Sea of Nightmares: After His Son Died Climbing, a Father Wrestles With ‘What If’

I finally watched the video of my son’s death. How could I not? It was all over the internet. I missed him desperately and wanted to see him, hear his voice, get bear-hugged in his arms one last time. So I searched for “Balin Miller” or “Balin Miller climbing,” looking for any scrap of his image that didn’t depict his hasty death-walk down that finite length of rope, into the infinite. But instead of Balin happy and carefree, with his signature laugh, climbing Mt. Huntington or Cerro Torre, there was only the same grainy telephoto TikTok video of my little boy sliding so suddenly, so unexpectedly, and so permanently, off the end of his rope.

Falling is such a visceral and primordial sensation hard-wired into all mammals that even non-climbers can feel the shock. It induces a cold shudder, deep down where your empathy lives.

Young climbers without the temperance of time, and the devastating loss that will eventually come are limited to helpful statements such as “Shudah tied a knot, brah.” Indeed he should have.

But the seasoned climbers with more exposure to both gravity and grief possess a larger and better developed empathy chakra. For some of us, there is a pause. A pause that creates a space into which gratitude flows. Gratitude for a life we did not create, we did not earn, we cannot buy, and could not possibly deserve—it is only a gift.

To the climbing partner and father of that young man, not watching the video clip of the moment when gravity finally had its day was torturous. I knew it was going to be awful and leave deeply troubling wounds. But watch it, I knew I eventually would.

In my imagination, I had created an alter-reality where Balin simply fell backwards in calm surrender into the very hand of God. He knew the futility of trying to grasp and clutch at any rapidly passing solid object, of which I am grateful there was only one heartbreaking opportunity.

In my mind, he fell through a silent sky, resting peacefully on a pillow of warm air. As his disbelief crystallized into the sharpest reality, his brain dumped neurotransmitters to cushion the blow, anesthetize the trauma, and stretch his last 12.5 seconds into a timeless experience.

I could see Balin falling past a marbled tapestry of black diorite and white granite on which North American climbing history was made. In exquisite detail, he saw all the famous routes his heroes had climbed and named in their time. He saw other climbers, too, many of them friends he recognized. He relived an evening of bouldering with them around Camp 4, telling stories, laughing, and sharing a beer. Most of these friends were busy now in their daily labor of inching themselves upwards, for what reason he was now less sure.

Perhaps he thought, “We all seek the same goal: gratitude for our life. Maybe climbing is just the religion we use to attain it.”

Climbing was Balin’s religion, his devotion, and his sacrifice. The Southeast Face of El Capitan was his Wailing Wall, his Mecca. I wonder if he realized that he was now becoming a part of that same history that was rapidly flying past.

I knew I would eventually watch the video, and I knew it would be the hardest thing I had ever done in my life. What I didn’t know was that there are worse things to see then how your child dies. I found out it is worse to watch them almost live.

***

Children frighten easily and cry far too much for my liking, so I taught mine an algorithm I thought amusing at the time. I don’t laugh about it now.

I would ask two questions:

• Were you afraid?
• Did you get hurt?

If they reported that they were afraid, but did not get hurt, then I told them that is called fun, and to stop crying.

Unfortunately, in Balin’s case, he believed me.

At the very end, I don’t know whether Balin was afraid or not, but I am confident he wouldn’t call it fun. Not even type three fun. However, if you knew him well enough, you can almost hear him saying, “Well, this is interesting!”

Watching Balin almost save himself with his Herculean grasp at his passing haul line was traumatic. Worse than my imagination could invent. I had not taught him an algorithm for this moment. In this grainy video—broadcast and streamed worldwide for millions of people to gawk, judge, and give expert opinion, armchair editorial, or simple platitudes and prayers—I no longer saw one of the world’s most promising young climbers experiencing a tragic accident. I saw my little boy, more scared than he ever was in his life, about to die, because I distorted reality and called it fun.

