Avid hiker and former park ranger discovered in Yosemite National Park weeks after note said he’d return

September 28

An experienced hiker, who had been missing for over two weeks, was found dead in Yosemite National Park, California.

Kirk S. Thomas-Olsen, 61, planned to backpack in the Ostrander Lake Area from August 23 to 27, and hadn’t been seen for over two weeks.

The National Park Service had asked the public for help in finding the missing backpacker, until he was found dead Sept. 14.

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Thomas-Olsen worked for the California State Parks agency for 10 years starting in 2014, according to his LinkedIn, and his profile notes that he had also worked at three national parks and two zoos.

While he was missing, Thomas-Olsen’s niece Holly Leeson posted on Facebook asking the public for help, and described her uncle as “an experienced hiker and former park ranger,” and she said her family was “struggling to understand what has happened to him out there.”

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The National Park Service describes the hike to Ostrander Lake as a “strenuous” 11.4-mile round-trip, which can take 8-10 hours with 1,500 feet of elevation gain.

Rangers began searching for Thomas-Olsen after a ranger found a note on Olsen’s car saying that the hiker had planned to return two weeks earlier, Leeson told the San Francisco Chronicle.

With millions of people visiting Yosemite National Park each year, the leading causes of unintentional deaths in national parks are motor vehicle crashes, drownings and falls, according to the National Park Service’s mortality data from 2014 through 2019. Half of all reported deaths are due to unintentional causes. Yosemite National Park has recorded 98 deaths in that same timeframe, according to the data.

The site defines unintentional death as “death that occurs without the intention of hurting oneself or others which results in damage to the body from acute exposure to kinetic, thermal, electrical, or chemical energy or from the absence of such essentials as heat or oxygen.”

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Yosemtie — The setting sun casts light and shadow across the face of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park on Aug. 4, 2021. The view of Half Dome is from Washburn Point along Glacier Point Road. (Mark Hume/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

After her uncle was found dead, Leeson updated the Yosemite Tourist Information Facebook page.

“His body was found which is not the outcome we as a family hoped for but I would like to say a genuine thank you to Yosemite National Park for their diligent efforts to find him, and to this community for the support,” she wrote, adding, “Unfortunately Mother Nature in all of her glory does not account for past experience, and solo hiking is never an endeavor that is without risks.”

The National Park Service and officials have not provided cause of death or any additional details on Thomas-Olsen’s case.

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