Half Dome

As many as 30 horrified onlookers saw a male hiker plunge hundreds of feet to his death Saturday as he was climbing Yosemite's world-famous Half Dome, park rangers said.

The man, who was not identified pending notification of relatives, fell at 3:40 p.m. as he climbed the granite edifice in the midst of a hail storm. The hiker fell to a shoulder of the dome about 1,800 feet from the top. It's not known whether he was climbing alone or in a group.

Park Ranger Kari Cobb said the 30 witnesses were escorted down after the man fell and were being interviewed about what happenCobb said is not known whether the man was climbing the 400-feet cabled handrails up the back to reach the top of the monolith at the time he fell or had reached the 8,842-foot summit.ed in an investigation expected to take weeks. The hiker's body is expected to be removed sometime today by authorities, who were working to notify his family.

"It had been raining and hailing," Cobb said. "We are not sure if he was actually on the cables or somewhere on the dome and slipped." Cobb noted that the base where the cables start have signs stating the risks of using the handrails in bad weather."We do have warnings posted at the base, saying if it is raining we advise not to go up. We can only do so much." Ranger Scott Gediman said that on average, 50,000 hikers annually use the cable handrails to climb Half Dome. The last fatal plunge from Half Dome occurred on June 16, 2007, when Hirofumi Nohara, a 37-year-old Japanese citizen, lost his footing three-quarters of the way up the summit cables, slid off the side of Half Dome and tumbled 300 feet to a ledge.