Adolescent brains tend to underestimate risk and vulnerability, which I guess goes toward “feeling indestructible.” There’s a reason car insurance is more expensive if you’re under 25.
This happened several days ago and has been much in the local news. Honestly, I’m having a hard time feeling anything but sympathy for their family and friends. Maybe they were really stupid-- I don’t know.
Yosemite is very special to me. I’ve spent a lot of time there hiking and camping. I like to think good thoughts about it, and this is very sad.
Yosemite averages about 15-20 fatalities annually, mostly from drownings and falls. Not so bad, when you consider that they have anywhere from 4 - 5 million visitors a year.
There are books Death in Yosemite and Death in Yellowstone collecting a lot of cautionary tales. It is true that a lot of the Darwin Awards-level stuff could have been easily avoided, though even if you are careful outdoor sports remain more risky than staying home at your apartment in the city. I met a guy who was hit by falling rocks while mountain climbing (plenty of surgery, but a helmet saved his life), and someone else who fell off a cliff while hiking alone (presumably selfie-related) and died.
Patrick Swayze?
Up north of here, there was a local tourist council that got some publicity for putting up signs directing visitors too the local rocks and waterfall.
The one with the local native/aboriginal tradition that it was inhabited by a Bunyip. Because, you know, people who went there slipped on the rocks, got sucked into the waterfall, and died.
And water spirits and aboriginal stories are good for tourism so…