Two experienced rock climbers and best friends fell to their deaths while ascending El Capitan at Yosemite National Park in northern California.
Experienced climbers Jason Wells, 45, of Boulder, Colorado, and Tim Klein, 42, of Palmdale, California, were climbing the Freeblast route on El Capitan on Saturday when they fell 1,000 feet to their deaths at around 8:15 a.m., the National Park Service said in a statement.
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The climbers had reportedly been simul-climbing, a technique in which both climbers are tethered together by a rope and move at the same time as they scale the granite monolith, when a haul bag from climbers above fell onto them. Park rangers received several 911 calls following the incident, but both Wells and Klein were pronounced dead on the scene.
“Tim and Jason were pulled off El Capitan this morning. They both are no longer with us. I know this is incredibly shocking and sad to so many of you who knew them, and it is still very surreal to the boys and I and our entire family and circle of friends,” Klein’s wife, JJ Klein, posted on Facebook.
Both Wells and Klein are said to have been experienced climbers who had scaled the massive 3,000-foot granite monolith on multiple occasions without issue.
“This would have been Tim’s 107th El Cap ascent,” Wayne Willoughby, a friend of the climbers, told Climbing.com. “Two weeks ago, in a typical weekend, Jason flew out from Boulder to Fresno and Tim picked him up from the airport. Then they climbed the Nose on Saturday and did it again on Sunday, and then on Sunday afternoon Jason flew home to his family.”
The incident marked the 25th death on El Capitan in recent years.
In September, a man died and a woman was injured after rocks broke off the granite monolith and fell onto them, and in 2015, climber Tyler Gordon fell to his death while climbing a route known as the Nose. The first death on El Capitan occurred in 1968 when Jim Madsen rappelled off the end of his line and fell to his death.
El Capitan has also seen several injuries. On May 8, speed climber Hans Florine had to be rescued after he broke both of his legs while making a one-day ascent of the Nose. Just months before, on October 11, 2017, speed climber Quinn Brett became paralyzed from the waist down after she fell more than 100 feet on the Nose.
