Deadly trek up Half Dome - Tuesday, June 19, 2007
It was crowded on the climbing cables leading to the top of Half Dome, but Hirofumi Nohara was seemingly giddy with excitement on what could only be described as a gorgeous Saturday in Yosemite National Park.
The 37-year-old Japanese citizen was talking and laughing with his four friends as they worked their way up the nearly vertical granite slope, witnesses said.
Then he slipped. 
Nohara didn't have time to speak or even shout before he slid off the side of Half Dome to his death, becoming the third fatality within a year off the 4,800-foot granite dome.
"I knew it was hopeless because of the angle of the descent," said Brian Mott, 39, of San Francisco, who was directly behind Nohara when he fell. "Nobody could reach out for him. If they could have, I know they would have."
The death of Nohara on Saturday is forcing Yosemite rangers to re-examine safety on the long trek to Half Dome, a grueling 17.2-mile round trip that culminates with a dizzying 400-foot climb up a ladder-like contraption made of cables and wooden steps leading to the top.
"We need to be concerned about visitor safety and look at it seriously, but the fact that it is wilderness makes it a unique situation," said Ranger Adrienne Freeman, the park spokeswoman.
An average of about 10 to 12 people die in Yosemite each year, but very few fatalities are on Half Dome, Freeman said. Since 1971 there have been nine falls, including Nohara, but only three of them were fatal, all within the past year. She said Nohara's death was the first on Half Dome where other factors, such as bad weather, did not play a part.
One woman was killed earlier in the spring and another last fall when they slipped during wet weather. The cable hand rails, which are lowered to the granite surface during the off season, were down both times, Freeman said.
Helicopter pilot Scott Clancy of Fresno also slipped and lost his grip on the cable during wet conditions in October, but his pants caught before he plummeted off the cliff and he was saved.
There are more accidents on the hike leading up to Half Dome than in other places in Yosemite, but Freeman pointed out that the route includes Nevada and Vernal falls, where drownings and accidents sometimes occur unrelated to Half Dome.
Still, Freeman said, there has been a 30 percent increase in the number of weekend and holiday hikers on Half Dome since the mid-1990s, and there have been frequent complaints about bottlenecks at the top.
Mott, an avid hiker and outdoorsman, said there was a 45-minute wait on Saturday just to ascend the cables and there were no rangers to control crowds.
"People were bunching up in bottleneck fashion all the way up," Mott said. "You're going up and there are several people going down, so you have to shift to the left or the right and hold onto one cable. That, to me, is quite precarious."
Nohara was living in Sunnyvale and was just finishing up a three-year work visa when he decided to climb Half Dome with some Japanese friends, according to Freeman. The group made the arduous uphill trek. It was sometime between 2 and 3 p.m. when they were within sight of the top, according to witnesses.
Despite the backup, Mott said, Nohara and his friends were laughing and having a wonderful time. Witnesses said Nohara slipped and lost his footing about three-quarters of the way up the slope and a pole supporting the cables caught his leg and spun him around so he was sliding head first.
Mott said he heard a thud, looked up and saw Nohara sliding next to his back pack.
"He glanced over looking at what he could grab. Then he just put his hands down." Mott said. "People were starting to yell. A girl in his group screamed 'no, no.' "
"The last time I saw him, he was backwards in a somersault going over the ledge," Mott said. "That's when I had to turn away."
Nohara fell about 300 feet and landed on a ledge just before going over a cliff about 1,000 feet high, according to witnesses.
A search and rescue helicopter was dispatched and rescuers were lowered by rope to the ledge, but it was too late. Nohara was pronounced dead at the scene. His body was placed on a stretcher and flown out as the traumatized witnesses hiked cautiously back down the mountain.
Mott, who was hiking with a 14-year-old friend, said a 10-year-old boy in front of him broke down after witnessing the fall, so he held him and they said a prayer together.
"That's all I could do," he said. "At that point people were panicking. People started to cry."
He and his friend quickly finished the climb and regrouped before heading back down. He said they have both endured nightmares since.
Nohara was not doing anything unsafe, according to the initial investigation.
Freeman said park officials will be asking visitors for suggestions on what measures, if any, they would like to see taken on Half Dome, whether it be quotas on how many people can use the cables at a time or a public information campaign about the rigorous and dangerous nature of the hike.
Freeman said Yosemite's wild bear education project cut human versus bear conflicts 80 percent between 1998 and 1999, showing that it is possible through education to improve safety without direct intervention.
Mott said he just hopes nobody else has to witness what he saw that spectacular, sunny Saturday.
"One moment he is laughing and talking and the next he is falling and you are looking him right in the face," he said. "I think after this experience, one believes a little more in whatever deity he can trust."
