It's been a rough few days in the national parks.
A three-day search in Mount Rainier has led to the discovery of the body of a missing hiker, while in Yosemite another hiker has died while trying to negotiate Half Dome.
In the Mount Rainier incident, 47-year-old Jeff Graves apparently had made it to the summit of Eagle Peak in the southwestern corner of the park Saturday evening and was on his way down when he lost his footing and fell 200 feet. When he failed to return, a search was launched Sunday morning. His body was spotted from the air about 3 p.m. yesterday.
The Yosemite incident was similar to many of the previous deaths involving hikers on Half Dome. Thirty-seven-year-old Hirofumi Nohara of Japan slipped from the cable-system Saturday while about three-quarters of the way up the dome and fell to his death.
Just as readers here have questioned the safety of the hike up Angel's Landing in Zion, those on other blogs are questioning the hike to the top of Half Dome. I've been up both, and would have to say the Half Dome hike definitely is more intimidating.
Comments
If you consider the border parks in Arizona alone, sure, there are deaths in the National Parks every day.
The Morning Report on the NPS site is a good source if you want your daily dose of morbidity.
http://home.nps.gov/applications/morningreport/
-- Jon Merryman
I'm not sure what Dickey's point was, but the use of profanity and personal attacks fail to drive discussion and are not condoned on this site. While we are interested in hearing as many points of view as possible, those that resort to such approaches will either be edited or removed.