However, even in that heartbreaking and shameful moment, I was still able to marvel at Balin’s athleticism. That he had the mental capacity and the reflexive spring to try and turn that unfolding tragedy into legend. Most of us would still be trying to understand what was happening as that recalcitrant haulbag receded into the distance and we were halfway to the bottom. That my little boy, who it seems was just learning to crawl, then walk, could instantaneously turn a backwards fall into a sideways leap, boggles my mind. That the strength to grab that haul line tightly enough to make a haulbag jump, could come from a boy who only yesterday could not hold his own baby bottle filled me with awe.

Seeing that he gave it everything he had, believing that he came so very close—wishing that the rope had been thicker, or closer, or had a loop to hook an arm into, but knowing that it just wasn’t enough—is comforting in a painful way. That he gave everything he had with that 5.16c dyno move in order to live, meant one less “What if?” echoing in my head and torturing my heart.

However, the seeing and believing, and the wishing and the knowing, are not the same thing as accepting. Not even close.

Balin’s favorite way to begin an excuse or self-exoneration of one of his very rare failures was, “Well, to be fair… ”

“Well to be fair, that rope was only 9mm. I mean, could you have done it, Dale?” I can hear him laughing as he explained to Dale Bard, the guy who put up Sea of Dreams in 1978, why he was arriving in heaven on that same day. He and Balin never met in life, but they made the same passage over both stone and heaven, dying within hours of each other on October 1, 2025.

“Yeah, no shit, Captain Hindsight,” I imagine Balin saying to Dale. “I should’ve tied a knot. I just figured I would die in the Himalayas on K2, not in Yosemite on TikTok.”

As the two wandered off in search of adventure, Dale, ever stoked, with a twinkle in his eyes said, “So you soloed the Sea? Bitchin’!”

***

Some of the things I never taught my son were tenacity, grit, and an enduring optimism in the face of almost anything. These gifts appeared when he started climbing. I remember when he first approached me with the idea of soloing Sea of Dreams (5.9 A4; 2,400ft). He was about 21 years old and had only one big wall under his belt: Lost in America (5.10a A4; 1,835ft). He followed Adrien Costa, a one-legged climber of remarkable hardiness and grit, up that route. Balin only led one A3 pitch, but it ignited his love for wide open expanses of terrifying stone, like those found on El Cap’s southeast face.

As casually as if he were asking to borrow the car, Balin asked if I would consider financing some cams so he could solo Sea of Dreams. I asked him to repeat what he just said. This time, he asked while laughing at himself. As if it were a joke. He covered the pain from my lack of faith, disguising it as jest.

That moment startled me. It was not hubris or jest. I sensed something unsettling in him—resolve and sincerity. That day, I became afraid for him, knowing it was not going to end well. I also knew I was powerless to stop it. What I didn’t know was how little time I had left. We always think we have more time. We rarely do.

I could not make him stop, but maybe I could slow his roll, stall for time, postpone the inevitable. So I blew him off and told him he wasn’t nearly ready for a climb like Sea of Dreams. I told him to go climb some hard aid on shorter routes up the Leaning Tower or Washington Column. To lead and haul every pitch. And then go do another El Cap route with a strong partner and swing leads up it. Then do 10 more just like it. And if you still want to solo Sea of Dreams, solo Zodiac (5.7 C3; 1,800ft) first.

I figured he would lose interest after a couple walls like I did at his age. Too much work, too much suffering. What if I had just bought him those cams and he tried Sea Of Dreams earlier, when he was less confident and he paused before that last rappel?

Balin followed my direction to the best of his abilities. The problem was that his abilities were lightyears ahead of mine. He made the third accent of some remote grade V wall in Wyoming as his first solo. Then climbed the Leaning Tower twice. Once up the classic Warren Harding Route on the West Face (5.7 C2; 1,000ft), then up Jesus Built my Hotrod (5.7 A4; 1,000ft), the Eric Kohl testpiece. Then he stepped right up to soloing South Seas (5.9 A3+; 2,500ft) on El Cap.

