High Sierra Topix

Yosemite NP:

A male and female visitor died in an apparent fall from Taft Point in Yosemite National Park. Yosemite National Park Rangers are recovering the bodies this morning.

This incident is under investigation and no further details are available. No photos or videos are available. The identification of the deceased has not yet been determined.

Many of us have done photography at Taft Point. In my view, nobody would fall from there unless they were drunk or something. Murder/Suicide is another possibility.

If you move east off Taft Point, there is an extremely steep gully, so that is kind of a dangerous spot. Then if you move east from the gully, you can get a better angle back toward Taft Point. At the last time that I was there, I was on skis shooting that.

They were probably daredevils trying to get an Instagram shot.

https://nypost.com/2018/10/30/travel-da ... ff-plunge/

They were taking selfies.

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"Moorthy wrote along with a photo of herself at the Grand Canyon. 'A lot of us including yours truly is a fan of daredevilry attempts of standing at the edge of cliffs and skyscrapers, but did you know that wind gusts can be FATAL???'”

I read in the paper this morning that they were not taking the standard hand-held selfie, but had a tripod set up and then stepped out onto the ledge. In fact other tourists were there and thought their actions were scary.

These are the second and third recent deaths by selfie in YNP. It's tragic, but I still feel that we have to take issue with their flagrant disregard for consequences, if not for themselves, for the YOSAR team that had to recover bodies that were in such bad shape that they couldn't even be shipped home for burial. I hate to be callous, but really, if you want to make a big impact on your "friends" and "followers", give them a nice shot of someone's face as they scoop a pile of bloody tissue that used to be you into a bag. I don't understand why some people don't get that the edges of cliffs and waterfalls are no place for dropping your guard or reckless games. Not one bit of the whole thing is right.

I wonder if their phone went off and got a picture..

I fear we have raised a generation of people who due to too much time on screens, do not know how to function in a 3-dimensional world. The couple obviously did not think they were acting in a risky manner. Social media makes this even worse, by "normalizing" risky behavior. Having done a lot of hiking in Yosemite I often see people hiking in absolutely inappropriate foot wear- flip-flops, ballet slippers, heels which make it easy to slip or trip or unable to plant feet solidly if a wind comes up. The walk into Taft Point is quite short, so you see all sorts of people, clueless kids, bad footwear, selfie-obsessed, etc. I really do not see how to prevent this. I do hope the Park Service does not over-react and put up more fences or rails or close trails. Nevertheless, I feel for the family. Nobody wants to loose their loved ones.