Travel blogging couple die after a 250-metre fall at Yosemite

A travel blogging, insta-famous couple have tragically died in Yosemite National Park this week, after falling 250 metres down a steep cliff face.

Vishnu Viswanath and Meenakshi “Minaxi” Moorthy had a joint Instagram account with over 20,000 followers, and loved sharing their travels and adventures with the world.

On Monday, park officials discovered their bodies – and identified them as two people who had fallen from Taft Point, a popular lookout over 1000 metres abover Yosemite Valley.

In a release about the deaths, the National Park Service said officials had to use a helicopter, plus “technical climbing and rappelling techniques” to recover the bodies, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

“It’s clearly a very tragic circumstance and as the investigation progresses we will have a better idea of possibly what happened,” park spokesperson Jamie Richards told KFSN, adding that it was “too early to speculate”.

“We do not know any of the circumstances of what may have happened up there.”

The US-Indian couple ran a travel blog, Holidays & HappilyEverAfters, and have an Instagram following of 21.5k.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bfi_tU8hDmM/?taken-by=holidaysandhappilyeverafters

There have since been speculations that the couple died while trying to take a photo.

Jishnu Viswanath, Vishnu’s brother, told the Associated Press on Tuesday that the pair had a tripod set up near one of Taft Point’s edges, and that the couple were taking a selfie when they fell, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

There is a safety railing at the very tip of the lookout, but there are spots where tourists and adrenalin-seekers can easily walk right to the edge of the cliff face.

Sean Matteson, who was visiting Yosemite at the same time as the couple, said that he may have captured the last pictures of Moorthy – in the background of his selfies.

“She was very close to the edge, but it looked like she was enjoying herself,” said Matteson, who remembered seeing Moorthy because of her bright pink hair. “She gave me the willies. There aren’t any railings. . . . But she seemed comfortable. She didn’t seem like she was in distress or anything,” he told Associated Press.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BbjvFmYhOaa/?taken-by=holidaysandhappilyeverafters

The couple seemed well aware of the dangers of taking photos on cliffs, and warned their followers in several posts that “your adrenalin rush is not worth your life”.

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Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au

Taft Point yosemite Yosemite National Park