Former LCN Editor at Yosemite Rockslide

As a park ranger in charge of information about Yosemite National Park, Erik Skindrud, until recently, the senior editor in charge of Landscape Contractor National Magazine, was perfectly positioned to cover the story when the rock slide hit.
Images courtesy of Nicole Miller

Former LCN Editor, Erik Skindrud, was present and reporting with his usual flair at the major rock slide in October at Yosemite National Park which injured three visitors and destroyed more than half a dozen cabins.

Erik was, until recently, the senior editor in charge of Landscape Contractor National Magazine and an avid cross country skier, camper and hiker. He left us to take a position with the National Park Service as a writer-editor for his beloved Yosemite National Park. As a park ranger in charge of information about Yosemite, he was perfectly positioned to cover the story when the rock slide hit.

The slide let loose about 7 a.m. more than halfway up the 3,200-foot face of Glacier Point, which looms above the tent cabins and concession services at Curry Village on the valley floor.

The slide let loose about 7 a.m. more than halfway up the 3,200-foot face of Glacier Point, which looms above the tent cabins and concession services at Curry Village on the valley floor.

Skindrud said about 1,000 visitors had to be evacuated in the slide’s aftermath, many of them visiting schoolchildren and their chaperons.

This photo, taken from high above the origin of the slide, shows the path of devastation as an 1,800-cubic-yard slab of rock cartwheeled down the cliff, shattered and sent boulders and fist-size granite shrapnel toward the edge of Curry Village and its more than 500 tent cabins, regular cabins and hotel rooms.

One boy suffered a head laceration and had to get stitches at the valley’s medical clinic. Two other people received treatment after fleeing the rockfall. A young child was treated for an asthma attack, and an adult suffered cuts when she fell, Skindrud said. “Rock slides and rockfalls are part of the natural history of Yosemite, one of the processes that created the valley.”

“It’s nothing out of the ordinary; it’s something we have to live with,” he said. “Today’s incident was a little more dangerous to human life than other previous incidents. However, the slide didn’t affect any of the signature landscapes such as Lawrence Halprin’s approach to Yosemite Falls.”