A man who died on Christmas Day after falling down a steep river canyon at Yosemite National Park has been identified.
Mariposa County coroner’s officials say that the victim was Joshua Brock Conner, 32, of Lakeview, Ohio.
Conner, a fitness trainer and weightlifter, had recently been living in Los Angeles and said on his Facebook page that he worked as a registered nurse at Cedars-Sinai medical center in Los Angeles. He died of head injuries at Emerald Pool, said Andrea Stewart, assistant Mariposa County coroner.
The pool is an area along the Merced River between Vernal Fall and Nevada Fall, just off the Mist Trail, a steep, but popular hiking area in Yosemite.
Stewart said Monday that Conner’s death appears to have been from an accidental fall.
Andrew Muñoz, a spokesman for the National Park Service, said in a statement last week that the victim apparently slipped down Silver Apron, a large, sloping granite area above Vernal Fall, and suffered a head injury, according to the Associated Press.
It’s still unclear how Conner fell. The investigation is taking longer than usual because of the partial government shutdown, Muñoz said.
Muñoz said rangers responded to a 911 call, and arrived in less than an hour to pull the man from the water.
“Medical attention was provided to the visitor, but he died from his injuries,” Muñoz said, according to the Associated Press.
Conner was born in Lima, Ohio, west of Columbus, in 1986. He received a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee, and moved to Los Angeles in 2016, with his dog, Leo.
“Get up, move, take a trip, do what others say you can’t because at the end of the day you get one life and it’s yours alone to live,” he wrote on his Facebook page in 2016. “I remember sitting in my house in Lima basically upset with life. I was lost. I decided to make a decision for me (and Leo of course) and take off across the country and let me tell you, it was worth it. Now in my 2nd traveling position, I’m happier than ever. We get to go anywhere we want and see what this life has to offer. Enrich ourselves in different cultures I wasn’t able to be exposed to being from a small town In Ohio, to now communicating with people from every part of the world. Taking that step is terrifying no doubt, but when you look back in life would you rather have tried and failed, or remained unhappy and safe. It’s never (too) late to make your life what you wished for. So I’m (going to) say it again and again and again. Love your life or change it. So thank you to those who have been with me and pushed me to be a better person in all aspects of life, I love you.”
A website posted by Chamberlin-Huckeriede funeral home in Lima, Ohio noted in an obituary that “he died doing what he enjoyed, hiking in the great outdoors with his favorite canine companion, Leo.”
Silver Apron, above Vernal Falls
Yosemite National Park remains open during the federal government shutdown. Law enforcement officials are on duty, but other staff members are not, and visitor centers, bathrooms and some roads are closed.
Although the Mist Trail was open while Conner was hiking there, parks officials last week closed it, pending the re-opening of the federal government.
His death is the latest high-profile fatality at Yosemite National Park. More than 4 million visitors come to the scenic park each year from around the world.
On June 2, two experienced rock climbers, Tim Klein, 42, of Palmdale, and Jason Wells, 46, of Boulder, Colorado, died in a fall of about 1,000 feet from El Capitan, the huge granite wall on the north side of Yosemite Valley.
A month earlier, Asish Penugonda, 29, a native of India living in New York City, died after he slipped and fell from the Half Dome cables while hiking there as a thunderstorm approached. Penugonda worked as a biochemist with Siemens Healthcare, based in New Milford, N.J.
In September, 18-year-old Tomer Frankfurter, a resident of Jerusalem, fell more than 800 feet to his death while attempting to take a photograph of himself near Nevada Fall. He was on a two-month trip to the United States before he planned to enter military service in Israel.
And in October, a young married couple — Meenakshi Moorthy, 30, and her husband, Vishnu Viswanath, 29 — both born in India, but living and working in the Bay Area, died after falling from Taft Point, an overlook where they had set up a camera on a tripod.