This story from Yosemite makes my stomach jump.

It’s easy to see how it would happen: A group of hikers makes it up Mist Trail, a short, shady, family-friendly trail that, in spite of being such an easy hike, leads to one of the most beautiful lookouts at Yosemite National Park, as well as one of the most beautiful swimming holes, Emerald Pool. It’s got intense green algae (thus the name) and slippery granite sides, so you can spend hours goofing off like this. (That might as well be a photo from the Frizzelle family album—my parents loved Yosemite, loved the Mist Trail, loved the Emerald Pool.)

Emerald Pool and the edge of the waterfall are separated by a metal barricade and signs in multiple languages warning people not to climb over it, but after the hikers spent time goofing off in Emerald Pool, someone got the big idea to scale the barricade and get closer to that glorious lookout—after all the barricade is still a ways from the edge of the waterfall. But granite covered in algae covered in water is slipperier than an oil slick on an ice rink. Reportedly, the 21-year-old, 22-year-old, and 27-year-old “were in the water about 25 feet from the edge of a waterfall, standing, playing and taking photographs.” Then: “One of the victims then slipped and fell, the second victim tried to rescue that person, and the third victim tried to save the other two.”

Their bodies haven’t been found yet.

Christopher Frizzelle was The Stranger's print editor, and first joined the staff in 2003. He was the editor-in-chief from 2007 to 2016, and edited the story by Eli Sanders that won a 2012 Pulitzer...

85 replies on “The Unthinkable Happens to Three People in Their 20s at Yosemite”

  1. While I have enormous sympathy for their families’ loss, calling it “unthinkable” is just plain silly. It was entirely thinkable, hence the barricade.

  3. OK, I’ll concede the point—it’s definitely thinkable. I just can’t bear to think it: the slipping, the screaming, the bouncing, the lurching, the crushing, the witnesses, the relatives, the roar of the water.

    GAH! You made me think it!!

  4. I agree with #1. People just feel they can do whatever they want and then when something horrible happens because they felt the rules didn’t apply to them their families and others suffer needlessly. If people weren’t so selfish and stupid and ignorant and actually stopped, looked, and listened once in awhile these types of tragedies would not happen. There are people starving to death in Somalia. I don’t care at all about these sad, dead idiots.

  5. I pretty much imagine every worst case scenario in situations like this, even when there aren’t any warning signs posted. Walking along a narrow trail along a cliff, I won’t be able to stop myself from imagining slipping on gravel and tumbling over the edge.

    I guess what I’m saying is that I’m glad I’m a paranoid coward, and I’m a little mystified by people who aren’t.

  7. I don’t disagree with any of what’s been said about the foolishness that put them in danger, but there is something magnificent that one tried to rescue the other who tried to rescue the other. One of the things that worries me about me is that I’d probably have stood there watching the other two fall. In horror, in terrible grief, perhaps even in judgment. But it makes me sad to think I may lack the nerve, the love, the bravery, the pity to have leapt after the first two. I don’t know. RIP, youngsters.

  8. I wonder if the sign specified WHY they shouldn’t climb the barrier. I feel too often the problem lies in the fact that warning signs don’t say why you shouldn’t go over the barrier. We live in a culture that is obsessed with “keeping you out” of every nook and cranny for fear of legal action. In reality, we should really have signs that explain the danger, stress that there is a high likelihood you will get hurt and then have some “proceed at your own risk” junk at the bottom. People will always jump fences to gain access to forbidden places but at the very least warning them of the specific dangers and suggesting wearing certain pieces of safety equipment would do wonders to save lives.

  9. I’m with everyone else who’s commented so far. It is horrible that they died, but… They don’t put these barricades up to scold you and ruin your fun, and people who were much more fit and athletic than you have been killed by these hazards. You really are asking for trouble when you ignore warning signs and barricades.

  11. Also, the CBC’s account of the story includes an interview with an eyewitness who saw a member of the group forcibly holding a screaming, terrified young girl right next to the water before the incident occurred. Some people really shouldn’t go out in the woods.

  12. It’s terrible. But I don’t see the point in calling them stupid and ignorant. Ever driven over the speed limit with two friends in the car? There are signs warning against that, too.

