A Colorado investigation into the death of guide Olivia Copeland at the Mount Blue Sky Via Ferrata in Idaho Springs found her belay device was “improperly connected” to a rappel rope as she transitioned from the cabled via ferrata to a roped rappel.
In addition to “operator error,” the report by investigators with the Division of Oil and Public Safety Amusement Rides and Devices Program found Arkansas Valley Adventures, Copeland’s employer and the owner of the via ferrata, failed to properly train staff who, in turn, failed to follow the recommendations of safety equipment manufacturers.
“The accident was a result of operator error, and the contributing fact is also operator error stemming from inadequate training or lack of familiarity with the device being used,” reads the report from the Division of Oil and Public Safety, or OPS, released Friday.
The report said 26-year-old Copeland also did not meet the company’s own requirements for guiding and was wearing improper footwear when she fell on Sept. 20. And the state investigation concluded that Arkansas Valley Adventures violated rules for maintaining records around training and inspections of equipment and facilities.
Arkansas Valley Adventures, or AVA, also operates a via ferrata at its location in Granite and the company runs rafting trips on the Arkansas River and Clear Creek.
The owner and founder of the company, Duke Bradford, said he was frustrated with the report.
“We do not agree with the report. We think the report is flawed. It does not take into consideration all factors,” he said. “It is inadequate and misses several key aspects.”
The third via ferrata death since 2018
Via ferratas — which is Italian for “iron way” — feature cables and iron steps anchored in cliff faces. A traverse of a via ferrata route is less technical than vertical climbing, making it popular with tourists who want a taste of rock climbing without spending hours training.
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. The via ferrata routes in Ouray and Telluride do not require guides. Still, guides are recommended for the Telluride route, which is on Forest Service land and open to the public.
The AVA Mount Blue Sky Via Ferrata, which opened in 2017, can only be accessed with a guide and takes about three hours to traverse.
Arkansas Valley Adventures has a specific operations manual for its via ferrata in Idaho Springs, according to the report.
That manual requires that via ferrata guides be certified to guide on the company’s Cliffside Zipline Course and have led a minimum of 50 commercial zip line trips. The guide also requires that guides wear closed-toed shoes, which apparently Copeland was not wearing on Sept. 20. The operations guide does not require a backup belay system, like a prusik knotted cord that prevents falls if a belay device fails or is improperly used when rappelling.
Two employees told investigators they did use a prusik back-up system when rappelling and two others said they did not “nor were they aware they might need to,” reads the report.
Copeland was using a CAMP Pin 2.0 tube-style belay device on the day of the accident. It is unclear if Copeland was trained to use that particular belay device but an employee who trained staff for the company’s Granite Via Ferrata told investigators they had not used written resources for training.
That staff member wrote a “Via Ferrata Training Manual” in the days after the accident. That manual was “their recollection of how they trained staff previously,” reads the OPS report.
Investigators noted “inconsistent information” from staff about safety checks before rappelling. And there were inconsistent reports about gear management. Investigators found most of the guides owned their own safety equipment and it appears Copeland owned that CAMP tube belay device.
Bradford told investigators that the company provided equipment to guides, who also could bring their own. The most recent safety inspections for the Idaho Springs operation from October 2024 listed three belay devices, reads the report.
Investigators also found issues with the daily inspection of the Mount Blue Sky Via Ferrata and the rappelling section of the route. Bradford told investigators that employees had technical difficulties logging into the digital portal to log inspections and he provided paper reports of the inspections, which did not include equipment details, only “structural elements.”
Only the guests saw Copeland fall. One of those guests told Idaho Springs Police Department investigators that “it appears she checked her gear to ensure she was properly clipped in.”
One witness statement given to the police said the “guide attached improperly to belay device and went over the edge and fell.” Leslie Sohl, the manager of the Amusement Rides and Devices Program, reached out to this witness for more information.
“The witness explained that they observed seeing only one side of the rope being in the belay device, and at the time did not know whether that was a proper procedure,” reads the report, which noted the guest had used a belay device in a climbing gym “but had never seen a rappel and was curious about the process, which was why they took note of that part of the process.”
Bradford said state officials told him they would sit down and review the report with him before it was published and sent to the media.
“That did not happen,” he said. “We were not given an appropriate opportunity to give feedback.”
Bradford founded AVA in 1998 and the death of Copeland was the first time an employee has died while working for him. He attended Copeland’s funeral and has been in contact with the family.
Copeland grew up in Kansas and was a 2022 graduate of Kansas State University. In her final year, 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. In 2023 she moved to Colorado in 2023 and worked as a ski instructor and rafting, hiking and ziplining guide in the summer.
Her obituary said 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.”