The 63 national parks spanning the United States feature everything from arid dunes and steep cliffs to the northern tundra, and to the uninitiated traveler, these environments can pose a number of dangers.
When excluding car crashes on the roads leading through the parks, National Park Service (NPS) data shows that the most common causes of deaths in parks include trips and falls, accidental drownings and heat-related illnesses.
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In the summer of 2024, a motorcyclist passing through Death Valley National Park in weather surpassing 120ºF got lost and died of heat exposure before a rescue crew could get to him. The same year, a 20-year-old college student from North Carolina fell to his death in the Grand Canyon after accidentally tripping off a cliff ledge.
National park visitors are often unprepared for the environment
The latest incident occurred at Death Valley at the California-Nevada border when two Belgian tourists undertook the hike through the park's Mosaic Canyon Road on Jan. 15. The hiker pair split up and, with one choosing to take a side trail into a canyon, the "side canyon grew steeper and more unstable as the hiker climbed."
The second hiker eventually found himself "unable to proceed further or safely descend" — essentially, stuck in a narrow canyon gully — as he called for a rescue team to get him out.
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"He was stranded about ½ mile from the trail wearing only a t-shirt and carrying no extra clothing, food, or water," the NPS wrote in an account of the incident. "Fortunately, the hiker had a satellite-enabled phone and called for help."
National park rangers frequently perform heroic rescues
The NPS rangers were able to descend into the gully using scaling equipment to rescue the Belgian traveler, whose identity is being protected, approximately 40 minutes after sunset. A VX-31 rescue helicopter from the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake waited to get him out.
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The plan had initially been to bring the hiker out using a harness but rangers ultimately "deemed it too dangerous to hoist the hiker due to the risk of downdraft winds from the helicopter's rotors dislodging loose rocks above him." The hiker was pulled from the canyon without any injuries in a rescue operation that took approximately two hours. According to the NPS, the group returned back to the trail where the other hiker was waiting by approximately 7 p.m.
"To ensure a safe rescue, the park rangers tied webbing around a boulder to create an anchor point," the NPS writes. "The rangers provided the hiker with a harness and helmet before lowering him down the steep slope."
While the rescue mission made for something that could serve as the plot of an action movie, the NPS regularly warns park visitors to stay on the marked trails as the consequences of not doing so can be dangerous or even fatal.
The NPS uses official "Stay On Trail" signage to show when going off to the side of the road violates park policies and federal law; in the absence of such signs, staying on trail is still recommended but not legally required.
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