Just after 2:30 a.m. on July 19, at 11,600 feet on Mount Rainier’s Disappointment Cleaver route, rocks fell and crashed into multiple climbers, injuring three and killing Daihong Chen, 44, of Bellevue, Washington.
Rangers from the National Park Service investigated the rockfall for the past 10 days. On Wednesday, they emailed The News Tribune that their investigation has concluded.
“The investigation is closed on the 7/19 incident and determined to be due to naturally occurring rockfall,” Kristen Tull, Mount Rainier National Park’s public affairs specialist, wrote.
Disappointment Cleaver is by far the most popular route to the summit of Mount Rainier and regularly maintained by Rainier’s permitted guide services.
Reports of loose rock on Rainier’s Disappointment Cleaver route are notorious on trip reports and climbing blogs across the internet. One section, known as “The Bowling Alley” due to its loose debris, sits below the Disappointment Cleaver feature, and volcanic rock on the cleaver is known to tumble every year late in the summer when ice and snow have melted.
Earlier this month, Mount Rainier climbing ranger Stefan Lofgren told The News Tribune that nearly 6,000 people climb Disappointment Cleaver every year, with an extremely low rate of fatalities, usually averaging less than two per season.
Daihong Chen’s husband, Bryan Digel, talked to The Seattle Times last week and told them his wife was an experienced mountaineer who had summited over 100 peaks, including Mount Rainier multiple times before.
Chen had learned how to climb after joining The Mountaineers in 2014 and targeted Mount Rainier as her goal.
