Search teams on Friday recovered the body of an 18-year-old woman who plunged 400 feet to her death on the first day of her job at Yellowstone National Park when a rocky ledge overlooking a canyon gave way beneath her, officials said.
The woman, whose identity was being withheld pending notification of her family, arrived in the park on Thursday to begin a new job with a private concessions company in Yellowstone, park spokesman Dan Hottle said.
She and three others went hiking early that evening along the edge of a popular canyon called the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, on the North Rim trail, Montana’s KAJ18 station reported.
The group had ventured onto an off-trail promontory at a spot called Inspiration Point when the accident happened.
At national parks, where are all the young people?
A member of the hiking party used a cellphone to alert park authorities. Yellowstone Park rangers said they responded to the 911 call around 6 p.m. local time (8 p.m. ET) on Thursday, KAJ18 reported.
A rescue team that was dispatched to the scene later reported spotting a badly mangled figure about 400 feet below the rim of the 1,500-foot-deep canyon, officials said.
Rescuers concluded the woman could not have survived the fall. With nightfall advancing, search teams returned on Friday and retrieved the body in a three-hour helicopter operation.