Those who knew the two Huntington Beach rock climbers who died Wednesday, Sept. 28, in a fall at a premier rock climbing area near Idyllwild said they brought out the best in those they were around.

The climbers, Gavin Escobar, 31, who most recently served as a Long Beach firefighter but also played three years with the Dallas Cowboys, and Chelsea Walsh, 33, a cinematographer who worked for Roadtrip Nation, died while scaling the Tahquitz Peak, popular among rock climbers.

Ted Distel, also a climber with experience in glacier climbs at Mt. Ranier, recently completed a film with Walsh. “Light” is a documentary about climbing and eating disorders and Walsh’s main role was to interview professional climbers who had experience with anorexia and other disorders.

“When I worked with her, she was really vibrant; she had a beautiful love for life and was an incredible editor,” he said. “Her personality as an interviewer came out and really helped bring out the authenticity in her subjects. She really owned her role in that movie.”

Mike Marriner, president of Roadtrip Nation, for whom Walsh had worked for a decade, said on Friday he was overwhelmed by her loss. Since starting at the company as an intern, Walsh had produced at least a dozen documentaries on topics such as veterans reintegrating into the civilian world, single mothers and disenfranchised youths.

“We’re all pretty gutted right now,” Marriner said. “You meet someone and think, ‘That was a special human.’ She had this incredible depth and sincere empathy that led to authentic storytelling.”

For the documentary on veterans, Walsh lived in a mobile home with three veterans and they went across America, visiting other service members making their own road trips through life.

“She was a coach, guide and friend who would cry with them,” Marriner said. “She was there to film, but she was also all in to help them. No matter what the topic, she had the ability to dive in, be the sponge and explore. She was incredibly honest and a truth-teller.”

“She may not have lived as long as we would have liked,” he added, “but she made such a difference in people.”

Like Walsh, Escobar, who is survived by his wife and two young children, also had a magnetic quality noted by others.

Before joining the NFL, he played basketball and football at Santa Margarita Catholic High School. Former coaches still remember him as an altruistic, talented athlete who was naturally gifted and always looked out for other players.

When Aaron Maldanado, who coached basketball at the Rancho Santa Margarita school, first met Escobar as a freshman, he said he knew the teen was special.

“He was reserved, but funny,” Maldanado said. “Everyone immediately fell in love with him. As he grew, he was probably the best athlete I ever saw. He was 6-foot-6, and he could jump and run.

“He had a lot of other passions,” Maldanado said. “He played football because he realized it was his meal ticket, but he played basketball because his friends played it. He was that kind of kid.”

Maldanado said Escobar never sought the limelight for himself, but liked it when his friends did well. After spending hours at practice for either sport, he’d still go and workout with weights to help his friends who also hoped for opportunities to play on the college level.

Maldanado followed Escobar’s career when he went to play for San Diego State and then was so proud when Escobar was selected by the Dallas Cowboys in the second round of the NFL draft.

“I’m a Cowboys fan and it was a really big deal,” Maldanado recalled, adding that when the Cowboys played the Chargers, he went to see Escobar, then a tight end, play. “He wasn’t a big talker, but he was proud.”

Mike Moore, who works with Orange County athletes and has helped guide several to professional careers, said fewer than 1% of high school athletes make it into professional sports, but Escobar did. And, like Maldanado, Moore emphasized Escobar’s care for others. “He was a we player, not an I player,” he said.

After playing for the Cowboys, Escobar had brief stints with the Kansas City Chiefs, Baltimore Ravens, Cleveland Browns and Miami Dolphins, ending his football career in 2019 with the now-defunct Alliance of American Football.

According to their Mountain Project profiles, both Escobar and Walsh were experienced climbers. The site is self-reporting and relies on climbers putting in information on climbing history, how the climbs went. From the profiles, it appears Escobar was more experienced and had a fair amount of traditional climbing experience, which means he placed his own gear into rocks. He had alpine climbing experience and a lot of experience at Tahquitz. Walsh had less experience there, but did have alpine climbing experience.

The area in the San Jacinto Mountain range they were climbing, also known as Lily Rock, is among the more well-known climbing destinations in North America. In fact, the system that rates the difficulty of climbs was developed at Tahquitz by members of the Sierra Club back in the 1950s.

“There are many routes there of varying difficulty, and weather (including lightning strikes this week) can add another factor of difficulty in an already potentially dangerous sport,” said Christy Mohler, an editor for the American Alpine Club’s “Accidents in North American Climbing.”

Mohler said there had been one other fatality on Tahquitz this year, a climber who was free soloing (climbing alone and without ropes/protection).

Already impressed by the young man who had made it to the NFL, Moore said he was even more impressed by Escobar’s success in life later on.

Recently, Moore said he ran into Escobar at a sports bar in Belmont Shore, a coastal neighborhood of Long Beach. Escobar had just joined the Long Beach Fire Department.

“I told him I was so proud of him,” Moore said. “A lot of guys find themselves in trouble with no income after football. He wanted to do more.”

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