An Alaskan climbing influencer has died after falling from El Capitan, a famous vertical rock formation in California’s Yosemite National Park.
Balin Miller, 23, was live-streamed on TikTok ascending and subsequently falling from the monolith on Wednesday.
In an emotional social media post confirming her son’s death, his mother Jeanine Girard-Moorman said: “My heart is shattered in a million pieces. I don’t know how I will get through this. I love him so much. I want to wake up from this horrible nightmare.”
Details of what caused the incident are not clear, but Miller’s brother Dylan told AFP he was lead rope soloing – a technique that enables climbing alone while still protected by a rope – on a 2,400ft (730m) route named Sea of Dreams.
He had finished the climb and was hauling up equipment when he likely rappelled off the end of his rope, Dylan said.
Tom Evans, a Yosemite-based photographer who witnessed Miller fall, told Climbing magazine he called 911 after Miller tried to free his bag, which was stuck on a rock.
Originally from Anchorage, Miller grew up climbing with his father and brother.
He was an accomplished alpinist and gained international attention for claiming the first solo ascent of Mount McKinley’s Slovak Direct, which took him 56 hours to complete, according to a post on his Instagram in June.
“He’s had probably one of the most impressive last six months of climbing of anyone I can think of,” veteran alpinist Clint Helander told the Anchorage Daily News in July.
Another renowned Alaskan climber Mark Westman, compared him to Alex Honnold, who became the first person to free solo a full route on El Capitan.
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Miller’s death came on the first day of the federal government shutdown, which left national parks “generally” open, with limited operations and closed visitors centres.
The National Park Service said in a statement that they were investigating the incident and “park rangers and emergency personnel responded immediately.”
Miller had spent weeks solo climbing in Patagonia and the Canadian Rockies, completing a notoriously difficult ice climb called Reality Bath, which had been unrepeated for 37 years, according to Climbing magazine.
He was known affectionately as the “Orange Tent Guy”, due to his distinctive campsite at the base of El Capitan.
El Capitan, an enormous sheer granite rock face of approximately 3,000 feet (915 meters), is a major landmark in the national park and entices big-wall rock climbers from all over the world.
Miller’s death marks the third at the Californian national park this year. In June, an 18-year-old from Texas died in the park while climbing without a rope on a different formation.
And in August, a 29-year-old hiker died after being struck in the head by a large tree branch.
