A 21-year-old climber from Wisconsin died after a fall while climbing Devils Tower on Sunday, while his climbing partner became stranded on the sheer rock face and was rescued.
Stewart Phillip Porter, 21, was climbing El Cracko Diablo, one of the routes to the summit of Devils Tower, with his climbing partner around 8 p.m. when he fell, Devils Tower National Monument reports.
Porter was rappelling the second pitch of the route when he fell and sustained major injuries. Hulett EMS responded to the call for assistance, but Porter was declared dead at the scene.
Porter’s companion was stranded on the wall of the tower after Porter’s fall, and Devils Tower Lodge Climbing Guides and Buck Wild Climbing Guides responded to rescue him.
El Cracko Diablo is a half-day rock climb that summitpost.org ranks it as having a beginner’s difficulty of 5.8.
7th Climbing Death
The National Park Service reports that in more than a century of people climbing America’s first national monument, Sunday’s was the seventh climbing-related death.
Matthew Sorenson, a lawyer from Gillette, died June 2, 2017, after a fall while climbing with friends on the Sundance route.
Despite wearing a helmet, he sustained major head injuries from impact with the rock below, Devils Tower National Monument reported at the time.
Before that, the last fatal climbing accident on the tower was in 2003.
The Devils Tower National Monument superintendent was unavailable for comment at the time of publication.
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
