Hiker from Arizona dies in 800-foot fall on southwest Colorado 14er

DENVER — A hiker from Arizona fell hundreds of feet to his death Wednesday while traversing a mountain ridge in southwestern Colorado, about 20 miles southwest of Telluride, according to sheriff’s officials.

The 21-year-old Arizona man, who has not been identified by name, was climbing a difficult section of the ridge between Mount Wilson and El Diente Peak in Dolores County when he fell 800 feet down the mountain into Upper Kilpacker Basin, according to the San Miguel County Sheriff’s Office.

Search and rescue crews from Dolores and San Miguel counties started looking for the hiker after he failed to return from the hike and was reported missing, the sheriff’s office said in a Thursday statement.

After a lengthy search on the ground and in the air — with aviation units from three different agencies — crews discovered the missing Arizona man’s body in Upper Kilpacker Basin, sheriff’s officials stated.

Officials believe he was hiking on a difficult section of the Mount Wilson and El Diente Traverse — a 1-mile route along a rocky ridge between El Diente Peak and Mount Wilson — when he fell into the basin.

The hiker’s body was recovered and transported to the Dolores County Coroner on Wednesday. Coroner officials will release his identity at a later date.

Mount Wilson is the 16th highest peak in Colorado at 14,252 feet. It is the tallest peak in the San Miguel Mountains and the second tallest in the San Juan Mountain range.

El Diente’s peak sits at 14,175 feet.

While the routes to either peak are rated a class three difficulty — meaning rock scrambling and unroped climbing might be necessary on parts of the trail — the traverse connecting the two is rated a class four out of five.

Hikers on AllTrails describe the loop trail including both peaks as “brutal” and recommended “only to very experienced mountaineers.”

“The exposure isn’t bad until the top of the route, where the ridge narrows to a catwalk/knife edge and there is a few hundred-foot sheer drop on the right side,” AllTrails user Robert Whalen wrote in a review on the app. “From the summit of El Diente, it is a technically easy but very dangerous traverse on extremely loose rock with pretty constant exposure. This part is very mentally taxing, as you can’t trust any of the rock and a fall would probably be your last.”

A video posted of the ridge traverse between the peaks by another hiker on YouTube shows the difficult section of climbing and the sheer drop-off on both sides.

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