Photo: Claudia Lopez

Jack Roberts, renowned ice climber and alpinist, died yesterday on Bridalveil Falls, the 400-foot Grade 5 ice climb outside Telluride, Colorado. Roberts was leading the second pitch when he fell approximately 60 feet. His belayer was able to alert nearby hikers for help. San Miguel Search and Rescue arrived on the scene and evacuated Roberts, who had, according to the sheriff's report, broken his hip and went into cardiac arrest during the rescue. He died at the scene.

According to locals, Bridalveil has been in difficult condition this year, with a roof on the first pitch and a very steep pillar on the second pitch where Roberts fell. Yesterday (January 15) the second pitch was reportedly wet.

One of the world's most experienced and still active ice climbers, Roberts recently attended the popular Ouray Ice Climbing Festival, where he was a fixture,  teaching ice-climbing clinics and regaling crowds with his tales of bold climbs and antics with the world's top climbers. Roberts resided in Boulder, but was spending the winter in the Telluride area to ice climb while his wife, Pam, was away in Cuba.

Roberts, 59, climbed for 41 years, making numerous ascents of Bridalveil, and was well known for serious Canadian Rockies first winter ascents of the North Face of Mt. Robson and the Central Couloir on Mount Kitchener, both in the late 1970s and  done with Tobin Sorenson, famed and now-deceased member of the historic Stonemasters crew. Roberts, with Dale Bard (another Stonemaster), also made the first free ascent of the big Canadian ice line Polar Circus. In Yosemite, in the early and mid-1970s, Roberts bagged the second ascents of The Shield, Zodiac, Tangerine Trip, Tis-Sa-Ack, Cosmos and Mescalito. In Alaska he logged new routes on the southwest face of Denali, Mt. Huntington, Mount Lewis and Mount Kennedy.

In Colorado, Roberts, sporting his trademark beret, an earring and a smile on his handsomely chiseled face, was perhaps best known for publishing one of the state’s first ice-climbing guides, Colorado Ice, the second edition of which won an award at the 2006 Banff Book Festival. Over the years Roberts also wrote for Rock and Ice, the CAJ, and Alpinist. Roberts was a professional guide, operating Jack Roberts Climbing Adventures, where he offered trips to the Alps, Alaska, Peru and elsewhere throughout the world.