PHOENIX — An Arizona State University student and Valley Lutheran High School graduate died after slipping and falling while hiking up Yosemite's Half Dome with her father earlier this month, according to family members. Grace Rohloff, 20, was an experienced hiker and was ecstatic to secure a permit to hike Half Dome with her father, Jonathan Rohloff, on July 11. “She told me it was something that was on her bucket list that she always wanted to do and she was so happy about it," Rohloff said during a sit-down interview.
The pair reached the summit just before a thunderstorm rolled through. The father and daughter were trying to make their way down the cables when Grace Rohloff slipped and fell down the mountain, Jonathan Rohloff said. “That day was supposed to be 65 and cloudy and so we knew that it would be dangerous, you know, that was Half Dome," Jonathan Rohloff said.
Jonathan Rohloff describes hearing a "loud thunderclap" overhead as the pair had completed their ascent up the rock. As they made their descent, he says his daughter slipped on a slippery portion of the rock caused by the downpour of rain. “She was in between the wooden blocks and slipped to the ground and you know it just happened very fast and she slid down the side of the mountain," Jonathan Rohloff said.
Jonathan recalled the smile on his daughter's face ten minutes before the fall as she had just accomplished one of her greatest feats yet. “There’s no way ten minutes before, when she was up.