A college student who slipped and fell to her death while hiking in Yosemite with her father said, “Dad, my shoes are slippery” seconds before she fell.
Grace Rohloff, 20, plunged 200 feet down the treacherous Half Dome after losing her balance while descending the cliff cables.
She and her father, Jonathan Rohloff, are experienced hikers, but they slowed their descent to accommodate less experienced climbers and ended up caught in a rainstorm.
Rohloff watched in horror as her daughter fell down the sheer rock face near the bottom of the descent on July 11.
“She just slid to the side, right next to me, down the mountain,” Rohloff said. Gate of Saint Francis“It all happened so fast. I tried to raise my hand, but she was already gone.”
University of Arizona student Grace Rohloff slipped and fell to her death in front of her horrified father while hiking in Yosemite.
He immediately ran after her, but was unable to get down the steep mountain where the University of Arizona student had been resting.
Desperate for a miracle, he began to cry out, “Grace, I’m here. I’m not leaving you. If you can hear my voice, give me a sign. I love you.”
But it was an agonising three-hour wait until rescue teams were able to reach Grace, who had suffered a catastrophic head injury.
“It was one of the most heartbreaking things I’ve ever seen in my life,” said hiker Erin McGlynn.
McGlynn, 20, was among the other hikers who encountered Rohloff as she frantically prayed for her daughter’s safety.
“It was also one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen. He was able to pull himself together, just in case he could offer her some comfort. He did everything he could,” she added.
The father and daughter were experienced hikers who had long dreamed of completing Half Dome, which is only allowed to summit 300 hikers per day.
They were delighted to be one of the lucky few granted permission to undertake the journey on that fateful day.
Grace and her father Jonathan were experienced hikers, shown in the last photo of them taken on their ascent, but they were caught in a rainstorm while waiting for slower hikers to descend.
Rohloff, 20, plunged 200 feet down the treacherous Half Dome after losing his balance while descending cables on the cliff.
As they headed toward the summit, they received a warning that a storm was approaching, but all appeared to be clear as they climbed a 120-meter stretch of cables to the summit.
Shortly after reaching the summit, a storm began to form and they began to descend.
“A black cloud was coming in fast,” Rohloff said. “I thought, ‘We have to get down now, because we don’t want to be up here in the rain.’ It literally came out of nowhere.”
The father and daughter could have easily climbed down, but they were trapped behind another group of climbers and didn’t want to appear rude by passing them.
But as the seconds passed the storm only gained strength until they descended into dangerous conditions.
“Dad, my shoes are very slippery,” he recalled her telling him as they agreed to take things carefully.
They were three-quarters of the way there when Grace’s new hiking boots began to slip and her feet buckled.
Rohloff was forced to watch helplessly as she sank and could only hope that she was still alive.
“I just wanted to get my daughter out,” she recalled, describing how she ran along the remaining cables.
After calling 911, Rohloff began praying along with other hikers who had witnessed the horror.
Ranger Shawna Daly tended to him, waiting by his side in the howling wind and freezing hail until a rescue helicopter could retrieve Grace.
Rohloff praised the ranger for going “above and beyond” to try to comfort him.
He said he was also comforted to know that the coroner had told him that Grace had likely died during the fall.
“If she left, she shouldn’t have to suffer,” he said, adding that he hopes park rangers can recover his daughter’s backpack containing the last photos she took on the trip.
Rohloff also paid tribute to her daughter’s “beautiful soul” as she recounted the horror of their final day together.
“She was the star on every team she played on, but Grace, the 12th girl on the basketball team, made that girl feel just as important,” Rohloff said. “She had a way of connecting people and making them feel special.”
Her mother, Astraea Rohloff, described her daughter as “pure joy” and explained that she always did her best to make others feel good.
“Just being with her made sure every day was a little better,” he said.
Grace’s cousin, Emily Samora, who was going with her on a camping trip this summer, said she “brought light to so many lives.”
Tragically, Grace’s story is not an isolated incident and since 2006 at least six people, including the student, have died after storms made the surface of Half Dome slippery.
In 2010, the park imposed a limit on the number of hikers who could reach the summit each day. However, this only increased incidents, as those who received a permit were determined to reach the summit despite the potential risks.
Rohloff would like to see park officials incorporate more features to make the cables safer, such as a second set added lower to the ground and wooden planks that allow hikers to step from one to the other.
He confirmed that he will never walk along that “unnecessarily dangerous” stretch again, but hopes that measures can be implemented to prevent another tragedy.
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