While live-streaming, a well-known climber sadly fell to his death while attempting to scale Yosemite’s El Capitan.
On Wednesday (October 1), renowned Alaskan climber Balin Miller passed away while attempting to ascend the well-known Californian peak.
The 23-year-old is said to have been live-streaming his attempt to scale the 3,000-foot rock structure in the days leading up to his passing. This is the third Yosemite National Park tragedy of the summer.
Jeanine Girard-Moorman, his distraught mother, claimed that her son had been climbing since he was a young boy.
“His heart and soul was truly to just climb. He loved to climb and it was never about money and fame,” as per Associated Press.
In a Facebook post, Balin’s mother also confirmed his passing.
Alongside a video made of photographs of her son over the years, she wrote: “It is with a heavy heart I have to tell you my incredible son Balin Miller died during a climbing accident today.”
“My heart is shattered in a million pieces. I don’t know how I will get through this”
“I love him so much,” she added with three heart emojis. “I want to wake up from this horrible nightmare.”
Her caption read, “The mountain took my Balin today — I will never recover.”
Park officials reportedly contacted the mother, who then learned of her son’s death, according to Alaska’s News Source.
Speaking to the outlet, Jeanine added: “My whole world just fell apart, and it’s tough.”
”There’s no greater pain than losing your child in such a horrific way.”
Although the cause of his death has not yet been established, according to his brother Dylan, Balin was rope soloing—that is, climbing alone but still being protected by a rope—along the 2,400-foot Sea of Dreams.
While hoisting up his equipment, he is thought to have unintentionally fallen off the end of the rope.
The heartbreaking announcement was made on the first day of the federal government’s national park shutdown, which left them “generally” open but with reduced services and closed visitor centers.
On Tuesday this week, the National Park Service (NPS), which is in charge of 443 sites, said that it was putting over half of its staff on leave or furlough.
Conservation organizations said that keeping the sites open endangered tourists.
But according to the NPS, “park rangers and emergency personnel responded immediately” to the Wednesday situation.
Balin’s death coincides with the deaths of a 19-year-old woman who died in August after allegedly being struck by a tree branch and an 18-year-old Texas girl who died earlier this year after climbing without a rope.
The Yosemite Mariposa County website refers to the notorious granite monolith as ‘one of the world’s ultimate challenges’, requiring years of specialized training to tackle.
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