A man died after collapsing at Death Valley National Park in California as temperatures ticked above 120 degrees.
The 71-year-old man collapsed outside the restroom at the Golden Canyon trailhead around 3:40 p.m. on Tuesday. Officials said the man was covered in sunscreen, wearing hiking clothes and a sun hat. His car was in the popular trail’s parking lot.
Park rangers arrived minutes after the man collapsed. They performed CPR and a used a defibrillator, but were unable to save him.
The Inyo County Coroner identified the man as Steven Curry from Los Angeles, but a cause of death has not yet been determined.
“Heat may have been a factor in his death,” the National Parks Service said in a news release.
It’s unknown what the temperature was at the exact time of the man’s death, but the afternoon high recorded at Furnace Creek was 121 degrees.
“Actual temperatures inside Golden Canyon were likely much higher, due to canyon walls radiating the sun’s heat,” the release states.
Just hours before he died, Curry spoke to the Los Angeles Times about the weather in the park.
“It’s a dry heat,” he said at Zabriskie Point, about 2 miles from the trailhead.
The incident may be the second heat-related death of the year at the park after a 65-year-old man was found dead in his car on July 3. Visitors also died in 2022 and 2021.
The ongoing stretch of high temperature days has brought “heat tourists” to the park who have been taking photos and videos in front of the digital thermometer at Furnace Creek.
The park encourages visitors to not hike in low elevation areas during extreme heat and to only sightsee short distances from air conditioned cars. Extreme heat also thins the air, making it much more difficult for helicopters to fly and rescue a person in distress.
