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Caution in the Sierras
Posted: Jul 01 2011 10:05 am
by AZLOT69
http://www.sfgate.com/ wrote:The first accidental deaths of the year at Yosemite National Park occurred Friday when two people died after falling in separate incidents.
A Texas professor drowned after he slipped and fell into the raging Merced River, and a Berkeley man died in a fall below Yosemite Falls. They were the first deaths this year attributed to the fast-moving water, steep slippery trails and high country danger inherent in a park that received double the normal amount of snow...
At 11:30 a.m. Friday, Kent Butler, 60, of Austin Texas, slipped at the bottom of the granite steps on the Mist Trail...
"He was pulled down several hundred feet," Gediman said. "His partially submerged body got wedged in the middle of the river, in view of visitors."
The horrifying spectacle remained until Saturday afternoon when rangers managed to tie a high line across the river and recover the body.
The body of James Dunbar, 35, of Berkeley was found Friday afternoon as...
Read full story at:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... z1QsFEsIKn
Re: Caution in the Sierras
Posted: Jul 01 2011 9:19 pm
by JimmyLyding
Some group was practicing river rescues on the Merced when I was in Yosemite in early May. Every river flowing out of the Sierras is raging right now. Warm weather has seemingly arrived in Northern California so the snowmelt is going to increase waterflow even more. A lot of the Sierras are still buried under snow. There is so much water flowing out of the Sierras that a lot of fish are dying in San Francisco Bay because the water there isn't saline enough. Great year for sturgeon, however.
Re: Caution in the Sierras
Posted: Jul 01 2011 9:24 pm
by azbackpackr
A trip that Wendy had planned which I was going to go on had to be cancelled due to too-deep snow in Kearsarge Pass, etc. But now, all that snow is melting, making it even more dangerous. As anyone knows who has hiked in the Sierra, there are LOTS of creeks to cross. I think I will wait until late summer to go there!
Re: Caution in the Sierras
Posted: Jul 02 2011 12:22 am
by JimmyLyding
I'm so ready to head up to the Sierras, but I too am going to wait until August/September. It's been a crazy year for precipitation here in Northern California.