A 65-year-old man died Thursday after losing his footing and tumbling over the edge of a cliff at Guano Point in the Grand Canyon, according to the Mohave County Sheriff's Office.
The call came in around 2 p.m., when the Mohave County Sheriff's Office received a request for assistance from the Hualapai Nation in what would become a technical recovery mission, according to a Facebook post from the department.
Rescue teams found the man unresponsive around 130 feet down on a scree pile after he slipped and fell over the canyon edge.
The recovery proved challenging, requiring technical rope specialists who built an intricate system of ropes to lower themselves down the canyon wall and retrieve the body, then raise it back up for transport to the Mohave County Medical Examiner's Office.
Multiple organizations coordinated the effort to retrieve the man's body. The Hualapai Tribal Police Department, Hualapai Nation Fire, and Grand Canyon West Security all assisted in the operation.
The death at Guano Point marks another tragedy in an area that has become increasingly hazardous for visitors to the Grand Canyon and its surrounding regions. The Grand Canyon draws thousands of tourists annually, many of whom underestimate the dangers lurking in its dramatic terrain.
In August 2024, a solo backpacker was found dead near a remote trail along the Colorado River in Grand Canyon National Park. The 60-year-old resident of North Carolina was found by a helicopter after a family member reported him missing because he had failed to check in. He was on a solo multi-day backpacking trip from Thunder River to Deer Creek.
In September a 27-year-old man drove his vehicle over one of the edges of the park. A helicopter was used to retrieve his body, and the vehicle remains below the South Kaibab Trailhead with no immediate plans to remove it.
According to mortality data from the National Park Service between 2007 and 2023, 2.4 visitors die each year while visiting Grand Canyon National Park. The leading cause of death is medical problems, followed by falling. Other fatal accidents have occurred from vehicle crashes, lightning strikes, flash floods and poisoning.
The data only includes deaths that occur inside the park, which leaves out deaths from other parts within the Grand Canyon, like the 2023 death of a 33-year-old man who fell more than 4,000 feet off the glass-bottomed Skywalk.
While rare, the year 2019 saw numerous falling deaths that were weeks apart. Two of the accidental deaths happened after tourists lost their footing, including a 50-year-old man who was taking photos at Eagle Point near the Skywalk and when a 67-year-old man lost his footing while taking a selfie near the Yavapai Geology Museum in Grand Canyon Village at the South Rim.