Barbara Lawlor, Peak to Peak.   It was a picture perfect Colorado weekend in the mountains, clear blue skies, snow glistening on the peaks, creeks running, wildflowers and quaking aspen leaves. These glorious summer days bring people into the hills, a chance for cooler air and the opportunity to climb, hike, four-wheel drive and enjoy the scenery.

Mountain emergency agencies were called out on a number of accidents, back country rescues and the recovery of the body of a woman who fell down a snowfield into a crevasse.

On Saturday, Nederland Fire Protection District firefighters and EMTs responded to a motorcycle accident just south of Nederland around the first switchback before the Sundance. A rider and his passenger, caught in slow moving traffic, went down in the gravel of the side of the road, both of them sustaining non-life-threatening injuries. NFPD EMTs treated the patients who were transported to the hospital.

On Sunday, around 3:30 p.m., Boulder County dispatch received a call that two teenaged girls had been injured in an ATV accident.

The Boulder County Sheriff’s Office, the Indian Peaks Fire Department, and the United States Forest Service and AMR Ambulance responded to the scene of the accident, near Beaver Creek Reservoir, at the intersection of CR 96J and Forest Service Road 507E.

The girls had veered off the forest service road and struck a tree, throwing both girls off the ATV. The sustained head, back and leg injuries, all non-life threatening injuries. They were airlifted to the hospital by a North Colorado Med Evac helicopter.

On Sunday, at 8:20 p.n., Boulder County Sheriff’s deputies responded to a call of a climber who had fallen on Paiute Peak in the Indian Peaks Wildernes  area. The victim, a 44-year-old Denver woman was climbing with a friend when she slipped and fell while ascending the peak.

According to her companion, the woman fell sometime around  2:00 p.m., as they were beginning the descend from the summit.  The woman’s companion estimated that she fell at least 100 feet down  a snow bank and into a crevasse.  The woman’s companion was able  to climb down and reach her in the crevasse, where he remained with her for several  hours. He attempted to render medical aid to her, including CPR,  for the next several hours.

As evening approached the man left her in  order to hike back to the Mitchell Lake Trailhead and call for  help. There is no cell phone service in the backcountry.  The camp host at Brainard Lake called dispatch. The woman’s companion told both the  camp host and the rescuers that he believed the woman had died prior to him leaving her.

BC Sheriff’s deputies and search and rescue personnel from the Rocky Mountain Rescue Group responded to the area and attempted to reach the victim Sunday night but because of rugged terrain and the remote location of the glacier on Paiute Peak, rescuers were unable to reach her.  Members of RMR camped in the area overnight and resumed the rescue efforts Monday morning  just after 5:00 a.m.  They reached the victim around 8:40 a.m.  and confirmed that the woman was deceased.

Rescuers, with the aid of a National Guard helicopter evacuated the body around noon.

Paiute Peak is located on the western boundary of Boulder County on the Continental Divide in the Indian Peaks Wilderness Area.  The closest trail access to Paiute Peak is from the Mitchell Lake

Trailhead at Brainard Lake, and is estimated to be an aerial distance of at least eight miles from the trailhead.  The woman’s body was estimated to be at an elevation of 13,000 feet, just a few hundred  feet below the peak summit.

The investigation into the woman’s death is on-going.  Sheriff’s detectives are working with medical investigators from the Boulder

County Coroner’s Office to determine the exact circumstances around the woman’s death, and the extent of her injuries.  Updates will be provided as more information becomes available.  The woman’s name is being withheld pending the notification of her family.