Authorities investigate fatal tumble at Yosemite’s Wapama Falls
A 66-year-old man died last week after he fell off a bridge at Wapama Falls in Yosemite National Park, officials said Tuesday.
The man, whose identity has not been released, slipped off the Wapama Falls bridge trail Thursday and into the rocky waterway, said park spokeswoman Jamie Richards. Witnesses notified park service workers, who plucked him from the water.
Authorities are investigating what caused the man to fall to his death, she said.
As the summer’s sizzling heat continues to melt the massive Sierra Nevada snowpack, California’s rivers, creeks and streams have been overwhelmed with frigid and swift water. At 1,400 feet, the Wapama Falls, which feed into Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, are no exception.
To reach the picturesque Wapama Falls, park visitors must take a five-mile hike that starts at O’Shaughnessy Dam and passes through a tunnel.
Park officials have closed the falls’ footbridges in the past during periods of high water. In March, moving snow and rock damaged sections of wooden beam railing along the bridge trail, the Union Democrat reported.
The man’s death is the park’s first fatality this season, Richards said.
In 2011, Gregory Wayne Meyer and Richard Fox, both 53, died while trying to cross a bridge at Wapama Falls. The falls were swollen with water from a melting snowpack.
Meyer was trying to rescue Fox when both Los Angeles County residents were swarmed by the rushing water and swept away.
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