Two years of wondering what happened to her mother on a Colorado mountain became much clearer a week ago for a Butler County woman.

That is when a family trekking through the same terrain looking for a place to make camp discovered the remains of 74-year-old Patricia Wallace.

Once officials were convinced about the remains, Grand County Coroner Brenda Bock on Sunday called Wallace’s daughter, Katie Moore of Franklin Township, with the news.

“She was kind of relieved, and very appreciative for all we did,” Bock said of Moore.

The 52-year-old Moore could not be reached for comment Thursday or this morning, but in a 2012 interview with the Butler Eagle, she spoke of her mother’s spirit of adventure, hiking experience and physical fitness.

Wallace worked as a librarian at Slippery Rock University before retiring. She later moved to Colorado in the early 1980s, following a divorce.

The human bones officially will be identified through DNA testing, which could take up to six months, Bock said.

“To me, there’s no doubt,” Bock said Thursday, “but we still need to do the necessary testing.”

Along with the bones, authorities recovered articles of clothing and a back pack that matched the description of what Wallace was wearing that last day she was seen alive.

“Inside the back pack was her driver’s license and credit cards,” Bock said.

The area where her remains were found is not far from where Wallace was hiking with friends in Buchanan Pass Trail, just over an hour from her home near Boulder on July 3, 2012.

That’s when she decided to go alone on a different, supposedly less strenuous route off the mountain.

That’s when she possibly got lost, confused, or both.

The Boulder County Sheriff’s Office described the terrain as rough, steep and treacherous.

Rocky Mountain search crews, some mounted on horseback, spent day after day for two consecutive weeks looking for her. The operation was called off after officials determined she had likely perished from exposure or lack of food and water.

In July 2013, to mark the one-year anniversary of her mother’s disappearance, Moore traveled to Colorado to lead a memorial service on the trail where Wallace went missing.

Bock said that with last week’s discovery, she was happy that Moore would no longer have to wonder what happened to her mother.

“I’m glad we’re able to give her closure,” Bock said. “Two years is a long time.”