A 65-year-old woman has died after falling from a 60-foot cliff-edge in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The hiker was walking the Alum Cave Trail, south of Gatlinburg, Tennessee on 28 March when the incident occurred.
Rangers responded after receiving reports a woman had fallen, but they were unable to resuscitate her.
On Monday, the park was still attempting to contact the woman’s next of kin, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported.
As of 31 March, park authorities had not yet released the woman’s name.
Great Smokey is the most-visited national park in the United States, with 11.5 million visitors in the 2025, according to the National Parks Service.
It spans a half-million remote and mountainous acres along the North Carolina-Tennessee border and hosts a section of the 2,200 mile-long Appalachian Trial.
Alum cave trail follows a 4.6 mile path and winds past Alum Cave Bluffs and through Arch Rock.
The National Park Service cautions hikers on their website that the trail can become very steep as it leads to Mount LeConte, which attracts millions of visitors every year.
A day earlier, on Friday, two park visitors were hospitalized after massive boulders smashed into their vehicle during an unexpected rockslide, according to the Charlotte Observer.
The two vehicle occupants sustained serious injuries but are expected to survive.
The death on Saturday is the fifth in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park this year, compared to 16 deaths in 2025 and nine 2024.
“Fatal injuries occur every year in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Motor vehicle accidents and drownings are the leading causes of death,” the park said on their website.
In 2024, the it ranked fourth on a list of the most dangerous national parks in the U.S, recording a total of 104 fatalities between July 2013 and July 2023.
More than a third of these fatalities involved motor vehicles, with most occurring in September.
The park’s website also warns of venomous snakes, stream crossings, and – even in summer – hypothermia.
The Great Smoky Mountains National Park was established in 1934 by the U.S. Congress and was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983.
It was the first national park to be part funded by the federal government; parks previously being run and maintained with only state funds or private contributions.
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