Inside Audrie Pelosi’s Fatal Rock Climbing Fall in Wisconsin

The Midwest climbing community is mourning a rock climbing guide who tragically died while tying an anchor at the top of a popular crag.

Audrie Pelosi, 30, suffered a fatal fall on the morning of May 30 while climbing at Devil’s Lake State Park, a popular climbing area north of Madison, Wisconsin. According to a public statement that her employer, the guiding agency Apex Adventure Alliance, shared with Outside, Pelosi was standing near the top of a cliff face and building top rope anchors for a day of guided climbing, when she fell.

“She was an exceptional climbing guide and human being,” Apex Adventure Alliance wrote in a statement. “She was a force in our community and at our guide service. We all will miss her dearly.”

The statement notes that it is company policy for guides “to tether into an anchor point when working in a zone with exposed terrain with potential for a high consequence fall.” According to Apex Adventure Alliance, Pelosi was not tethered to an anchor point when she fell.

She was with other guides at the time of her death, the statement said, but the clients she was scheduled to guide that day were not yet present.

“As a guide, she was extraordinarily competent and safe,” Apex Adventures Alliance continued. “She was a member of the American Mountain Guides Association (AMGA) and had gone through years of rigorous safety training with Apex.”

“The events of May 30 are, unfortunately, a tragic accident,” the company added.

I’ve been climbing for 18 years and have analyzed climbing accidents for magazines such as Rock and Ice and Climbing for nearly a decade. Attaching oneself to a personal anchor—a short length of rope or webbing—is a best practice when working near the top of a climb. Still, it’s common for climbers to choose not to do this, either to save time or to avoid limiting their movement. This is particularly true when on relatively flat, stable, or otherwise familiar terrain.

In the comments below the Instagram post where Apex shared their statement, numerous other climbers discussed how common it is to forego a tether.

“A group of us were at the Lake that day and saw the SAR helicopter,” wrote one individual. “I was setting anchors and not tethered in. Her death is a stark reminder that this could have been any one of us. I will be tethering in, regardless of how comfortable I am up top, because of her.”

“We all do it,” wrote another.

“So many of the greatest climbers over the years move on in this way,” added a third. “They become very comfortable, bypassing/overlooking foundational redundant aspects of the system.”

According to a memorial posted by the funeral home that organized her service, Pelosi was born and raised in Duluth, Minnesota. In her early adulthood, she worked at Ski Hut Duluth, a local ski and bike outfitter, where she met her husband, Jimmy Robinson. The pair married, and later moved to Baraboo, Wisconsin, where Pelosi became a fixture in the local outdoor community.

“Audrie was known and loved for her contagious dry wit, her authenticity, and her ability to make everyone feel loved,” reads the memorial. “People gravitated toward her naturally. Whether she was sharing stories around a campfire, helping someone conquer a climbing route, or simply making friends laugh with a perfectly timed comment, Audrie brought light wherever she went.”

One of Pelosi’s friends, Anastasia Exterovich, set up a GoFundMe to raise money for Pelosi’s family in the wake of her passing.

“In my last conversation with Audrie, she joked about selling her handmade bike chain link earrings to anyone who wanted them for ‘free.99,’” Exterovich write on the GoFundMe page. “It was such a simple statement made in passing, but it perfectly encapsulated who she was as a person. Even when she didn’t have much, she would give things away freely without hesitation, whether that was earrings, a smile, a laugh, a quick bike tune-up, or a belay.”

Outside offers our condolences to Audrie Pelosi’s friends and family.