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RE: The AU camp in Colorado

nomorecs — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 09:19:05 GMT

I was at the A/U camps in 1971 and 1972. I do not remember anything about the death of a camper. So maybe your friend Tim died in 1974. I do remember Steve Terwilliger, but it was because he was at Principia College with me sometime during 1971 - 1975.

As I posted in the Cedar Camps posting, I do remember that, although I only climbed the lower peaks, I remember that we never roped up, and we never took oxygen, nor did the climbers who went on the high peaks.

Ann

RE: The AU camp in Colorado

Vox Clamantis — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 14:41:35 GMT

I attended Sky Valley in July of 1971. It was a great experience for me. Climbing Mt. Yale (14,000 plus feet) was one of the highlights as was rafting on the Arkansas River. I also enjoyed the five day horseback trip into the wilderness. My counselor was a student at Kansas State ( I forget his name but he seemed liek a real cowboy ) and another counsselor that I do remeber was Peter Ehrlicman ( his father John was one of the Nixon advisors made infamous in Watergate!). They were good counselors.

The AU camp in Colorado

IleftCSin74 — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 14:21:52 GMT

Hi everyone:

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