Woman Captured Breaking Fatal Rule at Yosemite Invites Backlash from Frightened Viewers
Every morning, as the rising Sun crashes against the rocky cliffs of Liberty Cap and Half Dome, they sparkle with glowing pinks, purples, and reds. Thousands of tourists clamber up a giant stairway, all the way to a footbridge railing, getting bombarded by thunderous sprays of misty droplets splashing from the roaring Nevada Falls. Encircling the top of these falls is a footbridge railing, crossing which could very well mean plunging into the valley of death. Adventures usually call for breaking boundaries, but breaking through this notorious arm of turbulent whitewater is frowned upon.
Ever since Yosemite opened its premises for tourists, tons of them have vanished into the roaring cascade of Nevada’s whitewaters. All it takes is a little carelessness and a hop over the barrier onto the granite ledge that cradles the falls. The consequences are frightening. Yet, even this history of tragedies hasn’t stopped people from crossing the danger barrier. Recently, @touronsofnationalparks posted the video of a woman who crossed this clifftop railing, and viewers instantly flooded the comments section with backlash.
Given the deceptive currents of the Merced River that gushes under the falls and the slick glacier-polished Sierra granite rocks that can make even the most aware individual lose their balance, stepping over the railing means a willful surrender of one’s life to the trenches of death. Just a gambol over the other side of the railing can jolt the visitor into a dizzying vertigo. Add to it Nevada’s 317-foot drop of whitewaters that can swallow a person whole and make them vanish in a jiffy.
People carrying boom boxes and blasting on trails might seem irate, but those who cross this railing magnify the fears of those who know the chronicles of tragedies that have unfolded due to this little crossing. The video shared by the Instagram handle shows a golden-haired female visitor dressed in a pink t-shirt and a pair of shorts. Up above, the azure sky is dressed in foamy white clouds. Surrounding the falls is a cluster of towering cliffs dotted with emerald green trees and dusted with flakes of fresh winter snow. The woman seems to be standing on the tip of a granite cliff that is pillowing the Nevada Falls.
Silhouettes of her sunlit shadows are dancing on the golden-toned granite ground. A moment into the video, the woman turns back to look at the camera. A pair of goggles she’s donning glints in the daylight. Her bright, pearly smile makes it look like she doesn’t care about the dangers lurking beneath her brown-gray Reeboks. But sentiments varied vastly among onlookers, as @cartoonsbytom said, “I’m glad she’s not my daughter.”
For viewers, however, this carelessness stems more from lack of awareness than fearlessness. For a few moments, the video captures the woman relishing the moment. She spreads her arms wide. With winds prickling her t-shirt into tantalizing dances, she squats down to become a witness to the beautiful hill-laced valley that nestles in front of her. At one point in the footage, she slides down to the edge of the cliff, almost hanging from its mouth. Below, billowing plumes of milky mist rise, lolling upwards to dampen the cliff. Wrapping up the video, the cameraman also recorded the tempestuous vortex of the violent waters churning below and shaking the cliff. But if even once the slipperiness nudges the shoes to lose their balance, the mist will pounce upon the cliff, grab the victim, and swallow them down in its whitewater mouth. Which, much to the chagrin of viewers, the woman in the video seems completely unbothered about.
“That stresses me out,” a viewer called @patkeller406 expressed in a comment after watching the video. Others talked about feeling anxious, sweaty, sketched out, and tense after watching it. Many viewers speculated on why the park should put signboards with the number of bodies that have been consumed by this waterfall and the science of how slippery this granite can get.
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