Lives of adventure end at Shannon Falls
Members of a popular YouTube travel blogging collective are among the three people who died after being swept into one of the pools at Shannon Falls in Squamish on Tuesday.
Family members of Ryker Gamble confirmed his passing in a statement. Friends and social media posts identified Alexey Lyakh and Megan Scraper as the others killed. The trio were in their late 20s and early 30s.
Gamble was part of a travel vlogging group known as High on Life SundayFundayz that counted more than a million followers on Instagram alone.
The group aimed to inspire those watching to “embrace all of life’s opportunities with a positive outlook and energy.”
Messages of condolences and tributes poured in online from friends, family and followers.
“The world has lost a great human being with the passing of Ryker Gamble. Your bright personality will be greatly missed,” one person wrote on Facebook.
“May you have many adventures where you are now,” another wrote.
The adventure group’s core members were a trio consisting of Gamble, Lyakh and a third surviving friend. They began making videos in high school and maintained their friendships despite attending separate universities. Their lifelong bond eventually rose to success when they began travelling and compiling video of their adventures, posting them.
Scraper, Lyakh’s girlfriend, launched her own social media marketing business that came with travelling around the world. A post last month showed Scraper and Lyakh celebrating five years together.
On Tuesday, the three had hiked up Shannon Falls and went into one of the pool systems to swim. When Scraper slipped and fell, Lyakh and Gamble attempted to save her but were all also swept away into a pool system 30 metres below.
“My understanding is they just went for a hike, they weren’t doing anything silly,” said Gamble’s cousin Rob Mangelsdorf.
He Gamble lived an adventurous life travelling around the world and he will be remembered most for attempting to help his best friend before he died.
Mangelsdorf said a friend of the trio saw what happened and called Gamble’s mother with the tragic news.
“Even in his final act on this earth he was trying to save the life of his very best friend,” Mangelsdorf said.
“He’d known [his friend] his whole life, since they were little, little kids. They were inseparable, absolutely inseparable their whole lives.”
Gamble had volunteered for years, including at a boxing facility in Vancouver where he coached youth, and overseas where he helped raise money for orphaned children, Mangelsdorf said. “In his youth he was an amateur boxer and he was good and fought at provincial level,” he said.
“His mother helped set up a school for orphan children in Uganda and he was very active in that, both fundraising and, I believe, he went over there as well to volunteer at some point.”
In January 2017, Gamble and two other men involved in the High on Life blog pleaded guilty to walking on a sensitive hot spot in Yellowstone National Park and breaking other rules at parks in the western United States. Two other men in the group pleaded guilty in November 2016.
After the incident, in May 2016, the men said in a posting on their website that they were “overzealous” in their enthusiasm while visiting the natural wonder and went off the laid-out path to take photos of the Grand Prismatic Spring, adding they were unaware of the ecological ramifications and safety precautions. They also offered a $5,000 donation.
Mangelsdorf said he last saw his cousin, who lived in Vancouver and grew up in nearby Richmond, about two months ago. “He just had the ability to make a deep impact on people very quickly. He was very much loved by all those who knew him.”