New York trans advocate, park ranger falls to her death while ice climbing Alaska mountain path ‘the Escalator’

Robbi Mecus was killed Thursday night after falling more than 1,000 feet while attempting to climb a steep cliff in Alaska.

A longtime New York forest ranger and trans advocate died Thursday night after falling more than 1,000 feet while attempting to climb a steep cliff in Alaska, officials said.

Robbi Mecus, 52, of Keene Valley, and her climbing partner both fell while ice climbing a particularly treacherous part of Mount Johnson in Denali National Park known as “the Escalator,” according to the National Park Service.

Mecus, a transgender woman, died in the fall. Her climbing partner, a 30-year-old woman from California, survived with “serious traumatic injuries.”

Mecus, 52, of Keene Valley and her climbing partner both fell while ice climbing an especially treacherous part of Mount Johnson in Denali National Park known as "the Escalator."

Another climbing party saw the tragic fall and called for help around 10:45 p.m., but it wasn’t until 7 a.m. the next morning that the survivor was airlifted to a hospital.

Mecus’s body wasn’t found until Saturday morning due to worsening weather conditions the previous evening. The avid outdoorswoman had been a forest ranger for the Department of Environmental Conservation’s Adirondack region for 25 years, joining in 1999 at the age of 27, the agency noted.

“I join the Department of Environmental Conservation family in mourning the sudden and tragic passing of Forest Ranger Robbi Mecus,” interim DEC Commissioner Sean Mahar said in a statement Saturday.

Mecus's body wasn't recovered until Saturday morning following deteriorating weather conditions the evening prior.

Mahar praised Mecus’s professionalism, highlighting her rescue efforts, work on complex searches, and deployments to out-of-state wildfire response missions. He also commended her efforts in “advancing diversity, inclusion, and LGBTQ belonging throughout the agency.”

Mecus was also a prominent figure in the queer community in the Adirondacks, as reported by NCPR. She revealed in 2021 that she struggled with her gender identity during her teenage years and waited until her 40s to transition: “I was scared and afraid, and I didn’t know how I was going to live my life.”

During that difficult period, she found solace in rock and ice climbing, which introduced her to a community where she could be a leader.

The interim commissioner also commended Mecus's work in "advancing diversity, inclusion, and LGBTQ belonging throughout the agency."

“There are many reasons I didn’t come out until I was 44, but one of them was because I didn’t see anybody else doing the things that I still wanted to do, and I didn’t think I could do them,” Mecus said in 2021. “I didn’t see any queer rangers. I didn’t see any trans climbers.”

According to her social media, Mecus had visited Alaska numerous times for expeditions over the years, even successfully climbing “the Escalator” last year.

The details of what went wrong during her final climb remain unclear, but park officials caution that the path to Mt. Johnson’s 8,400-foot summit is extremely perilous.

“The approximately 5,000-foot route involves navigating a mix of steep rock, ice, and snow,” the National Park Service explained.