Climbers Die on Two Famous American Peaks
Neither climber was roped-up and both fell some distance
Over the past week, at least two climbers have died in separate accidents on two famous American mountains. Last week, Dillon Blanksma, 26, died after he fell from Broadway Ledge on Longs Peak Diamond in Rocky Mountain National Park.
A press release from park rangers said: Early this morning, Thursday, July 30, park rangers received an emergency call from a group of climbers on Broadway Ledge, near Fields Chimney, on the east face of Longs Peak, who witnessed an unroped climber in another climbing group fall while traversing Broadway. Park rangers responded and reached the 26-year-old male from Golden, Colorado, at the base of the Chimney. The man died from injuries sustained in an approximate 600 to 800 foot fall. The victim’s body was flown by Northern Colorado Interagency Helitak to a helispot in the Upper Beaver Meadows area of the park at 3:45 p.m. His body was then transferred to the Boulder County Coroner.
Friends and family of Blanksma are hosting a celebration of life at Earth Treks Golden, where he had been a climbing instructor, on Aug. 5. If you’re in the area and interested in attending then visit the event page here.
And yesterday, an unnamed climber fell to his death for an unknown reason from the nearly 14,000-foot-tall Humphreys in the Sierra Nevada.
Fresno County Sheriff’s spokesman Tony Botti said the Inyo County Sheriff’s Office said the man “fell off some large boulders along the western slope” and that a hiker “was able to scale the granite slope and determine the man was deceased.”
Fresno County’s EAGLE One helicopter flew over the area and spotted the man’s body a few hundred feet below the peak of the mountain. No more information about the hiker or incident was immediately available from authorities.
As we head into the last month of summer, remember to stay safe and go slow when on big-fall terrain.
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