I attended the AU Sky Valley CS summer camp twice back in the early 1970s.  I believe that the years of my attendance were 1970 and 1972.  In 1972 I was there in August.  In August of 1974, a friend that I met there in 72 died trying to scale a 14,000 ft peak while on a camp-sponsored climb.  I wonder if anyone out there attended either Sky VAlley or Round-Up Ranch in either 72 or 74 and would remember Tim Carlson or the circumstances of his death.  Tim had blond hair as I recall.  My counselor was Steve Terwilliger one of my two sessions there.

I had some good times at AU, like rafting in Brown's Canyon on the Arkansas River, or learning to rock-climb and rappel.  Tim and I climbed Mt. Princeton together when we were there in 1972.   Mt. Princeton is over 14,000 ft. high.  Maybe we were just young and dumb back then.  The chance of an injury or medical issues arising in that kind of an environment are fairly high, especially among a group of teenage campers mainly from very low elevation.  In the age before cell phones it could have taken many hours or even days to reach emergency medical services or have mountain rescue teams reach the victim.  Serious injuries would probably have had to be left on the mountainside while help was brought to the site.  The FAA is so worried about the effects of high-altitude that pilots and passengers of unpressurized aircraft operating above 12,500 ft for more than 30 minutes must be on oxygen.  The story that I heard was that the camp ignored high-altitude emergency oxygen regulations and at a fairly high elevation my friend began to suffer breathing issues followed by either axphixia or related low-oxygen heart issues.  No oxygen supply was available, and it was several hours before a supply was brought to the scene, by which time it was too late.  Eventually Tim's body had to be hand-carried off of the mountain.  Now I am having great trouble verifying Tim's death.

I was hoping that someone could offer additional insight from their experiences at the AU camps.

Thanks,

Mark