UCLA Student Missing on Hike Found Dead in Sequoia Ravine

The body of a 20-year-old UCLA student, missing in Sequoia National Park for more than a week, was found down a deep ravine Thursday. He apparently was killed in a fall on the first day of a solo hike, officials said.

Scores of rangers and volunteers, aided by four helicopters, searched fruitlessly for three days after his father reported Wolfe Kirson missing late Sunday. A dog team found Kirson’s body about 1 p.m. Thursday on the other side of the summit of a “very steep, very rocky” trail he was seen heading up Sept. 12, said Jan Knox , a spokeswoman for the park.

Kirson and a friend had planned to hike over 11,000-foot Sawtooth Pass and meet a group of friends on the other side in Lost Canyon. But Kirson’s friend canceled at the last moment. Despite an appeal from his father not to go alone in unfamiliar country, Kirson decamped from Mineral King.

When Kirson failed to make the Sept. 13 meeting, his friends hiked to the parking lot at the head of the trail. Not seeing his car, they figured Kirson had failed to make the trip, Knox said. Kirson had borrowed his father’s car.

Kirson’s father, Sam Kirson, a Santa Monica artist, was unaware of his disappearance until Sunday night, and a search was launched Monday. The search was hampered by bad weather, which grounded helicopters for two days, and complicated by the fact that Kirson’s hiking permit listed one trail while he told friends he was going to take the Sawtooth route, Knox said.

Kirson, while a senior at Santa Monica High School in 1985, was given one of five Youth of the Year awards by President Reagan. A junior in Latin American studies, Kirson’s friends said he was considering a career in the foreign service.

Knox said Kirson was the third person to die in a fall at the park this year.