe.

Now, loved ones are raising money to help support Ervin, and to create a scholarship at Teton Science Schools in Graves’ memory. Family said the funds will go toward helping “ensure Jason’s vision of helping others experience the place he loved so very much.”

As of Tuesday, more than $30,400 in donations had been collected.