Bay Area backpacker missing on Yosemite hike swept over waterfall
The parents of a Petaluma backpacker who was last seen Sunday near Yosemite’s Upper Chilnualna Falls said their son had bent down to “get his face wet” when he slipped and fell into fast-moving and freezing rapids that carried the 24-year-old down a gushing waterfall.
Hayden Klemenok was a few days into a backpacking trip with friends — led by a friend’s father — when the “freak accident” occurred, his parents Michelle and Kevin Klemenok told The Chronicle. Yosemite Parks officials have scaled back their “ground search,” citing the dangerous water conditions from this year’s record-breaking melting snowpack, the parents said.
In interviews with The Chronicle from Yosemite, Michelle and Kevin Klemenok said they felt destroyed by the tragedy that began as an adventure for their son, who was an experienced backpacker.
Born in Santa Rosa and raised in Petaluma, the longtime baseball player and lover of World War II history and the outdoors had just graduated from San Diego State University in May with a degree in finance, his parents said. He was working as a financial analyst for a real estate company and brimming with enthusiasm.
“I arrived (thinking) we would find him battered or bruised,” said Kevin Klemenok, a teacher in Petaluma. “My son is five miles up in a canyon waterfall right now, and I’m leaving here with his three siblings, his mother, and an aunt, and we don’t have him. It’s horrible … and it’s going to stretch on for every day that I’m alive.”
Three days into their search for the young backpacker, Yosemite officials said they’re still combing the area for signs of the backpacker or anyone who might have seen him. But Klemenok’s parents say officials have told them that even with helicopters and extensive search technology, they’re almost certain that Klemenok drowned, making the mission no longer a rescue but a recovery that could take weeks before his body is found, his parents said.
“It’s the worst experience any parent or family should go through,” said Michelle Klemenok. “You’re living in a black hole … (and now) I’m missing a child.”
The last text Michelle Klemenok received from her son came on Saturday morning, when he told his parents that he and the group of six others were heading into the base of the trail. His mother told him to be safe and careful; Klemenok said he would take pictures and promised he would let them know when he was on his way home.
“I was worried about things like dehydration, rattlesnakes, things like that,” she said. “I didn’t think about drowning. I knew he was a careful guy. … He was extremely physically fit, in the prime of his life. … I thought, well, if anyone can do (this backpacking trip), he can do it.”
After receiving word that their son had been in an accident, the family made the long drive to Yosemite to retrace Klemenok’s route, accompanied by a park ranger.
For almost four hours, the group walked in silence, trudging through forests and slippery granite stairs. Along the way the park ranger showed them the small creek where the backpacking group had pitched their campsite, now empty.
“It was physically, extremely challenging,” said Michelle Klemenok, of the hike the family took on Tuesday. “But emotionally I had to go.”
Once they reached the top, the family spent three hours there, each finding a private corner to grieve Klemenok in the last place he had been seen.
At one point, Michelle Klemenok said, she picked a bouquet of wildflowers and left them at the summit in memory of her son. She and her other offspring then used long stems of grass to tie more wildflowers to sticks and dropped them into the water.
It was not until they made the hike themselves that they realized how treacherous the terrain — and the falls — really were.
“The rocks are slick and from the rushing water, everything’s been worn away,” she said. “There are no branches … nothing to grab onto. You are in a funnel of water and the drop lands into this swirling, frothing pool of water. And it just keeps on flowing.”
From talking with Klemenok’s friends, Michelle Klemenok learned that her son and a few others had peeled away from the rest of the backpacking troupe to take another look at the Upper Chilnualna Falls, a waterfall they had visited the day before. The trail guide, a father of one of the young men, had stayed at base camp.
It was a hot day, and Klemenok’s friends said he bent down on all fours to cool himself with some water, but his hands slipped, his parents recounted. Soon he was pulled into the water on his back. The young men ran down the cliff “as fast as they could” to try to spot him as the water carried him down a steep drop, his mother said.
“I understand from the search and rescue rangers that all the boys were devastated,” she said, adding that her son was just about to move into an apartment in San Diego with one of the backpackers.
On Wednesday, the family said they were finally leaving Yosemite after two days that had been a “nightmare.”
“There’s nothing I can do to make anything better, so we’re going to return to Petaluma and await the call — the news,” said Kevin Klemenok. “I’m just numb. I’ve cried a lifetime in these last few days.”
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
