Colorado Mountain Guide Rick Karden Was a Teacher First

Every January, we share a tribute to members of our community who we lost last year. Some were legends, others were pillars of their community, all were climbers. Read the full tribute to Climbers We Lost in 2025 here.

Rick Karden, 56, July 29

“He was a total geek,” Laura Karden told Climbing about her late husband, Rick Karden. “My house still looks like a tornado hit an electronics store.”

Rick Karden, an avid outdoorsman with a rampant appreciation for Summit County, Colorado, and all of its places and people, was always fussing with something. “He had this balance between individual physical sports and intellectual ones,” Laura explained. “If tinkering with computers and electronics could be considered an intellectual sport.”

Laura first met her future husband when they both worked together at a ski school. She was looking for a place to stay, and a friend mentioned that Rick sometimes rented out his couch. Much later, Rick asked Laura why she always tells the story about “renting out his couch.” “I said, ‘Because that’s what happened,’” Laura remembered. “Then Rick said, ‘I’ve never rented out my couch.’ So we figured out that our mutual friend had set us up. I actually did rent out his couch for two months! And we became friends. We started dating about a year later.”

Rick Karden passed away in a rappelling accident on July 29, 2025, the day before his 57th birthday, while guiding the route Hasta La Vichi, Amichi (5.7+; 400ft) in Summit County, Colorado.

Among his many passions, Rick worked as a guide for Rocky Mountain Guide Service. He was with clients when his rappelling accident occurred. Both clients were anchored securely and never in danger.

Peter Krainz, owner of Rocky Mountain Guides, met Rick in 1992. “Rick had a fly-fishing guide service. And I was starting Rocky Mountain Guides. I guided fly fishing for him while I was getting my business going. That’s when Rick and I got close. Then he guided for Rocky Mountain Guides for over 20 years.”

In addition to being a ski instructor, fly fishing guide, and rock climbing guide, Rick taught computer science, programming, engineering, and robotics at Summit High School in Summit County for 25 years.

“He was so excited this year about AI,” Laura said. “He wrote a game in Python to teach the students cybersecurity and couldn’t wait to introduce it to the kids in his programming class.” Rick’s classroom was an innovative, but also safe place for his students. “A lot of students spent their lunch break in his classroom.”

Rick and Laura wrote the guidebook for Summit County climbing. Before they did, “there was an old pamphlet about climbing in the area that was published in the eighties,” according to Laura. “But you couldn’t find the directions to the climbs. It was absolutely terrible.”

Rick spent much of his free time developing and bolting new routes all over Summit County. He had so many first ascents on Porcupine Rock that, after he passed, there was a movement to rename it to “Rick’s Rock.”

On his final morning, before he left the house, he fed Laura peach slices in bed. “Then he left, incredibly happy to go guiding and have a day in the mountains,” she said.

Rick is survived by his wife, Laura, his two children, Kaylee and Asher, his mother, sister, father, and a large extended family who loved him.

“Rick loved Summit County and had an uncanny exuberance and joy for his home crags,” added Ethan Smith, Rick’s brother-in-law. “And he loved to share them. He was always smiling, especially when out climbing with other people.”

Read the full tribute to Climbers We Lost in 2025 here.

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