The Pennsylvania climbing community is mourning one of its legends, who fell to his death Sunday while "free-soloing" while climbing with friends at Coll's Cove near Ohiopyle State Park -- a spot known as one of the premier climbing sites in Southwestern Pennsylvania.

Fall victim Calvin Swoager Jr., 66

TribLive.com reports that the climbing victim has been as Calvin Swoager Jr., described by climbing friends as a "fit, 66-year-old man who had been scaling mountains for decades."

Swoager plunged to his death Sunday, falling more than 40 feet while attempting to scale a cliff at Coll's Cove.

The remote site is on state gamelands, about nine miles from Ohiopyle State Park in Dunbar Township, Fayette County, TribLive reported. However, there was no immediate information on whether other accidents have occurred there.

Joe Brady, president of the Southwestern Pennsylvania Rock Climbers Coalition, remembered Swoager this way in an interview with TribLive:

"He was known for doing very scary routes," Brady said. "Being the first person to climb them ... you are considered a trailblazer. Being the first one, being a trailblazer of especially difficult, dangerous routes, is noteworthy."

In a photo that appears in the book, "New River Rock: Rock Climbs in West Virginia's New River Gorge," published in 1997 by Rick Thompson, Swoager is pictured "soloing" -- climbing without a safety rope to harness him if he fell -- up the perpendicular face of "New Yosemite" in 1985.

Thirty years later, he would die doing the same thing at Coll's Cove.

"We're all pretty devastated by what happened," Brady said.

Despite the efforts of emergency crews to reach him, Swoager was pronounced dead at the site of his fall by the Fayette County coroner on Sunday afternoon.