x
Breaking News
More () »

Sheriff's helicopter recovers body of rock climber who fell to his death from El Cajon Mountain

Even though the fallen climber was solo, other climbers in the area witnessed him falling 200 feet, according to authorities. That’s as tall as a 20-story building.

LAKESIDE, Calif. — A man in his early to mid-twenties died Sunday afternoon after falling to their death from El Cajon Mountain, also known as El Capitan, in the Lakeside area.

A man familiar with the area, Billy Ortiz, spoke with CBS 8 about the infamous rock climbing location where the victim died. 

Ortiz lived in Lakeside around El Cajon Mountain for 63 years.

Ortiz said to get to the area where the rock climber’s body was, was treacherous.

 He said, “It's just as steep on the back side, if not steeper. It's pretty wild. You have to go through a bunch of creeks, ravines, and dense brush.”

He shot this video of the search and rescue crews carefully maneuvering and recovering the rock climber’s body from the south side of the mountain:

Footage of body extraction from the wedge area of El Cajon Mt, aka, El Cap. The report I was following was that a climber in mid 20's fell 200 feet. The rock they climb is somewhere around 4 to 500 feet tall and is located on the South side of the Mt. May he RIP

Posted by Billy Lakeside Ortiz on Monday, December 5, 2022

Billy said rock climbers love this area they call “The Wedge.” He said, “it goes up to the left and then the right, and then there's an overhang.” 

Even though the fallen climber was solo, other climbers in the area witnessed him falling 200 feet, according to authorities.

That’s as tall as a 20-story building.

I asked Billy about the rock climber being alone. He said, “You’ll always see a couple of guys up there. They buddy up, up there. It’s too dangerous. There’s only so much space where they can stand underneath at the bottom of the wedge. There were at least 40 cars down on the road, so many rock climbers were up there. Probably people hiking around too but mostly rock climbers.”

Authorities said a search and rescue helicopter dropped a paramedic down to the body Sunday, but the climber was pronounced dead at the scene. 

Lt. Ruben Medina with San Diego County Sheriff’s Department said, “By the time we were able to get to where the climber was, it's about 2,500 feet in elevation, and it's about a 2-hour hike to get to the climber. So it made yesterday's recovery impossible. It would have been nightfall as well as complicated getting back down.”

A technical search and rescue crew walked the treacherous terrain Monday morning and carefully positioned it so the helicopter could get close enough without clipping the side of the mountain.

The fallen rock climber was rescued more than 12 hours after he fell from the mountainside.

His identity was withheld pending next of kin notification.

WATCH RELATED: 'Max was my rock' | Mother of hiker who died in Mission Trails gathers with family and friends (2021)

Before You Leave, Check This Out