Deaths, Accidents and Analysis

Threads related to Colorado mountaineering accidents but please keep it civil and respectful. Friends and relatives of fallen climbers will be reading these posts.
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RunnerJuliePierce
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Joined: 8/8/2014
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Re: Deaths, Accidents and Analysis

Post by RunnerJuliePierce »

I was Jim Nelson's first wife, and we have three children together, two of whom are adults. I can't speak for anyone but myself, so my remarks and questions are mine alone and do not reflect the thoughts of Jim's widow, any of his children, or any of his other family members.

I spent many, many hours in the mountains with Jim (or driving to an end-point trailhead and/or waiting for him somewhere) over close to two decades. As the years passed, he became more deliberate in how he planned and executed his outings. He had summits on most of the 14ers in Colorado, Denali, the Eiger, Ganett, and numerous other peaks in the U.S. and Europe, maybe a majority of which were solo outings (with the obvious exceptions). I would personally like to obtain insights from anyone who is familiar with the location where he fell on Saturday. His GoPro was found, and my sons watched the videos on it from Saturday. There was no video of the fall. But based on what they did watch, he was being very cautious that day. I watched some video in which he was carefully choosing each foot and hand placement. Also based how and where he was traveling on the video segments, we are thinking he was probably at the ridgeline when he fell, although we of course don't know for sure. It might not be possible to ever know.

If anyone in the forum is able to help me understand what the most likely cause or causes of Jim's fall would have been, I would be very grateful. If the appropriate protocol is to contact me off-forum, that would be completely okay with me. Just reply to this and let me know. Thanks very much in advance.
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tbaileymd
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Re: Deaths, Accidents and Analysis

Post by tbaileymd »

My wife witnessed a rockslide death below the summit of K2 back in 1999 while waiting for me to return across the knife edge. In that particular location the mountain is made up of loose rocks and dirt, and the section the man was on just slid. Although the chance of having a serious incident goes down with experience and care and deliberateness of thought and movement, it probably also goes up again with spending massive amounts of time on mountains that have inherent risks that can't really be mitigated.
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Broken Knee
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Re: Deaths, Accidents and Analysis

Post by Broken Knee »

Peace be with you and yours, Julie.
When life gets you down, climb!
RunnerJuliePierce
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Re: Deaths, Accidents and Analysis

Post by RunnerJuliePierce »

Just a quick thank you to tbaileymd and Broken Knee for the information and thoughts. I'm grateful to the 14ers community for the collective contributions that led to Jim's body being recovered in a very short amount of time. Best to all of you, and maybe I'll see some of you (won't know it, but still...) up in the mountains sometime.
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