Bold Young Alpinist Balin Miller Dies in Yosemite

The 23-year-old Alaskan achieved impressive solos of historic routes—with glitter on his cheeks.

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(Photo: Nicholas Benvenuto / Getty)

Balin Miller was fast becoming a legend in the climbing world. The 23-year-old had spent the year of 2025 making a name for himself, with historic solos—and soloing sprees—from Alaska to Patagonia. On October 1, Miller fell to his death from 2,400 feet on Yosemite’s El Capitan. In a horrifying set of circumstances, his death was captured on a stranger’s livestream with some 500 people watching.

Just after midnight on October 2, his mother, Jeanine Girard-Moorman, shared on Facebook, “It is with a heavy heart I have to tell you my incredible son Balin Miller died during a climbing accident today. My heart is shattered in a million pieces.”

Miller had been climbing Sea of Dreams (5.9 A4), one of the most challenging aid routes on El Cap. On September 29, he was photographed by Tom Evans, the creator of the once-daily El Cap Report.

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On October 2, Miller reached the top of the last pitch of Sea of Dreams, but his haul bag got stuck on the terrain below. As he descended back down his lead line to free his bag, Miller rappelled off the ends of the rope. Evans described the incident on Facebook and later verified his report with Climbing. No additional information from Yosemite National Park staff or local officials has been released.

The livestreaming of a fall

Eric (who asked that his last name be withheld), a blogger and content producer who calls himself a “Yosemite super fan,” had been livestreaming Miller’s Sea of Dreams ascent online. “I was the sole witness down in El Cap Meadow monitoring Balin when he fell,” Eric told Climbing. He had started livestreaming climbers from the base of El Cap on his Tiktok channel on Sunday.

Using a scope and his phone, Eric had been following El Cap climbers including Miller, who had become known as “Orange Tent Person” among the livestream followers for his orange portaledge. Over the course of the week, some 100,000 people had been participating in the livestream, according to Eric. “Everyone was real interested in him [Miller],” he said.

On October 1, Eric’s livestream followers saw Miller start moving around 10 a.m. as he neared the final pitches of the route. “We were all cheering for him and wanted to see him summit,” he said. When he was almost at the top, around 1 p.m., Miller’s bag became stuck down the pitch. According to Eric, he descended to fix it and rappelled off the ends of his rope. Eric and Evans, who had been photographing climbers nearby, called 911 and a recovery effort was initiated.

Eric said that many of the livestream viewers have reached out to him, and have been having a hard time processing what they saw. “Everybody is shook up,” he said. He shared the video with Yosemite’s law enforcement rangers.

Miller’s bold life in the mountains

Just four months ago, Climbing Senior Editor Anthony Walsh reported on Miller’s historic solo of the Slovak Direct route (M6 WI 6 A2; 9,000ft) on Denali, which Miller said he thought “would be a ton of fun to climb alone.”

This past June, it took Miller three days to complete the ascent—during which, Miller assured us, he got plenty of sleep. With a five-day weather window, the Alaskan soloist opted to take a 19-hour nap at his first glacier bivy on Slovak Direct. He free soloed all but one pitch, which involved A2 cracks (freed at M8).

After Miller’s Slovak Direct solo, alpinist Colin Haley called his achievement “super badass.” Haley added that it was one of the greatest alpine-style solos ever completed in Alaska’s Central Range. And when the news was shared with Slovak Direct veteran Mark Twight, his reaction was simply, “Holy shit.”

Just a few months earlier, Miller had gone on a week-long soloing spree across, improbably, Patagonia and the Canadian Rockies. In January, he climbed Californiana (5.10c; 700m) on Cerro Chaltén, employing a mix of free soloing and rope soloing.

Then, Miller headed to Canada, where he soloed Virtual Reality (WI6), followed by one of Canada’s most infamous climbs: Reality Bath, ominously graded VIII in Canada for its WI5/6 difficulty and objective hazard. He told Walsh that what attracted him to Reality Bath was the route’s “lore,” built up over time by Twight, one of the first ascensionists.

Miller pulled off these three stout solos with a stripe of glitter on each cheek—a habit he’d adopted during a summer of yore involving alt rock, a girl, and partying. “If I was just going cragging, I probably wouldn’t wear glitter,” Miller explained to Walsh last January. “But it’s like a warrior putting makeup on before going into battle … you know you’re about to do something hard.”

When Miller wasn’t climbing, he worked as a crab fisher in Alaska and as a snow shoveler in Montana. Originally from Anchorage, Miller grew up climbing with his father and brother Dylan. He is also survived by a younger sister, Mia.

This is a developing story. We will update it as new information becomes available.