  15. I’m not saying it wasn’t dumb, and I’m certainly not saying it isn’t tragic and awful for the survivors.

    But I am saying, you know… we live in a society that’s full of dire warnings about things that really aren’t that dangerous, or, if they are, have a very slim chance of actually occurring. A lot of younger people – anyone under 40, really – have grown up in a world where the only way to have any kind of fun at all was to ignore one or more warnings of grave danger, be it physical or spiritual. There are warnings of deadly consequences on cigarettes and booze, and while those may be bad for you in the long run, lighting one up is not going to send you tumbling hundreds of feet onto jagged unyielding rocks.

    So have we not maybe set people up for this? I kinda feel like we’ve badly devalued warnings so that they’re not adequate when they’re really, actually necessary.

  16. @8, The sign is very explicit about why and the description is fairly gruesome. Basically it says currents will take you over the edge and you will fall to your death. There is a drawing of a person being swept to their death on the sign.

    The Emerald Pool is also off limits, although a lot of people seem to think it is a perfectly good “swimming hole” despite a fairly strong current and a big waterfall a few hundred feet away.

  17. @ 12, I usually hold your comments in high esteem. So I’m going to be as polite as I can be.

    Do you believe that the speed limit is comparable to this?

    I should ask exactly how much over the limit you were thinking, too. And what the driving conditions were like.

  18. @7, it is precisely that level of concern, regard, altruism, what-have-you that would have propelled you into the water if suddenly faced with the actual event. And it is the same faculty, combined with wisdom, that would have kept you or anyone you love from getting into that situation in the first place, so don’t torture yourself overmuch.

    I’m a terrible swimmer (though a reasonably good floater), so I wouldn’t have been in over my ankles in a mountain stream to begin with.

  21. We were taught in elementary school that if someone falls through the ice you should not try to rescue them because there’s a good chance that you’ll fall through the ice too. Same deal here. I don’t know if I’d be composed enough to think of that if I were in this situation but the moral of the story is don’t do something dumb to save your dead friend who’s just done something dumb.

  22. it’s fairly obvious given what happened that this thread was going to be a total dog pile calling for Darwin awards and such. it was sort of a stupid post, and cruel. because now here’s this forum for a bunch of people to call the very dead people very stupid people. i’m sure the families would be happy to know.
    they’re dead. no need to rub it in.

  23. @17, oh, Matt, don’t get snippy with me. My first reaction was, god, what fools. But then I thought about it a bit.

    I’ve done some dangerous things in water and on mountains in my youth. Nothing this dangerous, for sure. But I’d like to think that if I’d died doing them, I wouldn’t have some jerk on a blog saying “I don’t care at all about that sad, dead idiot”.

    And yeah, speeding is risky. People die doing it all the time. Which is to say, I do think they’re comparable; that’s why I compared them.

    I’m a bit weirded out by all the anger on this thread. They’re dead, guys. No need to spit on their graves.

  25. My condolences to their families. It’s always sad when a young person dies needlessly. There are many dangerous places in California when sight seeing. Careful out there, people.

  26. @23 – the anger is a defense mechanism. it makes people feel safer and more secure to be angry and contemptuous of other peoples’ foolish mistakes. calling other people foolish and silly for bad judgement makes it easier for one to believe that one is incapable of bad judgement oneself.

    for some reason anger feels better than sadness. but in reality, anger is much more destructive.

  27. @ 23, I guess you’re so ticked that being polite is taken as being snippy? Okay then.

    You mentioned “signs”. Well, there’s going a couple miles faster, then there’s going ten miles faster, then there’s doing what Ryan Dunn did a few weeks ago. Maybe what he did was comparable. Most incidents of speeding are not.

  28. have you been to Mt. Rainier and seen the gapers heading up to Camp Muir in tennis shoes and flip flops? Or Yellowstone, where they hop out of their cars to pose next to bison and moose?

    Hormiz David, 22, of Modesto; Ninos Yacoub, 27, of Turlock; and Ramina Badal, 21, of Modesto were most likely not experienced hikers.