***

Balin was a kind and considerate person, especially to me. He knew that I was the only one of his relatives who truly understood how dangerous his lifestyle was, so he spared me a lot of details. But he did check in most every day when possible. After not getting any texts from him for a few days while he was on South Seas, I became very worried. His brother told me he dropped his phone. A year later, at his funeral, his girlfriend told me how his only copy of the route’s topo map had been on that phone.

“Being high up on the east side, not knowing what day it is or what time it is or how long and hard the pitch you’re about to climb is, was a unique experience for me,” Balin wrote afterward of his South Seas experience on Instagram. “Just yo-yo-ing my way up the wall. I feel good for it being my second route on El Cap, especially since I let Adrien lead all but one pitch of Lost in America.”

Apparently, he had taken his second lap up El Cap solo on LSD, just for the added challenge. His trip report on Instagram made more sense with that information.

I hugged Balin for the last time in Anchorage, Alaska, on his way to the airport. We had plans to meet up in a few weeks with his brother Dylan in Yosemite. Balin and Dylan wanted to drag me up El Cap. I was unsure. There was nothing on that wall I needed beside their company.

“I love you, Balin. I am very proud of you exactly as you are. I’ll see you soon in the Valley.” Those were the last words I spoke to him.

Balin’s girlfriend took him to the airport and that was the last I saw him. His brother said he later injured his finger while free climbing in Washington, and decided the responsible thing was to rest the finger by aid climbing. So Balin jumped in his jinky Prius, drove to Yosemite, and started up Sea of Dreams to rest up. The first I heard of this plan was the picture he sent me of his haulbag, one day up the route.

Me: What’s up?

Balin: Started up the Sea today.

Me: Solo?

Balin: Yup

Me: Dude! I love you. Hope you are truly enjoying all of that and not just doing what you think is expected of you. I guess you enjoy your own company a lot more than most of us do. Your grandfather is the same way. Have fun.

The entire route was hard and dangerous, but I could only remember the most famous A5 pitch in the world, the Hook or Book. I worried about him skating off it, swinging to his death in that waiting open book.

Like dropping acid on South Seas, he never told me he took a huge fall off the Hook or Book pitch. At the funeral, I found out about it from his girlfriend, who told me that he only had this to say about it: “Well, that was fucked up.”

I still don’t know all the details of that fall. He was probably the only person who ever took a fall on that pitch. It was originally rated A5 and, in my mind, still is A5. If you fall, you could die. He fell and straightened out a hook duct-taped to the rock as protection. It probably saved his life. The fall rattled him enough that he rappelled to the ground from 10 pitches up and left a few ropes fixed for a return trip. He simply told me that he was running low on water and had to get more.

What if he had broken his leg in that fall? What if, after being rescued and hospitalized, he had been inspired to become a doctor?

The daily texts my son sent me during the last week of his life while he climbed the Sea of Dreams left me in awe of him and that route. How could such an esoteric thing as yet another contrived line, in a forest of lines up El Cap, affect the lives of so many people? What if Balin soloed Zenyatta Mondatta (A4-; 1,800ft) instead, and his haulbag didn’t get stuck at the top?

That night on the valley floor, before getting back on Sea of Dreams, Balin had a falling nightmare that he related to his girlfriend. It shook him and she asked if he was still going back up. He said he was.

I wonder now if that dream was retrospection or premonition. What if his girlfriend told him she loved him and asked him not to go back up alone?

My new friend Matt Lambert, who was hiking up to climb Zodiac at the same time Balin landed, said, “Balin would not accept defeat. He climbed back up to his high point and finished the route. That in and of itself is more impressive than the climb in my eyes. The commitment, the dedication, the fight, and ability to conquer fear and failure. The mental capacity, the logistics, even just the physical requirements of that feat blow my mind. It’s just monumental to me. And really speaks to who he was.”

