Elisha Angelic Macias, Hillsboro, Oregon woman falls 60 ft to her death after becoming separated from group while hiking along Horsetail Falls trail in the Columbia River Gorge area.
A 22 year old female hiker fell 60 feet to her death along a popular trail in Oregon after becoming separated while exploring the area with friends.
Elisha Angelic Macias, 22, of Hillsboro, was hiking along the Columbia Gorge trail on Sunday when she fell off a cliff.
Macias was on an excursion with a group of five friends along the ‘Waterfall Corridor’ in the area west of Multnomah Falls, near popular hiking trail, Oreonta Trail when she became separated from the group.
‘If you go off trail, it can be very dangerous,’
Deputies were called – and when they arrived on the scene another hiker was performing CPR on Macias.
However, she was pronounced dead at the scene by Cascade Locks Fire & EMS personnel at around 4:35pm – shortly after emergency responders arrived, KGW reported.
Search and rescue crews determined that the 22 year old woman fell 50 to 60 feet from a cliff west of the Horsetail Falls Trailhead.
‘No one in the group saw her fall,’ the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.
‘For the friends that were with this young lady, our sympathy goes out to them,’ said Deputy John Plock with the sheriff’s office. ‘Our thoughts and prayers are with them. It’s very difficult for them.’
‘If you go off trail, it can be very dangerous,’ reiterated Deputy Plock. ‘Unfortunately that’s what happened here. This young lady separated herself from her group, went off trail and ended up falling.’
Prior incidents at popular hiking trail
According to Macias’s social media, she worked as a teacher at Belmont Academy and originally hailed from the Bronx, NY.
Friends of Macias took to social media to pay tributes.
‘No words are going to truly describe what’s going on in my head but Elisha you were an amazing person through and through,’ her close friend wrote on Instagram.
‘You helped me in one of my darkest and lowest moments and I’m so grateful I got the chance to love and be loved by you,’ he said – adding he can’t believe this is true.
‘You’ll always be in my mind and forever in my heart. I’m just glad our little angel isn’t alone in heaven anymore. Rest easy Elisha.’
‘Rest in peace Elisha Macias You were a literal angel,’ another friend Marisa Waldo wrote on Facebook. ‘Even your middle name is “angelic”. You were such a special soul on this planet.’
Marcias’s tragic death is the second fatality in the popular hiking area just this Spring, according to the Statesman Journal.
On March 15, a 61-year-old woman was found dead at the bottom of a cliff near Horsetail Falls Trailhead after she had also been hiking the Oneonta Trail. Just a week ago, another woman hiking Dog Mountain on the Washington side of the gorge fell 300 feet. She survived.
