Top five most-read stories last week
Annabelle Carlson trying out her running blade for the first time at Children’s Hospital of Colorado.
Stories in this list received the most page views on aspentimes.com from September 22-29.
Editor’s note: This article contains graphic images that may be disturbing to some.
If there is one word that springs to mind for those who have been around Aspen High School junior Annabelle Carlson for a while, it would be resilient.
This is especially so once hearing how she survived a shark attack at 15-years-old in August of last year.
“We were in Belize on a family trip,” Annabelle, now 16, began. “We woke at 6 in the morning to go on this boat with 10 other tourists, and we were all headed to the (Great) Blue Hole, which is about three hours off the Belize coast.”
The Great Blue Hole, once a cave before the oceans rose, is a famous diving destination known for its unique stalactite formations and depth and is over 100 meters deep, she said.
-Jonathan Bowers
2. Aspen makes improvements to Glory Hole Park
The City of Aspen is undertaking a three-week project to enhance pedestrian safety and accessibility at Glory Hole Park.
The project will run from Sept. 22 through Oct. 3, Monday through Friday, closing nine parking spaces on S. Original St., which runs alongside the park. The city stated in a public notice that its priorities for the park at this stage are to “enhance the park entrance and to restore the pedestrian walking path throughout the park.”
“Our parks are beautiful and they should be accessible for everybody to be able to use,” said Steve Barr, City of Aspen parks operations manager.
-Skyler Stark-Ragsdale
3. Amid US Forest Service cuts, one Colorado community is pushing back with a public messaging campaign
Independence Pass Foundation Executive Director Karin Teague knows how much people love Colorado’s public lands.
Open May through October, the stretch of Highway 82 that spans the Continental Divide at 12,095 feet gets “hammered” by hundreds of thousands of drivers each season, Teague said. The paved road is flanked by public lands, including two national forests, making it a popular recreation destination.
But this year, after President Donald Trump’s administration slashed U.S. Forest Service staff and funding, Teague said the federal agency stopped paying for the vault toilets along the pass to be cleaned and bowed out of an agreement to help pick up litter.
-Ryan Spencer
4. Sexual assault case dismissed for Klaus Obermeyer Jr.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to reflect that Obermeyer Jr.’s lawyers agreed to the dismissal, which was granted by the judge.
A United States District Judge on Sept. 5 dismissed a civil case alleging Klaus Obermeyer Jr., son of Aspen icon Klaus Obermeyer, sexually assaulted a woman in New York over two decades ago.
Judge John P. Cronan dismissed the case “with prejudice,” meaning it cannot be reopened.
The dismissal comes after the plaintiff, a woman from the Australian state of Tasmania, alleged that she was sexually assaulted by Obermeyer Jr. in New York City “around the end of 2002 or in or around the beginning of 2003,” according to a complaint filed in April 2025 to the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York by the plaintiff’s lawyer, Albert J. Santoro of the New York-based The Bear Firm. The complaint was later moved to the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York.
The parties arrived at a dismissal after Obermeyer Jr.’s council, New York’s Jonathan D. Davis — who Sean “Diddy” Combs also hired during his series of sexual abuse cases — and Los Angeles lawyers Gregory P. Korn and Katherine T. Kleindienst filed on July 21 a notice of deposition to the plaintiff, directing her to describe the incident under oath on Sept. 19.
-Skyler Stark-Ragsdale
5. Base jumper rescued after accident at Aspen’s Grottos
Mountain Rescue Aspen has successfully rescued a base jumper who crash-landed at the base of the Grotto Wall climbing area on Independence Pass on Saturday.
Pitkin County Dispatch received an emergency text reporting the accident around 12:15 p.m. According to a press release from the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office, the base jumper landed “roughly 200 feet above the parking area in a technical rocky area.”
Mountain Rescue Aspen was alerted at 12:22 p.m. and began mobilizing members and equipment necessary to perform a guided line lowering since the dispatched Aspen Ambulance was unable to move the base jumper due to the terrain.
-Staff report
