Mommy wasn't there to help...

College student slips on Yosemite's Half Dome cables, falls to her death

Grace Rohloff fell some 200 feet to her death during a storm

By Ashley Harrell

On July 13, during a heavy rainstorm in Yosemite National Park, an Arizona State University student slipped and fell to her death from the Half Dome cables.

Park officials did not issue a statement about the death and declined to comment for this story. But Jonathan Rohloff — who was descending the cables with his 20-year-old daughter Grace when she slipped — confirmed that she did not survive.

“Grace was such a beautiful soul,” he said in a phone interview with SFGATE. “She deserves to have her story told.”

The father-daughter duo had hiked together countless times and over thousands of miles — up to Angels Landing in Zion National Park, down into the Grand Canyon and all over mountains across their home state of Arizona. So when Grace secured a permit to hike Half Dome through the daily lottery system on July 11, they were ecstatic.

They cleared their schedules to drive from Phoenix to Yosemite the following day, and on the day after that, they set out on the strenuous 16-mile trail at about 8 a.m. A ranger told them there were storms in the forecast, and at times, they did notice clouds overhead. But when the pair reached the bottom of Half Dome’s famous cables a little after noon, the sky was perfectly clear, Rohloff said.

They proceeded with other hikers up the 400-foot stretch of the trail supported by the cable system. When they arrived at the top, the panoramic views of Yosemite Valley and the High Sierra were outstanding. As Rohloff snapped photos of his daughter, he marveled at how beautiful and fearless she was. Grace told her father she was amazed to have climbed Half Dome — an item on her bucket list — and that she loved him.

Moments later, an unsettling thunderclap boomed across the sky.

“A black cloud was rolling in like gangbusters,” Rohloff said. “I was like, ‘We have got to get down now, because we don’t want to be up here with any rain. It rolled in literally out of nowhere.’”

As experienced, athletic hikers, the father and daughter could have bounded down the rockface to avoid a descent in the rain, Rohloff said. But the people in front of them were proceeding slowly and cautiously and it seemed impolite to pass them, given the frightening circumstances. Soon, they were all trapped on the cables in a heavy rainstorm.

The granite became incredibly slick, and the climbers in front of them started sliding around. Grace was in a new pair of hiking shoes that were supposed to offer good traction — but they didn’t.

“Dad, my shoes are so slippery,” Rohloff remembered her saying. He tried to calm her nerves, saying, “OK, let’s do one step at a time.” He believed they were taking the necessary precautions.  

About three-quarters of the way down the cables, though, both of Grace’s feet went out from under her. “She just slid off to the side, right by me, down the mountain,” Rohloff said. “It happened so fast. I tried to reach my hand up, but she was already gone.”

At that point, Rohloff descended the cables as fast as he could. Although his daughter had gone down a steep slope that looked about 200 to 300 feet, he had watched her come to a stop, and believed she might be alive. “I just wanted to get my daughter,” he said.

At the bottom of the cables, he looked over the edge and realized that the mountain was too steep. He couldn’t reach her. He began yelling for someone to call 911, and people were staring at him, but not reacting, he said. So eventually Rohloff called 911 himself.

Then he began calling out to his daughter, in case she could hear him. He repeated over and over, “Grace, I’m here. I’m not going to leave you. If you can hear my voice, give me a sign. I love you.”

He dropped to his knees and prayed for a miracle, and a few people approached him, asking if they could pray, too. Erin McGlynn, a 22-year-old from Las Vegas, had just hiked up the trail with her mom to find Rohloff shouting to his daughter.

“It was one of the most heartbreaking things I’ve ever seen,” McGlynn told SFGATE. “But it was also one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen. He was able to compose himself, just in case he could provide any comfort to her. He did everything he possibly could have.”

Meanwhile, park ranger Shawna Daly was providing support to Rohloff, he said. She stayed by his side for three hours as they waited for a rescue helicopter and climbers to retrieve Grace, Rohloff said. She remained there even through the howling wind and pouring rain. At one point, it began to hail — first in pellets the size of peas, and later in pingpong ball-sized chunks, he said.

The ranger was there when Rohloff learned from rescuers that Grace had died, and she went with him on the hike down the mountain, without his daughter.

“I know that’s her job, but [Daly] went way above and beyond to make a human connection with me,” he said.  

Later, when Rohloff spoke to a coroner, he learned that Grace sustained a severe head fracture and likely died during the fall. “That was at least comforting,” he said. “If she was gone, that she didn’t have to suffer.”