Authorities on Monday identified the hiker who fell 100 feet to her death near Multnomah Falls last week as a 62-year-old woman from Minnesota.
They released no other information about what caused Jessica Warejoncas to fall on Friday afternoon or where exactly she was when she fell.
Multnomah County sheriff’s officials reported earlier that the hiker fell near Wiesendanger Falls and died of a head injury. She was hiking with a group and was found about 1.3 miles up from the Multnomah Falls-Larch Mountain trailhead, sheriff’s officials said.
Bystanders started CPR on Warejoncas, but she died at the scene, rescuers said. The Multnomah County medical examiner said her death was not considered suspicious but did not elaborate.
Wiesendanger Falls is found along the Larch Mountain Trail, which runs from the Benson Bridge viewpoint at Multnomah Falls up to the top of Larch Mountain. It also connects to the Wahkeena Trail for the popular Multnomah-Wahkeena Loop, which takes hikers to six waterfalls in five miles.
The area still bears scars from the Eagle Creek fire, which tore through the Columbia River Gorge in September, 2017. Fire damage exacerbated an already unstable landscape, and rockslides and landslides have forced regular trail closures in the area, typically during the rainy season.
Even before the fires, hikers faced dangers on that section of the Larch Mountain Trail, with sheer cliffs and steep drop-offs, none of which have guardrails. From the base of Wiesendanger Falls, the narrow trail runs up a steep hillside with views directly over the waterfall, where there are few if any places to safely step off for a better view.
The trail, which is managed by the U.S. Forest Service, remained open to hikers Monday.
