A Colorado man on a river trip to the Grand Canyon was found dead over the weekend, officials said Monday, in what appears to be the seventh death at the park since July 31.
Patrick Horton, 59, was on day 10 of a noncommercial trip along the Colorado River when others in his party found his body Saturday morning near the river, the park said in a news release.
Rangers were dispatched to an area known as Poncho's Kitchen at 5:30 a.m. and found Horton's body, according to the release.
An investigation by park officials and the local medical examiner’s office is ongoing, the release said. No cause or manner of death were provided.
Other people who have died at the Grand Canyon since July 31 are a woman who was swept away by flash floods, a boater whose vessel flipped in the Colorado River, a BASE jumper whose parachute failed, a college student who fell to his death from an overlook, a North Carolina hiker who went missing on a remote trail and a woman from New Mexico whose body was found below the Grand Canyon’s South Rim.
The park did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
The Grand Canyon recorded an average of 17 deaths per year from 2014 to 2023, a park spokeswoman has said.
The spokeswoman, Joëlle Baird, said extreme heat and increased visitor activity during the summer present challenging conditions at the park, increasing the number of dangerous incidents and deaths.
Since 2019, 2 million to 5 million people have visited the Grand Canyon each year, park data shows. Park data that looked at mortality reports from 2014 to 2019 shows that "photographing" was the most lethal recreational activity at the Grand Canyon.
An NBC News analysis last year found that Washington state’s North Cascades National Park had the highest death rate in the country within the park system.
