Longs Peak death over the weekend

[dpage]

Looks like the climber made it up the Loft before his partners continued to summit Longs. Did anybody see the helicopter/operation on Sunday?

http://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/20 ... /99398926/

[Tornadoman]

I hadn't heard about this until your post. Daybreak on Channel 2 is reporting that a woman fell 1,000 vertical feet and died while skiing Pikes over the weekend. Sad weekend on the high peaks.

[unclegar]

I had been up to Chasm Junction late Saturday. When I was leaving about 7PM a ranger asked if I had seen a solo hiker that had been up to the Loft. My guess would have been a slip at the crossing above Peacock Pool. Sad news. Be careful out there. Of course we don't know the details in this case.

[d_baker]

I spoke with the Rangers yesterday as they were heading to Chasm Junction. Was hoping for a better outcome.
That's too bad.
RIP

[SheriWright]

My husband and son also climbed the Loft on Saturday. They didn't know it at the time, but they may have seen where the climber fell. They were very shaken by the news.
http://billwright510climbing.blogspot.c ... inter.html

[xam_zerep]

Did anybody see the helicopter/operation on Sunday?

My partner and I were on Martha's Couloir and watched the helicopter operating throughout the day. A hiker traveling fast and light passed us just after Chasm Junction and headed up the Loft around 9 am. I wonder if he found the victim. He may have been with SAR but was not uniformed. We saw the helicopter with the long line deployed flying out around 6 pm.

[unclegar]

Did anyone ever see any additional news about this accident, like cause of death or location? I read mid-loft was the location but was curious if this was due to route-finding (i.e. in the cliffs to the side of the loft couloir) or just an unfortunate slip.

[justiner]

I hate to speculate, but I bet they just didn't descend the correct ledge system to the south of the Loft, but tried to continue on a different ledge system slightly above where they should have been, even though the terrain became more difficult. If you don't hit the correct ledge system, you'll cliff out. I've met up with people who have done the same thing; I've done the same thing as well.

[AndrewLyonsGeibel]

I too hate to speculate, but in one of the previous posts there was a link to a trip report that had some pretty ominous looking tracks to the edge of a cliff. I've never been up the route so I can't tell exactly where that is but it looked like maybe the ramp out of the couloir.