Two people have died while climbing the El Capitan monolith in California's Yosemite National Park. The summit of El Capitan is a popular place of pilgrimage for climbers and base jumpers from around the world.
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Officials at California's Yosemite National Park confirmed Saturday that two climbers had fallen to their death while scaling the El Capitan monolith.
They fell while climbing the Freeblast Route at around 8:15 a.m. local time (1515 UTC), the National Park Service said in a statement.
Yosemite park rangers and search and rescue personnel responded at the scene, but the climbers didn't survive the fall.
According to the AP news agency, the two climbers were identified as 46-year-old Jason Wells of Boulder, Colorado, and 42-year-old Tim Klien of Palmdale, California.
Park officials said that an investigation into the incident was ongoing and declined to provide further information.
Second fatal incident in a week
Saturday's accident marks the second fatal incident to take place in Yosemite in a little over a week, after a hiker died while attempting to climb the cliffs of Half Dome in rainy conditions.
Yosemite National Park, known for its dramatic granite cliffs and waterfalls, attracts some 4 million visitors per year. El Capitan, which extends around 3,000 feet (900 meters), is known as a popular place of pilgrimage for hikers, as well as death-defying free climbers and base jumpers.
Two American free-climbers make history
Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson have conquered the world's largest monolith El Capitan in Yosemite National Park in northern California, using only their hands and feet.
Image: picture-alliance/AP//Ben Margot
The world's most difficult rock climb
Many had thought this was impossible to achieve: Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson became the first to free-climb a 3,000-foot (900-meter) vertical rock formation called Dawn's Wall on Yosemite's El Capitan mountain. It is considered the world's most difficult rock climb.
Image: picture-alliance/AP//Ben Margot
An almost impossible feat
The two men began their ascent on December 27. They were the first to scale El Capitan's Dawn Wall using only their hands and feet to climb the vertical rock inch by inch. Ropes and safety harnesses were only used to catch the two free-climbers if they fell.
The trek took 19 days. During their pioneering adventure, the two free-climbers lived on the wall itself. They ate and slept in tents attached to the rock formation. Caldwell and Jorgeson ate canned peaches and occasionally drank whiskey. Reporters shot videos of the spectacular ascent.
Image: picture-alliance/AP/Tom Evans
No fear of darkness
The warmth of the day caused their hands to perspire, so Caldwell and Jorgeson often started climbing at dusk.
Image: picture-alliance/AP/Tom Evans
A climber's dream
There are about 100 routes up the monolith El Capitan. In 1958, the first climbers made it to the top. Even the extremely challenging Dawn Wall was scaled in 1970. However, no one had ever reached the top in one continuous free-climb before Caldwell and Jorgeson.
Image: picture-alliance/AP//Ben Margot
Years of training and failed attempts
Kevin Jorgeson (left) and Tommy Caldwell (right) were turned back by a storm when they tried to free-climb El Capitan in 2010. A year later, another attempt failed because Jorgeson broke his ankle while climbing the rock.
Gaelena Jorgeson (center) and Terry Caldwell cheered as their sons reached the top. Terry Caldwell said that her son could have reached it several days ago, but he had waited for his friend so that they made it together. "That's a deep, abiding, lifelong friendship, built over suffering on the wall together over six years," she said.
The free-climbers embraced after their dauntless ascent. US-President Barack Obama congratulated them from the White House on his Twitter account, saying that the two men "remind us that anything is possible".