A 23-year-old Alaskan mountaineer, a rising talent among the sport’s elite, plummeted to his death earlier this week from Yosemite’s El Capitan during an apparent livestream, according to multiple media reports.

Balin Miller, an Anchorage native, was well known among the climbing community, having already traversed imposing routes in the Sierra Nevada and Patagonia, though a June climb on the South Face of Denali, the highest summit in North America, is what really brough the 23-year-old to the forefront, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Referred to as the “Slovak Direct” because of the three climbers who first ascended the nearly vertical mountain in 1984, the demanding climb is more than 9,000 feet of technical ice climbing, often in terrible weather conditions. It’s thought to be among

See Full Page