A crack at a beloved tourist attraction in Yosemite National Park has forced park rangers to close several popular trails and issue safety warnings to visitors.
The rapidly-growing crack on the western side of the Royal Arches cliff, near the popular Super Slide climbing route, is at risk of rockfall. These natural geological processes involve the detachment and rapid downward movement of rock, according to the National Park Service.
The California park has temporarily closed the trail to the Super Slide to ensure the safety of visitors, according to The Travel.
The crack in the massive granite cliff, named the Super Natural, was about an inch wide when it was first discovered by a rock climber in 2023. It has since widened to about four inches, according to the report.
Jesse McGahey, a geologist and climbing ranger dispatched to the area, said he could hear the Royal Arches “cracking like a frozen lake that wasn’t consolidated.”
While Yosemite is prone to rockfalls, McGahey said the way the pieces of rock were “rattling down the crack without touching it” was highly unusual.
“The park geologist said they’d never seen anything like this. He’s never been able to observe that in his 15 years in Yosemite,” McGahey, who works as a climbing program manager at Yosemite, said.
Park officials have remained cautious about the crack ever since it was discovered, and continually warn visitors to be aware of their surroundings and inform rangers if they witness a rockfall.
When announcing the closure in 2023, park officials noted that their investigation “revealed that this crack has partially detached a large pillar of rock, and that cracking was actively occurring.”
“As a precautionary effort to reduce risk from rockfall, the National Park Service is implementing a temporary area and trail closure while the area is investigated further,” the closure notice read.
The closures include popular routes Serenity Crack/Sons of Yesterday and Super Slide, and all the routes in between, including the Peruvian Flake West and the Rhombus Wall.
There have been over 1,000 rockfalls in Yosemite National Park over the past 150 years, according to the report. In 2024, there were 42 documented rockfalls, which the National Park Service notes equated to “a relatively quiet year.”
Officials also noted that they will continue to closely monitor the crack west of Royal Arches next to the Super Slide climbing route.
Two people died from rockfall in Yosemite National Park in 2022. Before that, it had been 18 years since the last rockfall-related fatality, which saw rock climber Peter Terbush killed in 1999, according to the NPS.
There have now at least 18 fatalities and more than 100 injuries from rockfalls since park records began in 1857.
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