Record crowds, record deaths for Yosemite
Last July was the busiest month for Yosemite National Park since 1985, with 730,487 tourists. But the 17th death in the California park also is getting near a record: the most deaths in 25 years.
The latest casualty there was a solo hiker who plunged down the park’s Half Dome granite formation as other rock climbers watched. Conditions were warm and dry and the death was believed to be an accident, according to a spokesman.
The death was the second within a month on Half Dome. On July 31, a 26-year-old San Francisco Bay Area woman plummeted 600 feet while climbing Half Dome after a bout of wet weather.
In July, three members of a church group from California's Central Valley ignored warning signs to scale a safety railing above Vernal Fall. They were swept over the edge to their deaths.
In another incident in May, a Texas man slipped on the granite steps of the Mist Trail below Vernal Fall and drowned in the swollen Merced River. And in June, two Southern California men were swept from a bridge near Yosemite's Hetch Hetchy Reservoir.
“Many of this year's accidents stem from the record Sierra Nevada snowpack, which combined with a rainy spring has made the park's rivers and signature waterfalls unusually turbulent,” says the AP.
The steep, 1.5-mile-long Mist Trail, which attracts upwards of 1,500 visitors a day, "is one of the more popular hikes up out of the Yosemite Valley. It’s been the scene of various accidents.
There were 15 deaths in Yosemite during 2010, and the park averages 10 to 15 deaths per year.
Last year, the park recorded just over 4 million visitors.
In still another fatal incident in a national park, a Michigan hiker this week was found fatally mauled by a grizzly in Yellowstone National Park.
By David Wilkening
David
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