BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — A climbing instructor from Colorado died and two American students were injured when the ice bridge they were crossing on mountain peak broke, plunging them into a crevasse, officials of the sponsoring organization said Monday.
Aspen native Travis Matthew Lizotte, 25, died Sunday while scaling 11,411-foot Mount Tronador in Argentina’s Nahuel Huapi National Park, said Whitney Montgomery, executive director of North Carolina Outward Bound School.
Two unidentified students were injured. One had a fractured arm, and the other suffered multiple fractures and a chest injury, Montgomery said. A third student was released without treatment.
All three are U.S. citizens, said U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Mara Tekach. Neither the embassy nor Outward Bound would release the names of the students.
Larisa Beletzky, a spokeswoman for Nahuel Huapi National Park, said the four climbers, linked by a rope, fell more than 66 feet into a crevasse when an ice bridge they were crossing near the peak of the mountain broke.
Other instructors were able to call for help. A five-person rescue team arrived to find Lizotte dead. A helicopter carried the three students to safety, Beletzky said.
Lizotte, an Outward Bound guide since 2006, was one of three highly trained staffers leading a 72-day course in Patagonia with 11 students between the ages of 18 and 23, Montgomery said.
The expedition, which was about a third completed, has been put on hold while authorities assess how the crew is handling the crisis, he said. The North Carolina Outward Bound School, a charter of Outward Bound USA, said it will investigate the accident.
An obituary notice submitted to The Aspen Times by Lizotte’s family said he was born Aug. 16, 1983, in Aspen and graduated from Aspen High School in 2002. He attended the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Wash., and graduated with a degree in Asian Studies, his family said.
Obituary.
