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

A longtime New York forest ranger and trans advocate was killed 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 an especially 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.”

Another climbing party witnessed the tragic drop and called for help around 10:45 p.m., but it took until 7 a.m. the following morning for the survivor to be airlifted to a hospital.

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

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The outdoors enthusiast had been a forest ranger for the Department of Environmental Conservation’s Adirondack region for 25 years after joining in 1999 at the age of 27, the agency said.

“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.

Mahar said Mecus “exemplified the Forest Rangers’ high standard of professional excellence,” emphasizing her rescue efforts, her work on complex searches and her deployments to out-of-state wildfire response missions.

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

Mecus was also a leader in the queer community in the Adirondacks, NCPR reported.

She told the outlet in 2021 that she struggled through her teenage years to come to terms with her gender identity. She ultimately waited until she was in her 40s to transition: “I was scared and afraid and I didn’t know how I was going to live my life.”

That hard time is when she discovered her love of rock and ice climbing, and opened her up to a community that didn’t include many queer people, allowing her the opportunity to become a leader.

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“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,” said Mecus in 2021. “I didn’t see any queer rangers. I didn’t see any trans climbers.”

According to her social media channels, Mecus had visited Alaska several times for expeditions over the years.

She even successfully made it up “the Escalator” last year.

It’s not clear what went wrong with her final climb, but park officials warn the path to Mt. Johnson’s 8,400-foot peak is among the most dangerous.

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

Mecus is survived by her daughter and former wife, who live in the Keene Valley community.

Denali National Park and Preserve is about 240 miles north of Anchorage.

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