72-year-old hiking with club dies in fall on closed, ‘dangerous’ trail, PA police say

A hiking club’s trip to a trail closed due to “dangerous conditions” led to a 72-year-old member’s death, Pennsylvania State Police say.

State troopers, alongside other first responders, were called to Glen Onoko Falls “for an unconscious fall victim” at about 10:30 a.m. Sunday, Feb. 13, according to a police report.

Rescuers brought the woman back down the mountain, “near the first waterfalls, over treacherous, steep, ice covered terrain,” police said. She was then taken to an area hospital, where she died of her injuries at 12:43 p.m.

The woman was part of the Philadelphia Korean Hiking Club, which had chartered a bus to the Glen Onoko Falls Trail with 22 members, police say.

The club could not be reached for comment by McClatchy News.

The Glen Onoko Falls Trail has been closed since May 2019, Lehigh Valley Live previously reported.

“This has been a long time coming,” Mike Beahm, land management supervisor in the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s Northeast Region Office, told the news site at the time. “ ... everybody has concerns over the burden that the Glen Onoko falls area trail has become.

“We’ve had a number of deaths occurring there, but it’s not even the number of deaths that’s the concern,” he continued. “It’s the weekly rescues of injured people.”

Glen Onoko Falls is about 90 miles northwest of Philadelphia.