***

I think it was on a Wednesday evening, several months after Balin’s death, while lying in bed next to my grieving wife, when I finally hit the play button. Imbued with an alcoholic arrogance, this time, I didn’t look away.

I felt that I owed my son that much.

Death and birth are the most personal moments in your life. To have your child’s death broadcast worldwide, where millions of strangers are able to view such a private moment, is upsetting to those who were close. Especially so when your defenseless child is derided in death by some of these very strangers, as if he were a sideshow sacrifice in the Colosseum for the entertainment of the jeering masses.

Back in slower times, the police chaplain would knock on your door to bring you news of this gravity. Now your child’s snuff film streams on Facebook, TikTok, and the six o’clock news before the body is cold. His mother splattered her grief across tabloid TV before I could even learn what went wrong.

So in my drunken justification, I thought, “At least someone who really loves you will bear witness to your most private moment. I was there when you were born and I will be here for you now.”

I hit play.

**

I am not a thoughtful man. I am impetus and rash. Even now, worn and battered after a lifetime of pissing on electric fences rather than reading the signs, I still speak too quickly and act too abruptly and bury myself under an avalanche of regret.

So I never really gave it much thought when, as a younger man, I decided to teach my kids to climb. Somehow along the way, I had forgotten why I had quit climbing in the first place.

I quit climbing because it is more addictive, more dangerous, and more expensive than drugs. I quit climbing because it had killed most of my friends, and robbed me of decades of time. Time I could have better spent being a father, a husband, a son, brother, or friend. Time I thought was unlimited, but now understand is brief and finite.

Climbing, like any other addiction in my life, started out fun. It was a thrilling and wholesome experience with friends—until my ego slowly crept in. When your entire identity is tied up in it, a few bad days in a row can be devastating.

When I started climbing in Alaska in the 1980s, there were not very many of us. We were isolated from the rest of the world and it was easier to imagine that you were good at it, or at least might be good at it some day.

Imagine my horror when climbing suddenly became popular and the standards shot up overnight. Heck, I was thinking 5.10c trad was cutting-edge back then (I actually still maintain that belief.) So to discover that I was, in fact, pretty bad at something that quantified my self worth was devastating. Not to mention, climbing is hard—and rarely as fun as people say it is.

For me, climbing isn’t fun anymore and hasn’t been for years. It has killed lots of my friends and it’s probably going to kill me if I don’t stop.

This sentiment reminds me of an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Just replace alcohol with climbing. Same story, different drug.

Most alcoholics who I’ve encountered tell a similar and relatable tale. We were awkward and uncomfortable around people. Didn’t fit in. Generally of slightly higher intelligence than the average human, but rarely achieved notable success. We were outsiders, perpetually looking in, who wished to belong.

That first drink is like that first climb. Something clicks. We suddenly feel alive and emboldened. We are released from our own worrisome company. Our anxiety fades in the glow of a drink, a drug, or the focused attention of a first trad lead. We feel reborn as a different person—smarter, better-looking, and funnier. We have the answer we had been seeking.

Unfortunately, we have been asking the wrong question. We have been asking ourselves:

• What am I lacking?
• What climbing feat will set me apart and make me special?
• What can I drink so I don’t care that I am not special?
• What can I climb to make me comfortable in my own company?
• What can I drink to make me comfortable talking to a pretty girl?
• What can I climb to feel worthy of someone else’s love?
• What mountain is worth dying on to gain immortality?
• (What if he knew he was perfect all along?)

To be sure, there are lots of people who can use drugs, alcohol, climbing, and even base jumping socially and recreationally to improve their lives, and the lives of friends and family. Just not me, or my son.

People like us, with whatever flavor of neurodivergent ADHD we were born with, have trouble  moderating risk and reward. We get the gas pedal confused with the brake, and have no clue what the clutch does.

In Balin’s case, his drug of choice was all he had, and he went after it like a terrier with a rat.

What if I had just taken him to the rock gym instead of starting him on trad climbing?

