A 23-year-old Balin Miller, an acclaimed climber from Alaska, died Wednesday after a fall on El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. His last social media post expressed a wish to disappear.
Over the past six months, Balin Miller has performed exceptionally well, with weeks of solo climbing in Patagonia and the Canadian Rockies, including the challenging Reality Bath, which has not been repeated in 37 years. Alaskan mountaineer Clint Helander called the period “one of the most impressive six months of climbing I can remember.”
According to his mother, Jeanine Girard-Moorman, who confirmed her son’s death on Facebook, Miller had loved climbing since he was a child, a passion never tied to money or fame.
“He said he felt most alive when he was climbing. I’m his older brother, but he was my mentor,” his brother, Dylan Miller, wrote on social media.
