Today’s Record-Setting Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
40-year-old William C. Hansch of Sacramento intended to hike alone up to Nevada Fall in Yosemite National Park. On June 3, 1947, he vanished before ever reaching this goal. Other hikers found Hansch’s knapsack and personal gear set at the top of Vernal Fall about sixty-five feet from the brink. But no owner was in evidence.
Had Hansch stopped here during the June heat for water? Had he fumbled his canteen or otherwise slipped into the roaring high water of early June (more than 90 percent of all Yosemite waterfall fatalities occur between May and August) and then shot over the edge to his death? All searches for him failed. Nearly two months passed during which Hansch’s fate remained a mystery. Finally, on July 27, fifty-four days after the solo hiker vanished, Assistant Chief Ranger Duane Jacobs found the missing man’s body splayed among the boulders at the base of Vernal Fall. Nothing emerged from this grisly discovery to hint at what Hansch’s mistake might have been.
Even so, Hansch had inadvertently set a record. He became the oldest person—at age 40—ever to be accidentally (if it was an accident) swept over a waterfall fatally in Yosemite. Indeed, Hansch was also the only one over age 35 ever to have done this (on June 4, 1992, one older victim yet, year-old Kenneth D. Fawcett of Manhattan Beach, California, did fall off Wildcat Falls while scrambling on the granite at its brink for a view directly over its edge, but he slipped off and fell 100 feet without ever having entered the current). The average age of all forty-four known victims of accidental plunges off waterfalls is 23. Revealingly, 82 percent of victims were males. Sixty-eight percent were between the ages of 11 and 29. Hansch was definitely old to have made this otherwise young person’s mistake. What, though, had he done that is so common? Unfortunately, by the time the millennium ended, being swept over Vernal Fall had become, as far as lethal errors go, all too common.
Both Vernal and Nevada Falls have been the scenes of an inordinate number of fatal events. Despite the absolutely terrifying and unsurvivable 594-foot plunge off Nevada Fall, a dozen visitors to Yosemite (eight males and four females) have managed to go screaming over it, thus nominating it—after Vernal Fall (ten males and three females killed as of 2006)—as the fifth most lethal fatal attraction in Yosemite. Vernal Fall, again, is number four. The Ledge Trail route has proven to be the third most fatal geographical “entity” in the Park. El Capitan is number two (as of 2006, twenty-four climbers have died while climbing El Capitan; another three BASE jumpers have died diving off it). The Merced River within the Valley, however, remains the uncontested top contender for tragedies.
The ever-deadly Vernal Fall
Culled from: Off the Wall: Death in Yosemite
Post-Mortem Portrait Du Jour!
Matching Dresses
Circa 1847 – sixth-plate daguerreotype – 3.75″ x 3.25″
A mother and her young daughter, wearing matching homemade dresses.
Culled from: Beyond the Dark Veil
Andersonville Prisoner Diary Entry Du Jour!
This is the continuation of the 1864 diary of Andersonville prisoner Private George A. Hitchcock (see the archived version for all entries up until now).
Here’s today’s entry:
July 13th. Very warm, but cloudy. An extra ration of rice was dealt out to all in camp. Two men were shot on the dead-line, and a third was fired at. There are now one hundred and ten full detachments of two hundred and seventy men each, in camp, besides the crowded hospitals outside.
Culled from: Andersonville: Giving Up the Ghost