Yosemite Rangers recover a couple who have plunged into sight

SAN FRANCISCO – The guards of Yosemite National Park have found the bodies of two people who fell 800 feet from a popular thunder after working for several hours to reach them, a manager said Friday.

Park spokeswoman Jamie Richards said the rangers needed to rappel down and climb the steep terrain of Taft Point to reach the bodies of a man and a woman. A helicopter from California Highway Patrol assisted them, she said.

Officials are investigating when the two men fell and from where, 3,000 feet above the famous floor of the Yosemite Valley, Richards said. A tourist spotted the victims on Wednesday. They have not been identified.

Guard rails only exist in a small part of Taft Point, which offers breathtaking views of the valley, the Yosemite Falls and the towering El Capitan granite formation. Visitors can go to the edge of a vertiginous granite without a railing and become a popular venue for spectacular engagement and wedding photos.

More than 10 people have died in the park this year, including six as a result of a fall and the others from natural causes, Park spokesman Scott Gediman said. An 18-year-old Israeli man died accidentally last month, while he was hiking near the top of Nevada Fall, 600 feet high.

In 2015, Dean Potter and his world-renowned partner, Graham Hunt, died after jumping from Taft Point to try to clear a V-shaped notch in a ridge. They were flying in wingsuit but crashed.

The activity is the most extreme form of BASE-jump, which involves jumping buildings, antennas, spans (such as bridges) and the Earth and is illegal in the park.