Grace Rohloff, University of Arizona student falls 200ft to her death while hiking with her father, Jonathan, along Yosemite’s notorious Half Dome after losing her footing descending cables along slippery wet slope.
A 20 year old college student plunged 200 ft to her death in front of her helpless father moments after having announced, ‘dad, my shoes are slippery.’
Grace Rohloff, 20, a University of Arizona student plunged 200 feet down Yosemite’s treacherous Half Dome in California after having lost her footing while descending cables on the cliff.
Grace and Jonathan Rohloff, both described as experienced hikers, had slowed their descent to accommodate less experienced climbers only to find themselves getting stuck in a rain storm.
‘It happened so fast…’
It was moments later that Jonathan Rohloff watched in horror as his daughter tumbled down the sheer rock face near the end of their descent on July 11 after Grace slipping along slippery wet slopes.
‘She just slid off to the side, right by me, down the mountain,’ Rohloff told SF Gate. ‘It happened so fast. I tried to reach my hand up, but she was already gone.’
He immediately scrambled down after her, but was unable to get down the steep mountain where the student had come to a rest.
Desperately hoping for a miracle, he began shouting: ‘Grace, I’m here. I’m not going to leave you. If you can hear my voice, give me a sign. I love you.’
Grace it would be revealed had suffered a catastrophic head injury during the fall and likely died upon impact.
It was a further three hour wait until rescue teams could reach father and daughter.
‘It was one of the most heartbreaking things I’ve ever seen,’ hiker Erin McGlynn said.
Experienced hikers
McGlynn, 20, was among the other hikers who encountered Rohloff as he was frantically praying for his daughter’s safety.
‘It was also one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen. He was able to compose himself, just in case he could provide any comfort to her. He did everything he possibly could have,’ she added.
The father and daughter were experienced hikers who had long dreamed of completing the Half Dome, which only allows 300 hikers a day to summit.
They were ecstatic to be one of the lucky few granted a permit to undertake the journey on that fateful day.
As they headed out they were warned of a storm, but it appeared clear overhead even as they headed up a 400 foot stretch of cables to the summit.
Shortly after summiting, a storm began brewing and they began to make their descent.
‘A black cloud was rolling in like gangbusters,’ Rohloff said. ‘I was like, ‘We have got to get down now, because we don’t want to be up here with any rain. It rolled in literally out of nowhere.’
‘Dad, my shoes are so slippery,’
The father and daughter could easily have traversed down, but got trapped behind another set of climbers and didn’t want to seem rude by passing them.
But as the seconds ticked by the storm only grew in strength until they were descending in perilous conditions.
‘Dad, my shoes are so slippery,’ the father recalled Grace saying as they agreed to take things carefully.
They were three quarters of the way through when Grace’s new hiking boots began to slip and her feet went out from under her only to slip and plunge 200 feet below.
‘I just wanted to get my daughter,’ the father recalled as he raced down the remaining cables.
After calling 911, Rohloff began to to pray along with other hikers who had witnessed the horror.
Park ranger Shawna Daly attended 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 and console him.
He explained he also took comfort in hearing from a coroner that Grace likely died during the fall.
‘If she was gone, that she didn’t have to suffer,’ he explained, adding that he hopes park rangers can recover his daughter’s backpack which contains the last photos she took on the trip.
Rohloff also paid tribute to his daughter’s, ‘beautiful soul’ as he recounted the horror of their final day together.
‘She was the star on every team she ever played on, but the 12th girl on the basketball team — Grace made that girl feel just as important,’ Rohloff said. ‘She had a way of connecting people and making them feel special.’
Since 2006 at least six people including Grace Rohloff have died after rainstorms made Half Dome’s surface slippery.
In 2010, the park instituted the cap on hikers who could summit every day. However, this only increased incidents as those who received a permit became determined to reach the summit despite any potential risks.
Dad, Jonathan Rohloff would like park officials to bring in 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.
The dad stated that he will never hike the ‘unnecessarily dangerous’ stretch again but hopes measures can be implemented to prevent a further tragedy.
