Legendary climber of El Capitan dies
SAN FRANCISCO — George Whitmore, a member of the first team of climbers to scale El Capitan in Yosemite National Park and a conservationist who devoted his life to protecting the Sierra Nevada, has died. He was 89.
Whitmore died on New Year’s Day from complications caused by COVID-19, said his wife, Nancy. She said Whitmore, a cancer survivor, was extremely careful about wearing a mask and his family doesn’t know where he contracted the virus. He tested positive for COVID-19 on Dec. 13, after developing a rattling but occasional cough and subsequent fever. He died in a Fresno rehabilitation facility from damage to his lungs about a week after being released from a hospital, his wife of 41 years said.
Friends, family, colleagues and fellow climbers mourned the passing of a legend in the world of rock climbing and the last surviving member of the trio that was the first to reach the top of El Capitan on Nov. 12, 1958. Ascending the 3,000-foot sheer granite rock wall that now attracts climbers from around the world was, at the time, a feat considered out of human reach.
In 2008, Whitmore gathered with climbers from around the world at Yosemite to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his ascent with Wayne Merry and Warren Harding, who died in 2002. Merry died in 2019.
Whitmore, then 77, told AP they didn’t realize at the time “how special” their climb of the sheer rock formation would be. It took them 47 days over 16 months to complete the climb. They set fixed lines and rappelled down, then used the ropes to return to the same point later.