Grieving friends described the 26-year-old Colorado woman who died while free-solo climbing within a national park as an ardent climber and “mountain person.”
According to officials and a report, Boulder resident Bailee Mulholland died after falling 500 feet while attempting to climb Four Aces of Blitzen Ridge at Rocky Mountain National Park on Sunday.
“She knew exactly who she was. She’s a mountain person that loved living in Boulder and was very grateful for being from there,” fellow climber Tim Watts told KDVR.
“You can do everything right and everything can go wrong.”
“Bailee was definitely, you can say it a bunch of different ways, a force to be reckoned with, very confident, very driven,” he added.
Watts additionally wrote in a mountain project post that Mulholland excelled at mountain running that eventually led her to take on more technical terrain.
She was a “blossoming rock climber” who tackled free-solo climbing at the Boulder Flatiron often, he said.“She approached rock climbing with the same insatiable appetite she had for mountain running and free soloing moderate routes,” Watts said in the heartfelt post. “I was glad to show her the most I could, and she soaked up every experience I had the luxury of sharing with her like a sponge, always eager to improve, challenge herself, and learn more about the craft.”
Mulholland was also a yoga instructor who loved baking, friends told KDVR.
“She was always excited to bake big elaborate birthday cakes for people she loved, her family members, she’d come up with all these special ingredients,” fellow yoga instructor Morgan Sears said.
Officials say her body was recovered Monday morning after the 27-year-old man she was climbing with called for assistance.
A search and rescue crew arrived over Ypsilon Lake and evacuated her body to another location in the park before transporting it to the Larimer County Medical Examiner’s Office.
