BREAKING NEWS: Cave employee falls 300 feet from Timpanogos trail

[accadacca]

ksl.com


A Timpanogos Cave employee has fallen off the trail that leads to the cave. Initial reports from emergency crews are that he fell 300 feet and may have died. KSL has a crew on the way and will bring you more information as soon as we can. Stay with KSL.com for the latest updates.

[accadacca]

TIMPANOGOS CAVE -- Emergency crews in Utah County are working to reach an employee of Timpanogos Cave after he fell 300 feet off the trail.
Crews are not sharing many details on the fall, but KSL News is hearing that the employee has died.
This is the same trail an 11-year-old girl (http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=10839887) fell off of on Wednesday. She fell 100 feet and survived the fall.
We have a crew at the scene and will bring you more information as soon as we can.
Stay with KSL.com, KSL TV and KSL Newsradio 102.7 FM/1160 AM for the latest updates.

[Iceaxe]

Timpanogos Cave employee killed in 1,000-foot fall
May 20th, 2010 @ 4:20pm

TIMPANOGOS CAVE -- For the second day in a row there's been a rescue on the trail at Timpanogos Cave, but Thursday's rescue turned into a recovery effort after a park service employee was killed.

Utah County rescue crews say the man was up doing some work with a couple of other employees near the exit of the cave. He was apparently on a motorized scooter and slipped off the trail.

The two other employees said they heard him go off, but by the time someone was able to reach him he had died.

The park superintendent said it all happened very quickly.

"We have two employees that were spotters. They did not see him go over the edge, but they heard it and quickly alerted us to that," Denis Davis said.

"At that point, we rushed to the scene, saw the trail bike," Davis continued. "We set up a rappel and went down to it, but there was no sign of him. A few minutes later we heard our rangers coming up from below discovered him in the ravine. So he had fallen, my guess is, over 1,000 feet down the chute."

The area where the man fell is particularly dangerous. It is the same location where a Russian tourist fell to his death three and a half years ago. He was attempting to rescue a young girl at the time.

Search and rescue teams from the Utah County Sheriff's Office are on the scene, only allowing the most experienced team members to be involved in this recovery because it is such a dangerous and difficult area.

The victim here's name has not been released to us officially, but we do know he was a familiar face to many who hiked this trail. He had three to four years' experience working at the cave.

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=10852092

[Iceaxe]

Sad about the death.... also sad that the news media feels the need to sensationalize with 1000 foot fall..... I don't think you could fall 1000 feet any where in the Wasatch if you tried.

[asdf]

terrible news

1000' fall on trail with 1,065 ft vertical gain

[Iceaxe]

1000' fall on trail with 1,065 ft vertical gain

At least that will make the recovery efforts easy. :haha:

Now lets cement that sucker shut before anyone else gets hurt! :nono:

[chromehead58]

YOu know iceaxe, the sad thing is, I am worried that this will be the response, I knew the dude, and the last thing he would have wanted was for that trail to be closed off. You know you spend your life in the wilderness bad things are going to happen, but for all of us that enjoy the mountains understand that and would never ever think of blaming the mountian or the trail. Good book to read is the last season, it is about this topic. Anyway, I hope they put up a memorial and leave it at that.

[Alex]

YOu know iceaxe, the sad thing is, I am worried that this will be the response

Obviously you haven't met Iceaxe in person. Shane's response was about the Muddy cave that got cemented down. Basically Feds going to extremes to make it "safe" for us not to kill ourselves. I'd say Shane would be the last person to wish for anything getting closed down due to an incident.

[Iceaxe]

Anyway, I hope they put up a memorial and leave it at that.

:2thumbs:

[Scott P]

I don't think you could fall 1000 feet any where in the Wasatch if you tried.


Not on the Timp Cave trail for sure, but there are places in the Wasatch where you could fall farther than that and it has happened from time to time. The longest fall I know of was an unfortunate fall of 1200 feet.

[trackrunner]

The longest fall I know of was an unfortunate fall of an unexaggerated 1600 feet.

location?

[Iceaxe]

Not on the Timp Cave trail for sure, but there are places in the Wasatch where you could fall farther than that and it has happened from time to time. The longest fall I know of was an unfortunate fall of an unexaggerated 1600 feet.

1600' in the Wasatch???? I'm calling "bullshit"......


let's see if you cane prove me wrong....:fitz:

[Scott P]

Location?

let's see if you cane prove me wrong....


I was incorrect. :oops: It was not much over 1200 feet.

It was during the construction of the tramway at Bridal Veil Falls. A worker drove a bulldozer off the top and fell all the way to the floor of the canyon near the base of the tram. I thought the tram was 1700 feet high (which is why I believed the 1600’ figure in a book was not exaggerated), but in reality the tram itself about 1228 and the bulldozer landed below the bottom of the falls.

Skiers or climbers have fallen 1000 feet in snow couloirs, but I guess that’s not the same as falling off a cliff.

[jman]

Skiers or climbers have fallen 1000 feet in snow couloirs, but I guess that’s not the same as falling off a cliff.

...or arch.