Posted on 09/09/2026 10:10:00 AM PDT by george76
ASPEN, Colo. — Mountain Rescue Aspen responded to two climbing fatalities in less than a week.
On Sunday, a climber died after falling on Castle Peak, south of Aspen. On Sept. 2, another climber was killed after falling off Maroon Peak.
The Elk Mountains are very rocky, loose shale that’s crumbly and moves a lot,” said Jeff Edelson with Rocky Mountain Rescue. “It’s unfortunate to see two climber deaths in one week in one range. If we look back at our historical data, unfortunately, we do have a couple of deaths a year on average in our range. Sometimes they’re clumped together like these were. Sometimes they’re spread out through the summer.”
The climber who died Sunday was recovered. The climber who died at Maroon Bells Wilderness Area will be brought out on Tuesday.
Edelson said these are the first two deaths his team has responded to this season, but the number of calls for help is up.
Our numbers are up slightly this year, but we’ve certainly seen a big shift to having a lot of rescues in August and September. We are fielding close to a call a day right now for folks that are needing help,” he said.
In general, Edelson said half the climbers have the knowledge, skill and ability to be where they are, but accidents happen. However, the other half are in over their heads and should have started with easier climbs.
“If we can eliminate half of the problems that we have, that would be a huge thing for the community and for those people involved,” Edelson said.
Climbers, he said, should be prepared for changes in conditions and always leave detailed information about their planned route with family or friends.
Colorado Ping ( Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from the list.)
Ping........🥲
A man’s got to know his limitations.
I was a mountaineering instructor for the Colorado Mountain Club for several years. I agree with what the Rocky Mountain Rescue person said. About half of people I saw hiking or climbing in Colorado had no business being there. Many were simple things like hiking at higher altitudes wearing cotton clothes and with a fanny pack too small to hold any foul weather gear. These people certainly had never heard about the “10 Essentials”.
“About half of people I saw hiking or climbing in
Colorado had no business being there.”
Hiking is a dangerous business.
I worked with a guy who was part of the Sierra club.
He was actually an Arab, who had married a nice
Mexican girl from Ventura County California.
She had a big family like normal.
Apparently an experienced hiker.
So experience that he was by himself.
His funeral was packed between her family, the
Sierra club and his coworkers from GTE.
His daughter who was about to graduate from UCLA spoke.
She talked about how she wasn’t allowed to go running
around with all her cousins. She was very grateful.
People throwing their lives away on ‘hiking’ and ‘mountain climbing’.
There is a mountain a couple of miles up the road from my house. I can see it from my back yard. Practically every week is some kind of rescue of people climbing, every one and then a death, few per year. I hear the helicopter and I know what is happening. See it later on the news.
“Camelback Mountain experiences a handful of deaths each year, often due to hikers being unprepared for the challenging conditions. Additionally, there have been 154 rescues over four years, indicating a significant number of accidents involving injured or lost hikers”.
Sorry, but this so-called ‘sport’ or whatever one wants to call it, imho, is just plain stupid.
I have climbed both Castle Peak and Maroon Peak. What I remember is that loose rock was the biggest danger. Rocks could let loose on their own from above or climbers could bump a rock that would fall and possibly hit a climber far below. I can see how people could fall, especially if out of shape or not acclimated to altitude and stumbling.
I used to do some dangerous hiking. Just took off and didn’t tell anyone where I was going. Hike up a random trail to see where it went.
I had an excellent two-day camping trip, hiking with a friend to two Estes Park peaks on a beautiful trail. We reserved the camp sites and the weather was warm enough to not have snow or ice directly on the trail we’d picked.
You have a wonderful pastime, actually climbing the mountains we hiked up.
Rocky Mountain National Park is spectacular. When I taught the climbing course my group did many of our field exercises there. The Colorado Mountain Club Mountaineering course groups usually have a Senior Instructor, two assistant instructors and six students. Even though I had tons of climbing experience I first had to be a student who completed the course, then an assistant instructor and then a senior instructor. The class ran once a year and lasted 7 to 9 months with one classroom session and one field session per week after the first few weeks which were classroom only (learning knots, outdoor safety and reviewing student’s gear selections).
Our kids all went to a camp in the Rocky Mountain park area. One of them did the “run the 14ers.” Scary to think about now that a dozen 12 year old boys did that. And of course they had to do the weiner wag at the top of each one.
I didn’t see the word experienced anywhere in the article.
Shxt happens.
Gravity sucks. What were the components, speed, degrees, distance, terminal velocity etc of the falks?
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