Christopher Smaling Was a ‘Soul-Searcher’ Who Found His Home in Yosemite

Every January, we share a tribute to members of our community who we lost last year. Some were legends, others were pillars of their community, all were climbers. Read the full tribute to Climbers We Lost in 2025 here.

Christopher William Smaling, 28, June 10

When Christopher Smaling graduated a year early from high school, his father, Rudolf, thought it would be a good idea for him to take a gap year to explore the world. His dad, an engineer, moved the family for work a lot, which resulted in Chris attending exactly 12 schools between kindergarten and his senior year of high school. Moving and traveling were no big deal.

So when Rudolf invited Chris along for a work trip to India, Chris thought it would be the perfect opportunity to backpack and explore Asia while his father worked. At one point in his travels, Chris met a rock climber who had been paralyzed in a climbing accident. Despite the accident, the old climber gave Chris positive advice: “If you want to have a good life, go climbing.”

Chris took the man’s advice. From that point on, climbing became Chris’s passion and shaped everything he did.

Chris found his way to Hampi, a popular bouldering destination in India, and then finally to Nepal, where he mountaineered and trekked his way through the Himalayas. Many of his photos from this trip can be found on his Instagram page. When returning to the states, Chris fell in love with traditional climbing and climbed all around Colorado and Squamish, B.C., before finally settling in Yosemite Valley.

“Moving around so much really gave Chris this identity of really not knowing where home was,” Chris’s sister, Camille, told Climbing. “Until he found Yosemite. Yosemite was the longest time he spent anywhere. He was so happy to have found a place that finally felt like home.”

In the Valley, Chris skipped around from job to job—baking pastries at the Ahwahnee and working as a line cook—but he was really there for the climbing. Chris lived seasonally in the Valley and climbed routes on El Capitan, Half Dome, and Washington Column. Most recently, Chris had been completing his degree at Cal Poly Humboldt, where, according to his obituary, he had made a first ascent on nearby Footsteps Rock and helped revive the Cal Poly Humboldt Slackline Club.

On June 10, 2025, Chris lost his lifelong battle with mental health and took his own life in the forests of Matawan, Michigan. “He struggled with mental health his whole life,” said Chris’s sister, Camille. “His way of handling it was in nature—he would disappear and go hiking or climbing and battle it out with himself. And he won his battles over and over again. In the end, he lost one of those battles. But there were so many times that he won.”

The last time Camille saw Chris was in Bishop, California. Chris was living in his van with two puppies he rescued from a bad situation. He had spent all his money on vet bills for the puppies but managed to bring them both back to health. “I said, ‘You’re living in a van and spent all your money on these two puppies?’ It was a very Chris thing to do. I was concerned, but he seemed genuinely happy,” she said.“He always had this vibe to him that he wasn’t meant for this world. He wasn’t meant to go to college or have a nine-to-five. He just wanted to soul-search and go climbing all day. He is truly at peace now, even if those who loved him are not.”

Chris is survived by his mother, Laura Smaling; his father, Rudolf Smaling; his stepfather, Kevin Malone; his stepmother, Helene; his siblings, Camille, Sebastian, and Teddy Smaling; his stepsiblings, Miles and Camille Cornils; his grandmother, Dee Dee Gain; and all who gathered to remember him at his memorial in Yosemite Valley.

Read the full tribute to Climbers We Lost in 2025 here.

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