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Just two days before a deadly hiking trail at Eaton Canyon in Altadena is getting closed off to the public, a 19-year-old woman hiked there and fell 30 feet off of a steep and rocky part of a mountain. Crews were able to airlift the injured hiker to safety.
The woman was hiking with friends on the treacherous "Upper Falls" trail of Eaton Canyon on Wednesday, when she slipped down the mountainside around 6 p.m., according to CBS Los Angeles . City News Service reported that she slid down about 30 feet, and a tree broke her fall. She was holding onto the tree about 50 feet from the ground until the L.A. County Search and Rescue Team was able to pull her up to safety, and helicoptered her out.
One of her friends caught the frightening fall on a cell phone video, which can be seen in below:
"It's a sheer rock face they're climbing up, and when you're climbing up a sheer rock face, there's no ropes to hang onto, there's nothing," Nathan Judy of the U.S. Forest Service told NBC Los Angeles . "So even if you're skilled in climbing, you can still have an accident and still fall to your death as we've had folks do."
The U.S. Forest Service announced that the "Upper Falls" portion of Eaton Canyon would be closed off to the public starting this Friday. It's a dangerous trail, where five people have died since 2011 and there have been over 60 helicopter rescues since 2012. The lower portion of the trail will still be open.
Anyone who is found in the "Upper Falls" area could be fined $5,000 and face six months in prison.
