Hiker Critically Hurt, Two Others Injured by Rock Slide at Yosemite

A 24-year-old Albany, Calif., man was in critical condition at a Modesto hospital Monday after he, his wife and sister-in-law were caught in a rock slide that roared down 2,000 feet across a Yosemite National Park trail where they were hiking.

Ben Allen Greene; Suzy Greene, 26, and her sister, Betsy Nordell, 35, of Helena, Mont., were airlifted by a Lemoore Naval Air Station helicopter from the Mirror Lake area at the east end of the Yosemite Valley after the slide occurred about noon Sunday.

Greene suffered head, internal and limb injuries. His wife had scrapes and Nordell had cuts and scrapes. Greene was reported in stable condition Monday at Memorial North Hospital in Modesto.

Yosemite National Park spokeswoman Mallory Smith said boulders the size of small cars plunged through the hillside forest across the Snow Creek Trail on a 100-yard front, snapping off large trees and carrying away trunks and branches.

Crossed Switchbacks

Chief Ranger Roger Rudolph said the slide cascaded across approximately 20 switchbacks on the Tenaya Zig-Zag that hikers follow to Tuolumne Meadows.

“There was quite a bit of rubble and debris,” he said.

Rudolph said the Sunday slide was simply another in a series that have occurred over the years as weathering causes large pieces of rock to peel off.

On March 10, more than 1 million tons of rock and debris formed an avalanche about a quarter of a mile west of Yosemite Lodge, forcing closure of Northside Drive between the El Capitan Crossover and the park village.

Rudolph said rangers hope to have that road reopened by Memorial Day, “but it all depends on whether we get any more slides in that area.”

In the meantime, he said, three miles of Southside Drive have been converted into a two-way road so that tourists may come and go.

“All facilities remain open,” he stressed.

Rudolph noted that rock slides are a fairly common springtime occurrence in Yosemite National Park. It happens, he said, when melting snow or rainwater seeps into cracks and fissures and then warmer daytime temperatures cause the rock to expand.

It was in fall, however, that a 1980 rock slide near Yosemite Falls killed three hikers and injured seven others when such weathering caused a rock face to give way.