  30. As someone who has been a professional signwriter, I am actually deeply interested in the debate over the signage here. It’s my opinion that there’s no such thing as a completely effective sign in these situations. Make it too vague, and people will rightly say that they should have been better informed of the (sometimes not immediately apparent) danger. Make it very graphic, and some people will take it as a challenge. My favourite sign for danger was in a bay on Kauai’i. It was a charming handmade running death tally (well over 50).

  34. getting a photo of a warning sign about dangerous things, like at sliding cliffs “woah, that silhoutte dude is really fucked” usually is good enough for me, then I often slink back in the knowledge that there probably was a real dude that sign was depicting.
    It may be wimpy but imo that sucks less than being crashed against the rocks below.

  35. I had something here about the need for all the scorn, but 23 and 26 have handled that already, so…

    It’s too bad. I hope their families take care. I hope they don’t end up putting in some really ugly, overkill barrier to replace the old one.

  37. I’m obviously in the minority, here, but I have no problem w/ any of this. I’m not happy that these people died. I’m sure they were fine folks & deserved to have as much life as they wanted. But we all are going to die. And there’s a lot to be said for going out on top, in the prime of youth, experiencing intense, passionate emotion. Moving to save your friends, w/ feelings of altruism, sacrifice, honor…. I’m not going to denigrate these folks who chose (deliberately or not) that kind of death.

    If you’re going to rag on people’s choices of how they die, I have far less respect for those who go the OD route.

  38. @38, I don’t think anyone’s arguing that what they did wasn’t foolhardy, sgt doom. But reading that eyewitness account, after my initial reaction of “you idiots!”, my heart just breaks for them.

    I don’t know why I keep coming back to this thread — I’m going to have nightmares about this! Moving on…

  40. Nothing is MORE IMPORTANT to gen-Y that getting goofy pictures of themselves posted.

    You see it clearly in the Vancouver riot footage. Car burning? Quick, run in and flip a hand-sign at your friend holding the phone!

    ——————-
    One man, he said, was posing near the waterfall with a screaming young girl in his arms while a teenage girl snapped photographs.

    “People became unglued on this guy,” Bibee said. “They said, you know what man, get your ass back over here.”

  41. This would be a great way to reduce the population of obnoxious 20 year olds in Seattle.

    Do they have something like this near Mt. Rainier?

    Maybe a “Youth Trip” could be organized…

  42. @41
    Growing up in the South, this reminds me of an old joke.

    “What are a rednecks last words?

    Hey Ya’ll, Watch This!”

  43. @42: I like the “OMG Im txtn @60mph lolz!” Destruction Derby idea. Let’s widen the age range so addle-pated twits who are old enough to know better can participate.

  44. @42: ahhh, but if there were only a way to get rid of the worthless basement dwelling trolls from Kent…

    egads, and what the fuck?

    you really are a crusty shitstain of a “person”

  45. has anybody else stood at the top of a waterfall and had a strong urge to jump? i had that at mooney falls in havasu canyon…really fucked with me.

  46. Okay, now look at this video of Vernal Falls taken last month. The force and power of this water are indisputable. The 300′ foot drop is pretty obvious since you hike up from down below the falls. How these folks could think for a moment that they could play in this water? Get the view of the scene from about minute 1:00. The warning sign appears around 2:18.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQpHGO9CQ…

  48. 15 years ago when I took my children camping and hiking at Yellowstone Park I purchased the book Death in Yellowstone and on the drive there read them horrific stories of people being scalded to death, mauled by animals they had foolishly approached, and falling off well marked cliffs. To me the worst were the deaths that occurred from somebody falling onto someone else (from 50 or 60 feet) or when some kid threw a rock off a cliff and hit somebody below.

  49. To all the self righteousness on this thread . . . .

    There but for the grace of God (or whatever) go every last one of us. And each of you knows it to be true.

  50. @47 – wait, is that the barrier they climbed over? The one with all those people there? Really? That is not at all what I pictured in my head. I was picturing something that didn’t actually look all that risky, but was deceptively dangerous. I actually had quite a bit of sympathy for them, given that I’ve done a fair amount of “risky” things in the wilderness that could have gone badly. But, that video makes me want to pile on the “they’re idiots” bandwagon… there is no way in hell I would climb over that. Jesus.

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