Pure-Hearted Runner Is Sole Survivor of Clif Factory Tour
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An avid runner described by friends as “a really good guy” and “pure hearted” is the sole survivor of a group tour of Clif Bar & Company’s mysterious and whimsical factory in Twin Falls, Idaho, over the weekend, Dumb Runner has learned.
Peter Ostrum, 33, began the tour with four others at 10 a.m. Sunday, sources said. Over the next hour or so, those four vanished, one by one, under circumstances that authorities are describing as “highly unusual.” They are presumed dead.
One source close to the case, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that the fates of the four missing tour group members involved an enormous vat of simmering Razz®-flavored energy gel topped by a narrow catwalk; a macadamia nut chute; a highly secretive room labeled “The Scrapery”; and a locomotive-sized Rube Goldberg-like contraption, powered by steam, called the Chocolate Chipper.
All four victims were reported to have had character flaws that made each of their incidents apt, said a source, declining to elaborate.
“Let’s just say, none of them were angels,” the source said.
Ostrum, by contrast, enjoys a reputation as being kind, thoughtful, and humble, according to those close to him.
“Peter has always been a really good guy,” said one longtime friend. “Very wholesome. Also, a real stickler for the rules. I’m not surprised to hear that he made it through unscathed.”
“To be honest,” the source added, “it sounds to me like that factory owner guy sort of had it in for the rest of them. Almost like the whole thing was engineered as some sort of weird morality tale.”
Ostrum declined multiple interview requests, citing the demands of helping to care for his bed-ridden grandparents; reached by phone, the owner of the factory and leader of Sunday’s tour, an eccentric and reclusive industrialist named Gene Depp, dismissed the story as “pure imagination” before telling a reporter, “Good day, sir,” and hanging up.
