It’s already been a bad year here for people getting lost in our national parks or coming to grief in the vastness of the Outback but – awful though these incidents have been – things could certainly be a lot worse.
Over in the United States, incredibly, 17 people have already died in 2011 in just one national park … California’s Yosemite National Park. And the Americans think our spiders, snakes and crocs.are scary!
In the latest incident, a 23-year-old man, fell off Half Dome, the park’s soaring granite formation in the Sierra Nevada. Last month three hikers were swept over the powerful 317-foot Vernal Waterfall Fall near the renowned Mist Trail … and two of the bodies are still missing. And at around the same time, a 26-year-old woman died when she slipped down Half Dome while descending the steep cabled slope.
Authorities are searching for answers to explain the recent rash of deaths at the national park, which receives more than 4 million visitors a year. The 17 fatalities are about twice the usual rate.
While five people have died this year from natural causes in the park, the others were accidental and often preventable.
Rangers say some visitors partake in dangerous practices such as hiking treacherous trails in thongs, climbing over safety rails to take better pictures or swimming perilously close to waterfalls.
Witnesses told park authorities that the three hikers who were swept over the waterfall in July had climbed over a safety rail.
