The odds of dying from falling off the Grand Canyon’s rim are about 1 in 1.95 million visitors.
Most of the millions of visitors to Grand Canyon National Park each year enjoy a safe and harmless trip, but between 2007 and 2023, 185 died at the park according to mortality data from the National Park Service. There are, on average, 11 deaths per year inside the park.
This article contains mention of suicide. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide or self-harm, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline toll-free from anywhere in the U.S. at 988.
The leading cause of death in the Grand Canyon is due to medical problems followed by falling, undetermined causes, drowning, suicide and hyperthermia, or heat-related causes. Over the past decades fatal incidents have also occurred due to motor vehicle crashes, lightning strikes, poisoning and flash floods. While not the biggest cause of death in the park, falling comes in at #2, with 40 deaths occurring between 2007 and August 2023. On average, 2.4 visitors die each year from falls. Men are more than 2.5 times as likely to die from a fall at the Grand Canyon than women.
While overall deaths increased with visitation during Grand Canyon National Park’s surge in popularity starting in 2014, fall deaths have remained fairly steady over the years. These numbers only include data from inside the national park, but falling deaths also occur in other parts of the Grand Canyon, like the glass-bottomed Skywalk that a 33-year-old man dramatically plummeted more than 4,000 feet off of to his death in 2023.
Although accidental falling deaths are rare, 2019 was a tragic year where three people fell within weeks of each other. Two involved losing their footing while taking photos. On March 28 at Grand Canyon West, a 50-year-old man was taking photos at Eagle Point near the Skywalk and fell. Grand Canyon West is a Hualapai managed area of the canyon and not part of the national park. The second event happened only days later on April 3. A 67-year-old man was taking a selfie and lost his footing near the Yavapai Geology Museum in Grand Canyon Village at the South Rim. The third was on April 23. A 69-year-old woman died after falling from a rocky point west of the Pipe Creek Vista on April 23, as reported by Vanessa Ceja-Cervantes, spokeswoman for Grand Canyon National Park.
We want you to have fun at the Grand Canyon, but be safe. Read these safety tips to make your vacation a happy experience.
Stick to the Paths in the Grand Canyon
Planning on exploring the canyon rim? Make sure to stick to the paved paths. “Remember this isn’t Disneyland,” Grand Canyon rangers will tell you if they see you reaching out over the edge to snap the perfect photo. It might sound like a joke at first, but the words of advice are dead on. Many falling deaths have occurred when visitors decided to leave paved paths to get a better vantage point. The person in the video below was lucky that she could recover her footing.
One of the largest dangers from walking out on the rim is that though the ground may look stable, underneath it can be undercut. This means the ground beneath your feet is actually paper thin due to erosion that has carved out the canyon wall beneath you. Since the Grand Canyon is ever changing and the fragile rock can crumble at any moment, a ledge that appears stable may fall out unexpectedly. If it does, the gathering momentum can take a person hundreds, if not thousands of feet down into the canyon in a matter of seconds. The odds of survival are not good if you start to fall.
Always Watch the Kids Near the Rim and On Trails
In 2007 tragedy rocked the park when 4-year-old Natalie Yeargan fell more than 400 feet from Mather Point. Natalie’s father scrambled down the canyon’s wall to try and rescue her, but she was pronounced dead at the scene after CPR was performed. Natalie was the youngest confirmed falling death in the Grand Canyon and a reminder about the potential dangers of letting your children explore the rim.
If traveling with young children make sure to tell them about the dangers of playing on the rim. Spend a Saturday at Bright Angel Overlook, and it’s not uncommon to see children balancing on the short rock wall overlooking the canyon. Off the paths and behind the walls, children can find small cracks to climb down into giving the perception of falling into the depths only to pop back up with a smile and ‘ta da!’ coming out of their mouths.
Though these opportunities might provide great social media videos and family photos, it’s an incredibly dangerous position to be in. Losing balance just for a second can send children careening down the cliff struggling to find something to hold onto.
Read Over the Edge: Death in the Grand Canyon
Looking for some reading to put you in the safety mindset? Check out Over the Edge: Death in the Grand Canyon by Thomas M. Myers. Myers, a prolific journalist and author, has painstakingly documented every death in the Grand Canyon up until 2012. This includes airplane and helicopter crashes, which were historically the park’s largest cause of death. In one crash in 1956, two passenger planes crashed into each other above the canyon, killing all 128 on board both planes.
Though a tad bit morbid, Myers’s work is riveting and insightful into a topic most people tend to dismiss when visiting the park. While the book can be overwhelming at first, the lessons learned could help save your life and give you a better understanding of what to do when faced with a life-threatening situation.
Think Twice Before You Take Risky Photos
Yavapai Point Overlook at the Grand Canyon’s South Rim (Depositphotos)
Photography can be a beautiful part of a visitor’s experience to the Grand Canyon, but it’s important to always ask yourself if the photo is worth dying for. Many times photographers climb out on the edge to frame their picture without any people or man-made structures. Though the picture might be a nice souvenir, it’s also a life-threatening situation to be in. So next time you want to click the shutter make sure to take a second and step back and ask yourself, ‘is this really worth my life?’