Colorado woman dies free-solo climbing at Rocky Mountain National Park
A 26-year-old woman plummeted 500 feet to her death while free-solo climbing inside a national park in Colorado Sunday, according to officials.
The woman, who was climbing with a 27-year-old man, lost her grip while scaling Four Aces of Blitzen Ridge at the Rocky Mountain National Park, the National Park Service said in a news release.
The Boulder resident’s 500-foot fatal fall is among several deaths at national parks across the country recently and the second to occur at Rocky Mountain National Park in the span of a week.
The state’s Air National Guard helicopter from Buckley Air Force Base helped in the recovery of the surviving climber by pulling him up by a winch cable Sunday night after he called for help following the woman’s fall, officials said.
Search and rescue members recovered the woman’s body Monday after hiking to the area above Ypsilon Lake where they prepared for a “helicopter long-line recovery,” the park service said.
Entrance sign for Rocky Mountain National Park. LightRocket via Getty Images
Her body was airlifted to the Upper Beaver Meadows area of the park before it was taken to the Larimer County Medical Examiner’s Office to determine the cause of death.
Free-solo climbing is when a climber doesn’t use rope or other protective gear.
A week before the fatal climbing incident, a 24-year-old Las Vegas man, Luis Monteiro, was killed when he fell off the edge of a waterfall at Rocky Mountain National Park and was sucked underwater, officials said.
Officials said Monteiro originally was 25 and lived in Rhode Island.
Ypsilon Mountain in Rocky Mountain National Park. Wikipedia
The medical examiner said his manner of death was accidental and the cause of death was drowning.
There have been other deaths at national parks in recent weeks pinned on extreme heat.
A San Diego man, 65, was found dead inside his vehicle at Death Valley National Park in California, and a 57-year-old woman died while hiking in extreme heat at the Grand Canyon earlier this month, officials said.
A father and his teen step-son both died while hiking in the punishing heat at Big Bend National Park in Texas last month.
The 14-year-old boy fell ill along the trail and lost consciousness before he was pronounced dead at the scene on June 23. The father, 31, in a rush to get help after the boy passed out fatally crashed his car.
Source: New York Post
