Arizona college student dies in fall at Yosemite
By the time Grace Rohloff reached the top of Half Dome, smiling from ear to ear, the 20year-old college student had experienced thousands of miles of hiking.
The aspiring high school math teacher was no stranger to challenging hikes requiring cables, like the one at Angels Landing at Zion National Park, which she did in the snow. For the iconic hike at Yosemite National Park, which is around 16 miles, on July 13 with her father, Rohloff bought new hiking shoes to ensure she had the correct footwear.
But a storm appeared, turning the descent down the most difficult part of the hike — the 400-foot section with cables — deathly slippery.
Rohloff lost her balance and slipped, sliding and tumbling down the granite mountain, said her father, Jonathan. It wasn’t until rescuers arrived that he learned his daughter, whom he described as “fearless,” died.
She fell an estimated 200 to 300 feet, likely hitting her head on the rock on the way down, according to her father.
“It all happened so fast,” he said. “I thought there was a possibility that she was still alive.”
A coroner later told him that a head fracture was the cause of Rohloff’s death, as SFGATE first reported. (SFGATE and the Chronicle are both owned by Hearst but operate independently.) The Mariposa County coroner’s office confirmed her name and age. A spokesperson for Yosemite National Park said the case remains under investigation.
Rohloff grew up in Arizona and was known to be incredibly kind, smart and athletic. She was studying at Arizona State University to become a teacher, in addition to holding one job caring for a high school student with Down syndrome and another working at Dutch Bros Coffee.
“She lived every second of her life to the fullest,” Jonathan Rohloff said of his daughter. “Grace made everyone feel important. She really took care of everyone and made everyone feel loved. I don’t know how I’d be able to get through this loss if I didn’t know she had great faith.”
At least 15 people have died on the cables and top of Half Dome since 1948, with many close calls in between. Officials warn Half Dome hikers, who require a permit, to avoid ascending the cables when storm clouds are visible or the ground is wet. They also warn of the dangers of lightning storms, which struck a group of hikers last year.
Jonathan Rohloff called the cables at Half Dome “unnecessarily dangerous.” He noticed that the granite is so worn down from the traffic of people going up and down that it “literally becomes a slip n’ slide.”
What might help, he said, is adding more wooden planks to shorten the 10-foot gap of slippery granite or, better yet, installing a wooden path on top of the granite. Officials could also require hikers to have hiking clips.
“My daughter’s life is worth more than a couple hundred or couple thousand to put into the cable system to make it more safe,” he said. “You never really know until you’re there. I tragically lost my daughter because of that.”