El Capitan: two climbers die in fall from Yosemite rock face

  03 June 2018    Read: 1687
El Capitan: two climbers die in fall from Yosemite rock face

Two climbers have died after falling from Yosemite national park’s El Capitan monolith in northern California.

The pair – Jason Wells, 46, and Tim Klien, 42 – fell at around 8.15am on Saturday while scaling the so-called Freeblast route of the granite rock formation, the US National Park Service said.

No other information about the climbers or how high they were was immediately available. Park rangers were investigating the incident.


El Capitan, which looms 900 metres (3,000ft) above the floor of the Yosemite valley, is one of the best-known landmarks in the national park and is considered a world-class challenge for rock climbers.

A British climber was killed and his wife was badly injured in September 2017 when a rockslide from El Capitan rained boulders on to a popular hiking trail.

More than 100 climbing accidents occur in Yosemite every year and 51 climbers have died from traumatic injuries in the park between 1970 and 1990, according to the park service.


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