Aspen Skiing Co. employees want to do their part to help keep climbers safe.
The Skico employees’ Environment Foundation awarded a $5,000 grant Wednesday to Colorado Fourteeners Initiative to produce safety videos emphasizing the dangers of climbing some of the tougher mountains in Colorado, including Capitol Peak and the Maroon Bells in Pitkin County.
“Just given the tragedies we experienced on Capitol and other peaks, it had a real relevance,” Matt Hamilton, Skico sustainability director, said of the application by Colorado Fourteeners Initiative. He said many people in the Roaring Fork Valley were friends and neighbors of two local victims in a climbing accident. Their deaths had a big impact on people.
The videos will be timely. Six people died in mountain-climbing accidents on the Bells and Capitol last summer. Pitkin County Sheriff Joe DiSalvo, officials with the U.S. Forest Service and Mountain Rescue Aspen are contemplating how to increase education to prepare people for the tougher peaks in the Elk Mountains.
Evidence indicates that hikers on Capitol Peak in particular weren’t prepared last summer for what they encountered.
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