Great Female Alpinist Charlotte Fox, 61, Dies in Fall on Stairs at Home

Charlotte Fox, the first American woman to conquer three 26,000-foot or higher mountains and who miraculously survived a blizzard while descending after summiting Everest, has died at 61 after a fall on steep hardwood stairs at her Telluride, Colorado home. Her obituary was published by the New York Times on June 8.

The Everest near-death experience for Fox (eight climbers from four expeditions died in that incident) was chronicled in Jon Krakauer’s 1997 book, “Into Thin Air,” and in the 2015 3D film “Everest”.

Charlotte Fox was a ski patroller in Telluride and Snowmass, Colorado, and a philanthropist. Her grandfather had founded Blue Bell, the manufacturer of Wrangler jeans.

In 1993 Fox’s boyfriend at the time died in an avalanche while ice climbing in the Canadian Rockies. Her husband Reese Martin III was killed in 2004 in a paragliding crash at age 49. Her death made news in a week that also brought news of the deaths (by suicide) of two other celebrities, fashion designer Kate Spade and television chef Anthony Bourdain.

Charlotte Fox after rescue from Everest by helicopter in 1996

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