A St. George woman died on the Delicate Arch Trail late in the afternoon on Tuesday Aug. 20.
National Park Service rangers responded to a report of CPR in progress. Personnel from Grand County Sheriff’s Department, Grand County EMS and Classic Air Medical also responded, according to a statement from the NPS.
Resuscitation efforts were unsuccessful, and the 58-year-old female patient was pronounced dead at the scene.
Grand County Sheriff’s Office and the National Park Service are investigating this incident. No additional information is available at this time.
Deaths at Arches National Park
At least five people died at the park in 2023, according to a log kept by NPShistory.com. Four of those collapsed while hiking and two of the deaths occurred in August. All were between the ages of 56 and 73. However, only one person is known to have died in the park in 2022 and none in 2020 or 2021.
In November 2019, two people died and another was injured during a fall at Delicate Arch. Wet weather may have made for slippery conditions, but it is unknown if that was a factor in the death of the 65-year-old man and 60-year-old woman. They are the last people known to have died in the vicinity of Delicate Arch, which is the park’s most popular attraction.
According to the NPS, park rangers respond to hundreds of calls for search or rescue in Arches and nearby Canyonlands each year. The agency noted those reports “frequently involve heat exhaustion, dehydration, climbing or scrambling and improper footwear.”
-Doug McMurdo and Julie Jag
This story was first published by The Times-Independent.