Johnny Waterman - Denali National Park & Preserve - Alaska

Locations Unknown

Unknown Media Group

Places & Travel, True Crime, Society & Culture

4.4 • 897 Ratings

🗓️ 8 February 2026

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

April 1st, 1981: a 28-year-old elite solo climber leaves a remote shelter deep in Alaska’s Ruth Glacier, pulling a sled and heading alone toward Denali’s imposing east side. Experienced, deliberate, and traveling light, he moved into heavily crevassed ice beneath one of the most unforgiving mountains on Earth. When his expected return window passes, concern begins to grow, and search efforts expand across glaciers, avalanche paths, and possible exit routes. Join us this week as we investigate the disappearance of Johnny Waterman in Denali National Park and Preserve.

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Check out our other shows on the Unknown Media Network:
Crime Off The Grid
Off The Trails
Hike N' Seek
Who Runs This Park
Relish

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Hosts:
Mike Van de Bogert
Joe Erato

Intro/Outro “Cornfield Chase” – Cinematic Waves & Rafael Krux (licensed) → https://soundcloud.com/cinematicwav3s/cornfield-chase

Cover Image
“Mount Denali” by David Zhang (from Canada), licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0) — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mount_Denali_%2854022637874%29.jpg

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Thousands of people have mysteriously vanished in America's wilderness.
0:14.0	Join us as we dive into the deep end of the unexplainable and try to piece together what happened. You are listening to Locations Unknown. Oh, what's up, everybody.
0:59.8	Oh, what's up, everybody and welcome back to another episode of Locations Unknown.
1:05.6	I'm your co-host, Joe Irrato and with me as always is a guy who spills his milk just to prove he won't cry over it.
1:06.8	Mike Vannebogart.
1:08.1	Thank you, Joe.
1:24.7	And thank you once again to all of our amazing listeners for tuning in just a few updates before we get going. First, new Patreon shoutouts to Justin Ware, Alex Seisen, and Elizabeth Persons. So thank you for following the show.
2:01.2	Thank you very much. Supporting the show. We truly mean it. Not just saying it. So. One of us means it more than the other. You have to figure out which one. Yeah, figure that out. No, but truly thank you. Everything you see in the video and hear and your ears is because of supporters like you. So thank you so very much. If you want to call the show, you can call 208, 391, 6913. We're past due for doing another voicemail episode. So, yes. Joe is going to be off on a little adventure the next week. So you've got a few more weeks to call. But I'm feeling like when he gets back, we're going to do one. So I'm going to be like you're ready to go ready to rock and roll so go to Miami oh yeah fun it's supposed to be a little
2:06.9	chilly though so we'll see hopefully that ends when I get there nothing can be colder than it
2:11.3	than here yeah it's like right now it's showing it's like 70 yeah wow I feel so bad for last time I was there at this time because I go to love burn which is the Burning Man regional yeah it's like 70. Wow, I feel so bad for that. Last time I was there at this time,
2:18.3	because I go to Loveburn, which is the Burning Man Regional. Yeah. It was like 80 and sunny the whole time.
2:22.5	And that's really what I want right now in February. Yeah. So, well, that'll be fun for Joe. I'm stuck here in the
2:28.5	Arctic wilderness. I'll send you pictures. Okay. Of how awesome it is. I'm going to look at them in July.
2:37.5	If you want to follow some of the other shows on our network,
2:40.5	you can follow off the trails.
2:42.6	Weird as we know, who runs this park,
2:43.9	crime off the grid,
2:45.3	and relish.
2:47.4	If you want to support our show,
2:48.9	we're on Patreon,
2:50.0	YouTube memberships, premium subscriptions
2:52.1	on Apple and Spreaker.
	...

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