Deadliest year so far at Yosemite

Hayley LaFlamme, a 26-year-old woman from San Ramon, Calif., fell 600 feet to her death on Sunday while hiking Yosemite National Park’s Half Dome, becoming the 14th person to die in the park this year. This puts 2011 on track to be the deadliest year for park visitors on record, the L.A. Times reports.

The park usually sees five or six deaths by the end of July and 12 to 15 by the year’s end, Kari Cobb, a spokeswoman for the park, told the news organization. (The Yosemite death count includes non-hiking deaths from heart attacks and motor vehicle accidents.)

LaFlamme had hiked with three companions to the peak of Half Dome, a granite formation that rises about 4,800 feet above Yosemite Valley in eastern California, CNN reports. She fell when she attempted to descend the face of the dome using cables mounted into the rock after an earlier rainstorm had made the dome slippery.

While the park’s web site warns hikers to not climb the cables area when the rock is wet, "ultimately, it's up to the visitor to assess the safety conditions on any trail in the park and to make the appropriate choices to make them safe," Cobb told CNN.

LaFlamme died less than two weeks after three people from a church group died when they climbed over a barricade at the top of Vernal Falls to take a photo, the Associated Press reports. A strong current swept Ramina Badal, 21, Hormiz David, 22, and 27-year-old Ninos Yacoub Turlock over the edge of the 317-foot drop-off. Their bodies have not yet been located in the Merced River.

Other summer fatalities include the drownings of two hikers in the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir on June 29 and the death of a hiker who slipped and fell into the Merced River on the Mist Trail on May 13.

One cause for the high death toll may be the record snowfall in the park this past winter, which created treacherous snowmelt, swelling streams and rivers, the AP says.

Another factor is the increase in the number of visitors. In 2010, more than 4 million people visited the park for the first time since 1996, and visitor numbers are high this year, too. “We've had more visitors, and a lot of people who come to Yosemite are coming from city situations,” Cobb told the L.A. Times. “A lot of people who are coming to the park aren't familiar with nature and don't understand the implications of their actions.”