30-year-old rock climber Jake Whisenant, who set the speed record for climbing to the top of El Capitan in California, tragically died in the Sierra Nevada mountains as a result of an accident, People reports, citing the Tulare County Sheriff's Office (California).
Whisenant died Aug. 3, according to county officials. Details of the circumstances of his death have not yet been disclosed.
His friend Bailey Moore also reported the death of the climber on Instagram. She confirmed that Whisenant died in the Sierra Nevada mountains in California during the expedition.
“It is with an unbearably heavy heart that I announce the death of my lifelong friend and closest person, Jacob Daniel Whisnant. “Our family is absolutely devastated by this news, but we are comforted by the knowledge that Jake died doing what he loved in the beautiful Sierra Nevada Mountains,” she wrote.
In 2024, Whisenant, along with fellow climber Brant Hysell, set a speed record on Lurking Fear, one of the routes to climb El Capitan, the famous granite wall rising about 3,000 feet (about 914 meters) in Yosemite National Park. They covered the route in 2 hours 55 minutes 32 seconds.
The previous record was held by Yuji Hirayama and Nick Fowler, who completed Lurking Fear in 3 hours and 4 minutes in 2003.
After this, Whisenant continued to actively engage in rock climbing in Yosemite. In May, the Yosemite Climbing Association reported that he and a partner climbed El Capitan twice in one day via The Nose route, spending a total of 14 hours and 38 minutes on both ascents.
