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Nestled in the Wasatch Mountains south of Salt Lake City, the caverns of Timpanogos Cave National Monument sit more than a mile above sea level and over 1,000 feet above the American Fork River. The canyon's rocky flanks are dotted with Douglas firs and crowned by glittering limestone crags. The spectacular vistas draw tens of thousands of people up a steep trail each year to see the caves' array of stalagmites, stalactites, helictites and flowstone.But to three-year-old Paulina Filippova, all this natural beauty was less interesting than the green cardboard can of pretzels in her hands. It was about 5:30 p.m. on a late September day in 2006, and the pixie-faced blonde was hiking with her mother, Olga, her older brother and sister, and two family friends. The group had just toured the cave and was headed back down the winding path.
As Paulina walked, she shook the can, fiddled with the lid and plucked out the occasional treat, apparently oblivious to her mother's warnings to watch her step. The trail curved sharply left; Paulina kept walking straight. Olga grabbed for her, missed by an inch -- and watched in horror as her youngest child plummeted 25 feet down a cliff, landed on a near-vertical scree slope, tumbled 50 feet into a stand of scrub oak, and vanished. "I thought, That's it," Olga recalls. "I will never see her alive again."
Olga and her physicist husband, Andrey, moved to the United States from Russia in 1995 when an American firm hired him for a job in Salt Lake City. Settling in suburban Magna, the nature-loving couple went hiking and camping as often as they could. In time, they brought along their children: Nina, now nine, Fyodr, seven, and finally Paulina.
By 2006, Andrey had established his own business, developing industrial cameras. That fall, he invited an old friend, Novosibirsk State University computer science professor Vitaly Tsikoza, to visit; the two planned to discuss a possible joint venture. Andrey had always admired Tsikoza's blend of gentleness, modesty and intellectual brilliance. In their younger days, they spent hours rambling through the woods, talking about everything from software programs to the meaning of life.
On the Sunday after Tsikoza's arrival in Utah, Andrey suggested a trip to Timpanogos, a favorite spot of the family's. He had work to do, so Olga would take the children, Tsikoza and another colleague.
Tsikoza, an athletic 41-year-old, carried Paulina in a backpack up the mile-and-a-half-long trail. The girl was on foot, though, when the group exited the caverns and started back down the mountain. It was along this stretch that Paulina fell over the side.
Olga and Tsikoza quickly climbed about ten feet down to a narrow ledge.
"Do I jump?" Olga cried.
"No," Tsikoza said. "Go get help."
Olga scrambled back to the trail and ran toward the cave entrance. "My daughter fell!" she screamed. "My daughter fell!" Desperate to reach Paulina, she rushed back to the cliff and began searching for another way down.
Then she noticed that Tsikoza, too, had disappeared.
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