A St. George woman died on the Delicate Arch Trail late in the afternoon on Tuesday, August 20.

National Park Service rangers responded to a report of ongoing resuscitation efforts. Personnel from the Grand County Sheriff’s Department, Grand County EMS and Classic Air Medical also responded, according to an NPS statement.

Resuscitation attempts were unsuccessful and the 58-year-old patient was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident.

The Grand County Sheriff’s Office and the National Park Service are investigating this incident. No further information is available at this time.

According to a log from NPShistory.com, at least five people died in the park in 2023. Four of them collapsed while hiking, and two of the deaths occurred in August. All were between the ages of 56 and 73. However, only one person is known to have died in the park in 2022, and no one in 2020 or 2021.

In November 2019, two people died and another was injured in a fall at Delicate Arch. Wet weather may have made for slippery conditions, but it is unknown if that was a factor in the deaths of the 65-year-old man and 60-year-old woman. They are the last people known to have died near Delicate Arch, the park’s most popular attraction.

According to the NPS, park rangers respond to hundreds of search or rescue calls in Arches and nearby Canyonlands each year. The agency noted that these reports “commonly involve heat exhaustion, dehydration, climbing or scrambling, and improper footwear.”

-Doug McMurdo

This story was first published by The Times-Independent.