Tragedy in the U.S.: Climber Jake Whisenant has died. He was 30 years old.

The climbing world is mourning the passing of Jake Whisenant, an athlete well known in the climbing community, particularly for the records he set on the walls of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, California.

Whisenant died while climbing in the Sierra Nevada, a mountain range that straddles eastern California and western Nevada. He had been missing for over two days, and authorities eventually located and recovered his body, thanks in part to the use of drones and other technological tools.

“When the sudden and indifferent wave of a catastrophic loss engulfs your life, it’s all too easy to believe that the world has betrayed you in a cruel and unjust way, as if to punish you for a fault you never committed,” wrote his fiancée, Emma London. But Jake never chose the easy path.”

“The most arduous path—the one he would have chosen—is to keep gazing at the horizon far beyond the sunset, letting oneself be enveloped by the incomprehensible beauty of that magic we were fortunate enough to witness. For Jake, I’m trying to choose the hardest path. When twilight faded into night, I was forced to say goodbye to the last day we’d shared on this Earth.”

Matt Cornell, a mountaineer and dear friend of Jake’s, wrote: “Jake was always very private about what he did in the mountains. He was a humble man but immensely respected in our community, and his legacy will live on through the routes he pioneered.”