Yosemite plagued with rock falls
san FRANCISCO: A massive new rock fall hit Yosemite National Park, cracking with a thundering roar off the El Capitan rock formation, injuring one person and sending huge plumes of white dust surging through the valley floor below.
The slide came a day after a giant slab of granite plunged from the same formation, killing a British man on a hiking and climbing visit and injuring his wife.
Climber Ryan Sheridan had just reached the top of El Capitan, a 2,307m formation, when the rock let loose below him on Thursday.
“There was so much smoke and debris,” he said by cellphone.
“It filled the entire valley with smoke. It was in the same location of the previous rock fall. A larger rock fall let loose, easily three times the size,” Sheridan said.
One person was injured and was flown to a hospital, park ranger and spokesman Scott Gediman said. There was no immediate word on the person’s condition.
Meanwhile, the man killed on Wednesday was identified as Andrew Foster, 32, of Wales. The park didn’t identify his wife but said she remained hospitalised.
The park indicated that seven rock falls occurred during a four-hour period Wednesday on the southeast face of El Capitan. However, it was rare for such a collapse to kill anyone, longtime climbers said on Thursday.
Rocks at the world-renowned park’s climbing routes break loose and crash down about 80 times a year. The elite climbers who flock to the park using ropes and their fingertips to defy death as they scale sheer cliff faces know the risk but also know it’s rare to get hit and killed by the rocks.
“It’s a lot like a lightning strike,” said Alex Honnold, who made history June 3 for being the first to climb El Capitan alone and without ropes.
“Sometimes geology just happens.”
The last time a climber was killed by a rock falling at Yosemite was in 2013, when a Montana climber fell after a rock dislodged and sliced his climbing rope. It was preceded by a 1999 rock fall that crushed a climber from Colorado. Park officials say rock falls overall have killed 16 people since 1857 and injured more than 100. — AP