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| A view of El Capitan inside Yosemite National Park, an area of the park where two people on Saturday were killed after falling while on a hike. File photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons |
By Susan McFarland, UPI
Two climbers died Saturday morning after falling while climbing the Freeblast Route on El Capitan inside Yosemite National Park.
Emergency officials received multiple calls about the incident, which happened about 8:15 a.m. Authorities had not released their identities Saturday evening pending family notification.
According to a statement by park officials, the investigation is ongoing and additional details were not immediately available about what caused the climbers to fall.
Last month, a hiker was killed in the park after falling from one of the park's most identifiable formations -- the Cable Route on the Half Dome.
A park spokesperson said the climber was with a partner, scaling the steepest part of the trail where rangers recently installed cables to help hikers get to the top of the 8,800-foot rock face. That death was the first on the Half Dome since 2011 and the first in the park this year.
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