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In the early 1980s, many of the staff at Lone Mountain Ranch in Big Sky Montana were like a close-knit family.

Both working and living together on the property and not only did Lone Mountain function as a working cattle ranch,

it also offered luxury guest accommodations for tourists looking to get a taste of the old west.

On a hot July day in 1984, one of the staff members had decided to go out for a run along a well-used trail through the scenic beauty of the surrounding area, but never returned.

When it was realized, other workers at the ranch dropped everything to go out looking for.

No one could have predicted the horrifying and deadly situation they come across when they finally found her.

Join me now as we take a look at the shocking abduction of world class by athlete, Carrie Swinson, taken by a father and son who lived in the expanse of mountains.

You'll also hear about the courageous acts of someone who tried rescuing Carrie and risked his own life to save her.

Nestled midway between Yellowstone National Park and Boseman Montana sits the majestic outdoor mecca known as Big Sky, a town today, synonymous with adventure,

and all the tourism and development that gravitates towards areas of uncommon beauty like these.

The landscape is absolutely breathtaking, and for the majority of people who flock there each year, getting out into the surrounding mountains is a form of recreation, a way to relax and getting to with nature, and for some perhaps, it's an opportunity to test their metal against the mountains just to see what they're made of.

However, living in this region of the Rocky Mountain West was about survival, becoming a proving ground for American pioneers, trappers, fur traders and explorers.

Back in the early 1800s, when Montana first opened for fur trading, a new type of man emerged in the canon of American folklore, the mountain man, men who'd set off on their own, to tame the rugged wilderness, living off the land, and roam the west.

Among some of the folklore heroes were men like Jim Bridger, John Colter and Hugh Glass, and to this day innumerable mountains, parks, valleys, counties, rivers and towns bear the names of these mountain men, their exploits and adventures forming the bedrock of the romanticized ideals of the American West, like self-reliance, ruggedness, courage and independence.

Even to this day you'll find people choosing to live completely off the grid in the Rocky Mountains, men who consider themselves individualists and survivalists, but not everyone who lives up in the mountains can be considered a true mountain man, at least not the type, anyone should admire or celebrate, with ideals more sinister than romantic.

On July 15, 1984, a father and son made camp in the woods just north of Big Sky. It had been almost an entire year since either man had lived in any sort of civilized manner, something that was pretty obvious just by looking at them.

Head to toe, both men were filthy, their clothes absolutely ragged, the father, Don Nichols, looked a lot older than 53, sporting a scraggly grey beard, his face so weathered, it resembled a well used baseball mitt.

His 19 year old son, Danny, wasn't too far behind, working pretty hard as seen that replicating his father's mean-cheap beard. For the better part of a decade, Don had lived in the mountains and was proud as boy finally decided to join him in his lifestyle.

After spending a year living in the mountains together, very few words needed to be exchanged between the pair, as they set up camp.

As they placed their hunting rifles down, Don put supplies from his ruck sack and began mixing ingredients for dinner, Danny gathered pine boughs to create a comfortable sleeping platform they'd share.

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