***

After Balin soloed Reality Bath (Canadian Grade VII Ice) last January and became famous, I told him and his fans online something I’d been repeating his entire life:

“We love you just the way you are alive and well, sarcastic and kind. Carry those who love you in your backpack … Sometimes life is about doing shit half as stupid for twice as long.”

What if he had heeded that advice? I repeated it at his funeral.

But maybe, when it’s your time, it’s just your time. And when it’s not your time, anything short of tying yourself to the railroad tracks will make it your time. Maybe that is why I got to read those words again at his funeral.

What if Balin sensed that something was wrong just before he went off the end of his rope? What if, just as the last free inch of rope slipped through his ATC, he was able to grab the very tail end of it? It was too little, too late to stop the fall, but it gave him a stationary spring board to lunge for the haul line beside him.

What if he wasn’t traveling at 25 feet per second yet? What if he leapt like a cat towards his haulbag and his powerful hands clamped mechanically to that 9mm rope? It was still a brutal and fearful moment, but he arrested his fall and found himself hanging precariously from the slack below his haulbag, next to his orange portaledge.

In shock, he was running only on adrenaline and reflex. He suspected he might even be dead. But just in case he wasn’t, he collected his remaining wits, and enacted a plan.

His dad’s rusty old hook clipped on his harness was just long enough to reach the daisy chains on the outside of the haulbag. After his hand barely managed to fumble that hook into a slot of nylon, he eased his weight onto it gently. It groaned and some stitches popped, but it held his weight. He could relax just enough to think about his next move. The pain from his scorched hands was coming in pulsing waves now and he wanted to vomit and pass out, but dared not do either. He needed to get himself secure. Rescue was too far away—he had to figure out a way up and off this cliff.

Using some slings fashioned into aiders, he climbed onto his haulbag and straddled it. Clipping in his ascenders, he could at last relax, knowing he was not going to fall. He laughed to himself about how freaking hard big wall climbing was, then began to cry while rummaging painfully through his haulbag for water and duct tape. His head pounding from the stress, he relaxed against the rock face that his haulbag was stuck on and laughed when he saw the small crack that was the cause of so much pain.

“Is that what all this fuss is about?” Balin said to the crack his bag was stuck in. He wrapped some duct tape around his hands, covering his wounds, took a deep breath, and grimaced in pain as he slid his ascender two feet up the rope.

“Ahhh, fuck, this is hard,” he cursed at the ghosts swirling about him, intermingled with strafing swallows.

“What else are you going to do? Wait around for a rescue like a sport climber?“ He chuckled to himself this time, while spitting blood and a bit of tooth.

Slowly, and ever so painfully, Balin climbed his haul line up to the lip, where his gear was anchored. It was almost dark now; the sun had set. Only the alpenglow remained on Yosemite’s highest points. Awash in a hue of pastel light that he had never before seen, he was iridescent with wavelengths of pink, amber, orange, and red—the very shade of life itself.

Balin knew what had just happened was a miracle. He vowed to never forget this gift. He planned to honor it, respect it, and give testimony to it.

The last of the alpenglow sparkled off Balin’s bruised and glittered face, then all went dark.

***

Two years later.
Karakoram.
K2 Basecamp.
Below the North Ridge.

“Balin, tell us the story about that crazy fall you took off Sea of Dreams, where you saved yourself by snagging your dad’s old hook on your haulbag,” a dreadlocked woman asked, while passing a joint around a small cooking fire surrounded by young climbers.

“Oh that? That was nothing miraculous!” Balin laughed in his signature baritone way. “To be fair, that hook has been snagging on stuff and slowing me down ever since I left home as a kid. It actually hooked on a tree root at the bottom and I had trouble getting off the ground.”

As the smoke from the joint mixed with the sparks from the fire, the miracle mingled with the joke. Then, as all things eventually become one, it rose up, tracing the North Ridge into the night sky.

The post Sea of Nightmares: After His Son Died Climbing, a Father Wrestles With ‘What If’ appeared first on Climbing.