Wisconsin man falls to his death rock climbing in Wyoming

A man who died while rock climbing in a national monument in Wyoming over the weekend was from Eau Claire, Wis.

Stewart Porter, 21, was rappelling the second pitch of El Cracko Diablo in Devils Tower National Monument when he fell and sustained major injuries. Porter was pronounced dead by paramedics who arrived at the scene at about 8:40 p.m. Saturday, the National Park Service said in a statement.

Porter was with another man at the time. His partner was stranded, but was rescued by climbing guides, the Park Service said.

“While climbing fatalities at Devils Tower are infrequent, it is still inherently dangerous,” the Park Service said.

Porter’s death was the seventh climbing death recorded in more than a century of climbing at the geologic feature that protrudes out of the prairie surrounding the Black Hills, the Park Service said.