Robbi Mecus, a New York State forest ranger who led search-and-rescue missions and have become a distinguished voice inside the L.G.B.T.Q. climbing group, died after falling about 1,000 toes from a peak at Denali Nationwide Park and Protect in Alaska on Thursday. She was 52.
Her dying was confirmed by the New York State Division of Environmental Conservation, the place she labored for 25 years.
Ms. Mecus, who labored principally within the Adirondacks, looked for and rescued misplaced and injured climbers going through hypothermia and different threats within the wilderness. This month, she helped rescue a frostbitten hiker who was misplaced within the Adirondack Mountains in a single day.
At age 44, she got here out as transgender, she stated in a 2019 interview with the New York Metropolis Trans Oral Historical past challenge. She then labored to foster a supportive group for lesbian, homosexual, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning climbers within the North Nation of New York.
“I would like folks to see that trans folks can do superb issues,” she stated in an interview for a climbing web site, goEast, in 2022. “I believe it helps when younger trans folks see different trans folks engaging in issues. I believe it lets them know that their life doesn’t should be filled with negativity and it may possibly really be actually rad.”
Basil Seggos, former commissioner of New York’s Division of Environmental Conservation, known as Ms. Mecus a “pillar of power” and an incredible chief for L.G.B.T.Q.+ rights, noting she was “all the time there” for probably the most troublesome rescues and crises.
“I really feel lucky to have identified her,” he said on social media. “Relaxation in peace, Ranger.”
Ms. Mecus was born in New York Metropolis in October 1971 and grew up in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, in a Catholic, working-class household along with her dad and mom and an older brother and older sister.
“Rising up in New York Metropolis, I all the time knew that I used to be a mountain lady,” she stated within the 2019 interview. She recalled reducing up photos of forests and mountains and tacking them to her wall.
She acquired concerned within the New York climbing group, and in 2008 met Carolyn Riccardi, who stated they bonded over their shared experiences rising up in Brooklyn and their love of heavy metallic music.
“The climbing group has some range to it, however you don’t meet a whole lot of blue collar youngsters from Brooklyn, and also you don’t meet a whole lot of youngsters which are into heavy metallic,” Ms. Riccardi stated on Sunday.
Ms. Mecus had stated she recognized as feminine since she was very younger, although she struggled to come back to phrases along with her identification for many years. She married a lady, and so they had a toddler collectively.
After discovering a group on-line the place she felt she had an outlet to precise herself, she got here out as transgender. She grew to become a pacesetter of the L.G.B.T.Q. climbing group, desperate to share her personal experiences and be a mannequin to others.
“Fifteen years in the past, there was no L.G.B.T. climbing group,” Ms. Riccardi stated. “Once I got here out, there wasn’t any group like that. However Robbi helped construct it.”
Ms. Mecus died whereas ascending Mount Johnson, an 8,400-foot peak, alongside a route often called the Escalator, a steep and technical alpine climb on the height’s southeast face. The 5,000-foot route entails navigating steep rock, ice and snow.
One other climber who was roped to Ms. Mecus, a 30-year-old lady from California whose identify was not launched, was severely injured within the fall.
“These are the climbs that she actually cherished,” Ms. Riccardi stated of Ms. Mecus. “This was her particular factor. She cherished these type of combine climbs that had a whole lot of complexity.”
Her survivors embrace her daughter.
Within the interview with New York Metropolis Trans Oral Historical past challenge, Ms. Mecus described her battle to develop an identification past the stereotypes of who she thought she needed to be.
However after popping out, she stated, she developed her personal definition of her gender, her “personal model of femininity.”
“I assumed that with a view to be accepted as a lady, that I must mannequin myself in any case the opposite girls I see,” she stated. “And I believe one of many huge classes I’ve discovered up to now three years is that I don’t should mannequin myself after anyone, besides me.”