A Denver woman fell about 900 feet to her death while climbing one of the most difficult peaks in Colorado.
A man called officials early Saturday after seeing a woman fall from “below the summit of Capitol Peak into Pierre Lakes Basin,” the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release. Capitol Peak is in the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness area, about 14 miles west of Aspen.
The peak is “one of Colorado’s most difficult mountains to climb with extreme exposure and loose, crumbling rock,” the sheriff’s office said, noting that “loose, rotting terrain” can be dangerous for climbers.
The man told officials he and the group hiking with him saw the woman, who was alone, fall after a rock she tried to grab gave out. The sheriff’s office notified Mountain Rescue Aspen, a volunteer search and rescue organization, which provided a team that found her body with help from state emergency officials and others.
Officials would not immediately confirm the woman’s name until they notified her family.
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Pitkin County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Parker Lathrop told CBS News Colorado that officials were trying “to get people to slow down a little bit,” explaining that the peak “should be the crown jewel, and if you’re not ready for it – if your gut tells you to stop – the mountain will still be there (next time).”
The woman’s death comes after several people have died in falls while hiking in recent weeks. A 44-year-old hiker at Grand Canyon National Park fell 200 feet off of a ledge last month. A woman in Oregon and a man in New Hampshire also died in falls last month.