Paul "PJ" Ortiz Jr. is pictured with his sons, Paul Jonathan Ortiz III and Franklin Lee Ortiz, and the boys' mother, Jacquelyn Valdez.
The infamous 99 switchbacks on the trail to Mount Whitney are pictured. The switchbacks alone can take hikers hours to clear and have steep cliffside drop-offs.
Cables on the trail to Mount Whitney are pictured on Oct. 25, 2025, when a hiker fell to his death.
Paul "PJ" Ortiz Jr. is pictured with dog friend Berry on one of many hikes he loved taking.
Paul "PJ" Ortiz Jr. is pictured with his parents and his younger sister.
Rescuers hike up to the body of Paul "PJ" Ortiz Jr. to get him in a safer position for a helicopter recovery.

An experienced hiker from San Diego attempting to climb the tallest peak in the contiguous United States has fallen to his death amid treacherous winter conditions, leaving his two young sons and family in shock and grief.

Paul "PJ" Ortiz Jr., 29, was climbing Mount Whitney in central California's Eastern Sierra mountains on Saturday, Oct. 25, when he fell from a cliff in an infamous area known as the 99 switchbacks, located at an elevation of over 12,000 feet, Inyo County Search and Rescue posted on Facebook.

Three rescuers and a California Highway Patrol Helicopter deployed after hikers spotted Ortiz's body shortly after the fall. But the agency said that high winds prevented the chopper from approaching the young father's location on the mountain until Monday. On Sunday, three rescuers hiked 14 miles roundtrip to Ortiz's location, where they were able to lower him to a more accessible area for the recovery.

Ortiz's family told USA TODAY that they're devastated. He leaves behind 1- and 3-year-old sons, as well as his parents and little sister.

"He was the coolest. He was my whole world," said his 27-year-old sister, Lea Ortiz.

Wes Ostgaard, the hiker who summoned rescuers after finding Ortiz's body, told USA TODAY that the extreme conditions on the mountain that day could have tripped up even the most experienced climbers.

"The wind was so powerful we would have to turn our faces to breathe," said Ostgaard, who was hiking in a group of four people. "We had snow hitting our face and it felt like 1,000 needles. It was very extreme."

Hiker who found Ortiz's body had talked to him along trail

Ostgaard said that Saturday was his fourth time summitting or attempting to summit Mount Whitney, a 14,505-foot peak that's taller than any other mountain in the lower 48 states and attracts thousands of hikers and mountaineers. The climbers and hikers vie for special permits every year for Mount Whitney.

Ostgaard said he met Ortiz and Ortiz's hiking partner at various points along the trail that day.

"He was doing good, he had a big smile and he was happy," Ostgaard told USA TODAY. "I said, 'Have you done this before?' And he said, "Yeah, I've done Whitney before.' He was very charming, a very put-together and social guy."

As the day went on, Ostgaard said conditions deteriorated and took many people on the mountain by surprise. Though the skies were blue, violent winds kicked up recent snowfall, blasting hikers and causing some cliffside sections of the trail to become invisible at times.

He said his group of four was ahead of Ortiz and Ortiz's hiking partner on the 99 switchbacks when his group decided to turn around and save the summit for another day. On the way back down, they spotted Ortiz's body and only later learned that he had split up from his hiking partner, who had decided to descend on his own.

Ostgaard used Starlink to message his father: "Emergency, someone fell down the switchbacks at Mount Whitney ... His head made contact with the rock. He's in grave danger."

Ostgaard believes Ortiz stepped on an unstable rock, sending him down the mountain and crashing into rocks and past a particularly steep section lined with unstable cables. He also believes that Ortiz was killed almost instantly.

Ostgaard said that the area where Ortiz fell had many rocks that were obscured by the snow, and it was nearly impossible to tell if a rock was stable enough to hold a person's weight. He said the fall could have happened to anyone and that Ortiz also could have experienced the accident even if he hadn't split up from his partner.

Lea Ortiz said it's been frustrating seeing people comment online about the accident and hypothesize that her brother was unprepared or made a mistake.

"My brother knew what he was doing," she said. "It was a freak accident ... Mother Nature is cruel."

Paul 'PJ' Ortiz Jr., an ambitious, successful outdoors lover

Lea Ortiz and Jacquelyn Valdez, his best friend and the mother of his children, told USA TODAY that PJ was a doting father, a good cook whose specialty was ceviche, and an avid outdoorsman who loved being in the mountains, going fishing, surfing in his hometown of San Diego, skateboarding, and snowboarding.

He had already started teaching his 3-year-old son, Paul Jonathan Ortiz III, how to skateboard.

"As his sister I saw something really change and soften in him when he had kids," Lea Ortiz said. "He adored them."

Vasquez added: "They became his whole world."

Leo Ortiz said that she and her brother grew up loving the outdoors because their parents took them camping all over California and Arizona.

She said PJ went to college in Pennsylvania and Minnesota and was an all-American college football kicker. In recent years PJ was working at a San Diego-based genome sequencing company called Illumina and had just enrolled in the engineering program at the University of California at San Diego to open more doors for himself.

"He was definitely a go-getter, very ambitious," she said. "There's no goal that he set that he wasn't going to reach."

At 6 feet, 3 inches, he could seem intimidating. "But he was a very goofy guy once you got to know him ... And he had the biggest, kindest heart you'd ever come across."

In short, PJ was the best big brother a girl could ask for.

"He was literally the coolest person ever," she said. "Everything that I've ever done was to keep up with him or to copy him. He taught me how to kick a soccer ball, he tried to teach me to ride a skateboard. He was my first role model, my first competitor, my first friend."

Other hikers warned of Mount Whitney's dangers

Of all the times that Ostgaard has been in the Eastern Sierra, he said he's never seen worse conditions than Saturday's, and warned other people about the dangers.

"You can't think you're above the conditions," he said. "The rain-or-shine mentality has to drop and at some point, you have to say, 'I have to sit this one out.'"

Inyo County Search and Rescue is warning the public that Whitney is very dangerous this time of year.

"Mount Whitney is already experiencing winter conditions, including snow and ice, very low temperatures, and frequent windstorms," the agency posted. "The Main Trail is no longer a casual hike but a mountaineering endeavor. The 99 Switchbacks are especially icy and slippery and should not be attempted without proper equipment, experience, and preparation."

As for Ortiz's family, they've been able to talk with Ostgaard about what happened on the mountain that day and they said they're taking comfort in the fact that he died doing what he loved.

"He was excited," Ostgaard said. "I could tell he loved leading, I could tell he loved being there for his friend, and I could tell he loved hiking."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Father of 2 falls to death climbing popular California peak: 'Coolest person ever'

Reporting by Amanda Lee Myers, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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