Bryan Digel met his wife on a running trail on Queen Anne Hill. When he asked Daihong Chen about her goals, she told him she wanted to climb Mount Rainier.

She went on to summit it five times.

On July 19, a boulder the size of an SUV broke loose on Mount Rainier's Disappointment Cleaver route and struck Chen, 44, as she climbed behind Digel and his son Terrance in the early morning darkness at roughly 11,600 feet. Digel performed CPR for 90 minutes. Chen died on the mountain.

"I gave her CPR for an hour and a half because what else are you going to do, right?" Digel told KOMO News in an interview published Sunday, Aug. 23.

Chen grew up in a small town in rural China, where she walked over mountains to visit family. She pursued education that brought her first to Georgia and then to Seattle. She climbed 100 peaks across three continents. Before each big climb, she offered a prayer to the mountain, a practice rooted in her upbringing, asking for safe passage.

The family's July 19 attempt followed the Disappointment Cleaver, a 1,200-vertical-foot rock section on Rainier's most popular summit route. Approximately two-thirds of all climbers attempting the mountain use it, according to Outside Online. Climbers typically begin the push around 1 a.m. because cold temperatures keep loose rock frozen in place.

Digel was leading the rope team, Terrance was in the middle and Chen was at the back when the rockfall hit. Three other climbers from a second unguided group were also injured; one sustained serious injuries and was transported to a medical facility, and two had minor injuries, according to the National Park Service.

Mount Rainier National Park concluded its investigation by July 30, determining that natural mountain activity typical for the season caused the rockfall, the News Tribune reported.

Peter Whittaker, co-owner of RMI Expeditions and a 50-year Rainier guide who has summited the mountain 256 times, told Outside Online that Rainier's volcanic rock is rotten and loose, making rockfall a persistent hazard regardless of season.

Digel and Chen leave behind a 7-year-old daughter. Digel told KOMO the family is in survival mode, trying to find normalcy in the weeks since.

After Chen died, Digel and others stayed with her body until daylight, when a helicopter could safely arrive. He described the sunrise that morning as one of the most beautiful he had seen on the mountain.