A 26-year-old guide with Arkansas Valley Adventures Rafting and Zipline died last month while guiding a group on the company’s Mount Blue Sky Via Ferrata in Idaho Springs. The Idaho Springs Police Department said in an online post that guide Olivia Copeland fell during a rappelling portion of the via ferrata course while guiding a group on Sept. 20.
“Olivia was a beautiful person who brought joy to everyone around her,” AVA owner Duke Bradford said. “We are devastated by her loss. Our thoughts and prayers go out to her family.”
The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration on Sept. 22 opened an investigation into the fatality. Falls were the second leading cause of workplace deaths in 2023, according to the AFL-CIO’s 2025 “Death on the Job” report. Ziplines and via ferrata courses are regulated by the Colorado Division of Oil and Public Safety’s Amusement Rides and Devices Program, which inspects and certifies commercial via ferratas in the state. The division will investigate the accident as well as OSHA.
Via ferratas – Italian for “iron way” – feature cables and iron rungs built into exposed cliff faces. Traversing a via ferrata route requires less technical expertise and athleticism than vertical climbing. Still, harnessed climbers must use a pair of carabiners and lanyards to navigate the steep routes. The Mount Blue Sky Via Ferrata, which can only be accessed with a guide, takes about three hours to traverse and opened in 2017.
The death of Copeland marks at least the third via ferrata death in Colorado since 2018. A 70-year-old Grand Junction man died on the Telluride via ferrata in 2018 following a medical event. In 2021, a 53-year-old Arizona woman died on the Telluride route after a fall while she was unclipped. In recent years, as via ferrata routes have gained popularity in the U.S., the cabled traverses have been installed on private land in Estes Park, Idaho Springs, Granite, Ouray and the Royal Gorge. Arapahoe Basin has a via ferrata on Forest Service land but can only be accessed with the resort’s guides. Ouray and the Telluride offer the only via ferrata routes that do not require guides. The Telluride via ferrata is on Forest Service land and open to the public, although guides are recommended for the exposed route.
Via ferratas are all over Europe’s Alps, with more than 1,000 routes in Austria, Italy, France and Switzerland. The first cabled, laddered and roped via ferratas were installed in Austria and Italy in the late 1800s and iron rungs and cables arrived after the First World War. In 2019, Austrian researchers published a review of accidents and fatalities involving nearly 162,000 trips on Alps via ferratas between 2008 and 2018. The study reviewed 62 deaths in that decade as well as 60% increase in accidents and rescue missions. The study showed 47 of the 62 deaths were from falls, followed by seven medical emergencies and four equipment failures. The report showed one fatality due to incorrect rope handling while rappelling and a small reduction in the risk of deadly accidents when trips were guided.
The Division of Oil and Public Safety Amusement Rides and Devices Program has standards for the construction, inspection, operation, repair and maintenance of many ziplines and via ferratas in Colorado. Each year, operators and recreational providers register their installations and affirm proper insurance coverage. Third-party inspectors review each zipline and via ferrata every year.
The most recent inspection of the Mount Blue Sky Via Ferrata in Idaho Springs was in October 2024, according to documents provided by the Division of Oil and Public Safety through an open records request. Thaddeus Schrader, the co-founder of Grand Junction’s Bonsai Designs, which has installed more than 65 aerial adventure parks across the country, handled the recent inspections for the state. The October 2024 inspection included portions of the zipline at the AVA complex on the banks of Clear Creek as well as the rappelling and four traversing sections of the Mount Blue Sky Via Ferrata.
Copeland grew up in Olathe, Kansas and was a 2022 graduate of Kansas State University, where she was honored with the school’s Lasting Legacy Award “because of her unwavering integrity, servant leadership and deep care for others,” reads an online obituary. She moved to Colorado in 2023 and worked as a ski instructor and rafting, hiking and ziplining guide in the summer.
She recently learned to paraglide “and thrived in the beauty of creation and it was there, doing what she loved most, that her earthly journey came to a close,” reads the obituary.