A man died while hiking the Grand Canyon over the weekend, bringing the number of deaths at the popular national park in Arizona over the last month to three, according to officials.
Causes of death had not been publicly released for any of the hikers as of Wednesday. But the deaths occurred as much of the US this summer has dealt with extreme heat connected to the climate emergency which experts say the burning of fossil fuels has spurred – and as authorities at the Grand Canyon warn visitors that temperatures on the park’s trails can soar to 120F (48.9C) in the shade.
Grand Canyon officials said they were notified of the most recent death after about 2pm Sunday, when a 50-year-old man from San Angelo, Texas, was found unresponsive about 100ft (30 meters) from the popular Bright Angel Trailhead that connects the south rim with the Colorado River at the bottom of the canyon.
The man – whose name was not immediately released – had started hiking toward the canyon rim after spending the previous night at the Havasupai Gardens campground.
Bystanders and first responders who were summoned to the scene began giving CPR to the man, but they were unable to resuscitate him, and he was pronounced dead there, national park service officials said.
Sunday’s death bore some similarities to that of 69-year-old Scott Sims of Austin, Texas, on 29 June. Officials said Sims died after becoming unresponsive on the Grand Canyon’s River Trail while attempting an overnight stay.
Meanwhile, 13 days before Sims’s death, a 41-year-old man was found unconscious on the Bright Angel trail. Authorities said bystanders and first responders were not able to resuscitate the man.
Federal data show about a dozen people die at the Grand Canyon annually. The park averages about 5 million visitors a year.
Nonetheless, the recent spate of hiker deaths at the Grand Canyon has caught the attention of those overseeing it. Advisories in effect at the park on Wednesday asked visitors to avoid hiking between the hours of 10am and 5pm “to reduce heat risk”.
The national park service has also said that first responders may also take longer to arrive at emergencies because of limited staff, volume of calls and “limited helicopter flying capability during periods of extreme heat or inclement weather”, among other factors.
Despite such admonitions, many are still seeking to take in the sights at the US’s national parks. That includes hundreds of American and European tourists who have been streaming into California’s desolate Death Valley national park, even though it is known as one of Earth’s hottest places and has been in the grip of a heatwave which was blamed for the death of a motorcyclist on Saturday, as the Associated Press reported.
Furthermore, the same sweltering temperatures linked to the death of that motorcyclist have been a factor cited in multiple heat-related fatalities reported by authorities in Oregon in recent days.