A 37-year-old man was killed when he fell from the top of Ramsey Cascades in Great Smoky Mountains National Park/NPS
Editor's note: This updates with a death at Zion National Park, and a stranded climber at Mount Rainier National Park.
Three fatalities, one in Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, one in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and a third in Zion National Park in recent days drive home the message to be careful when you're on your national park vacation. The death at Hawai'i Volcanoes was tied to a vehicle accident, the one at Great Smoky involved a man falling from the top of the Ramsey Cascades waterfall, and in Zion a man possibly fell to his death from above an arch.
At Mount Rainier National Park, meanwhile, a stranded climber had to be rescued from the top of “Gibraltar Rock” on the south side of the mountain.
At Hawai'i Volcanoes, a 48-year-old Texan died in the single-vehicle accident. Park officials said the driver of a Toyota Tacoma was heading down Highway 11 towards Ka‘ū shortly before 9 p.m. Sunday when he lost control and the pickup rolled, ejecting its three occupants. Ashley Becker was pinned beneath the Tacoma and pronounced dead at the scene, park officials said.
The driver, Kenneth J. Ewing, 43, of Pāhoa, sustained minor injuries in the wrec, according to park officials. He was charged in federal court with negligent homicide in the first degree, they added. If convicted, Ewing faces up to 10 years in federal prison and a fine up to $250,000, the release added. A third, unidentified man was transported by ambulance to Hilo Medical Center for treatment.
This is the second fatal traffic accident in Hawai'i Volcanoes this year.
Meanwhile, at Great Smoky Mountains National Park, a 37-year-old man fell to his death from the top of the 100-foot tall Ramsey Cascades waterfall late Sunday afternoon. The man, who was hiking alone, was observed climbing across the top of the waterfall before he fell, a park release said. Park rangers immediately responded to the scene and determined the individual, who had fallen approximately 80 feet, was deceased.
Rangers recovered the body on Monday. The victim's name was being withheld until family notifications have been made.
In Zion, rangers on Wednesday went looking for the driver of a vehicle parked in the vicinity of the Canyon Overlook Trail, and spotted a body several hundred feet below Great Arch. On Thursday the body was lifted out of the area by helicopter. An investigation was continuing. Over the years there have been a handful of deaths tied to falls from the trail, which leads to an overlook above the arch and leaves hikers exposed in several places.
At Mount Rainier, a climber who separated from his party after feeling ill found himself stranded atop Gilbraltar Rock. He was rescued Thursday afternoon by a joint Army Reserve / Air Force team flying a Chinook helicopter out of Joint Base Lewis-McChord.
On Wednesday, Dennis Endong Cui, 27, of Surrey, British Columbia, and two companions had reached Mount Rainier’s summit via the “Fuhrer Finger” climbing route (named for Hans and Heine Fuhrer, who pioneered the route in 1920) when he became ill and told the other members of his party he could not go on, a park release said. "The party began to traverse to a standard route down, when the ill climber made a decision to unrope and head directly down mountain. The other two climbers tried to convince their partner to stay with them, but without luck. The pair called 911 to alert rangers about the odd behavior of their teammate," a park release said.
Around 11 p.m. that night, guides at Camp Muir observed Cui signaling with his headlamp from the near-vertical face of Gibraltar Rock, at an elevation of about 12,400 feet, and communicated this to park rangers. Rangers attempted to correspond with Cui by text message advising him where he needed to go to find safety. At 5:20 a.m. this morning Cui responded to the texts with a request for rescue, explaining that he was “freezing” and had no overnight gear.
Climbing rangers were unable to reach Cui due to weather conditions, and on Thursday the Chinook was called in. Park staff said Cui, an experienced mountaineer and a constable in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, was flown to a hospital where he was diagnosed as severely hypothermic, but with no other injuries.
Comments
Sadly, the death at GRSM has a lot to do with a social media site that promotes off trail exploration. Not that I oppose that activity, I participate in off trailing quite a bit. However, many of the folks that read this site have no experience off trail and think they can go up and over the waterfalls. They even organize group hikes that are led by off trail folks that the park discourages. Again, I have no problem with exploration, I have just seen these folks who obviously have zero backcountry experience and they take off in jeans and cotton socks. That may not be the case with the fellow in question and my sympathies are with his family. I run into these folks when I'm in the backcountry. Many are obviously out of shape and ill equipped.
Respectfully, his attire or physical fitness likely had little to do with the incident - we had a lot of rain all week followed by a brief hard rain Sunday morning. No doubt water levels were high. Poor judgment trumps fitness, gear, experience, and bravado.
I hike/backpack/camp solo 95% of the time. I always err on side of caution when solo. I had a newbie join me for one night of camping during the weekend. He posed on a very small waterfall and posed to make it look far more impressive. Then he posed with his machete by the fire I solely built and maintained... he took credit for it all on FB. Funny thing is, anyone who even remotely knows him knows the pics were highly improbable. Sad that people focus more on thr pic than the experience.
There was also a fatality in April. Zion NP, when a hiker from Florida apparently fell while hiking Angela's Landing.
A man drowned today at Abrams Falls swimming in the creek... June 3, 2017 in the Cades Cove area of the Smoky Mountains
The Zion death has been ruled suicide.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865681293/Park-officials-Death-of-Cal...
Ooops. Just discovered that this was in an update yesterday. Sorry, Kurt. Missed that.
Tourists in the Smokies really do have vacation brains. Once at Laurel Falls, I watched a hiker that was from India lay down at the edge of the falls with his head over the falls and took a selfie. Water was low, but it was still stupid. Minutes later, I observed a family with small children climbing down the falls just to reach a small patch of snow. Talk about being an example for your kids. On the way out, it was getting dark. I passed an Indian family of about 15 people. They were pushing strollers and carrying towels. Nobody had a flashlight. I told them that people cannot swim in the waterfall and that it was going to be completely dark in a few minutes. Not sure if they understood me, but they kept going. So, I called Dispatch and reported them so an LE could make sure everybody made it out.
What tourists don't know is that there is a strong undertow near the falls. Not a good place to swim even if it has a large pool at the base. Looks are decieving when it comes to water.