Travel blogger who warned against dangerous selfies dies 'taking cliff edge photo'

Tom Barnes
Updated

A travel blogger who fell to her death alongside her husband while apparently taking selfies on a cliff edge had previously warned tourists against attempting to capture dangerous photographs.

Rangers at Yosemite National Park in California found the bodies of Vishnu Viswanath and Meenakshi Moorthy around 800 feet below Taft Point, where visitors can gaze over an unguarded cliff face.

Viswanath’s brother, Jishnu Viswanath, told reporters on Tuesday the pair had set up a tripod close to the sheer ledge shortly before they apparently fell.

Park visitors later saw the camera and alerted rangers, who found the Indian couple’s bodies using high-powered binoculars last Thursday.

Married couple Vishnu Viswanath and Meenakshi Moorthy were said to be 'travel obsessed': Facebook
Married couple Vishnu Viswanath and Meenakshi Moorthy were said to be 'travel obsessed': Facebook

Viswanath, 29, a software engineer who had recently moved to work in San Jose, and Meenakshi, 30, who had ambitions of becoming a full-time blogger, were said to be “travel obsessed”.

Moorthy wrote for a blog called “Holidays and HappilyEverAfters”, filled with photos of the couple at the Eiffel Tower, riding gondolas in Venice and exploring mountain ranges.

In an Instagram post, Moorthy had previously warned her readers of the dangers of attempting to take photographs in potentially life-threatening situations, sharing an image of herself perched on the edge of the Grand Canyon.

“A lot of us including yours truly is a fan of daredevilry attempts of standing at the edge of cliffs and skyscrapers, but did you know that wind gusts can be FATAL???” she wrote. “Is our life just worth one photo?”

View this post on Instagram

CHASING SUNSETS or CHASING LIKES ??? 😛 ... Sooo today on #socialmediabadasstribe we are talking about limits of #doitforthegram.😶Yeah sure it can be limitless but guys, we reaaaallly need to have boundaries(this is handy as life lessons too but we will revisit that later😉) A lot of us including yours truly is a fan of daredevilry attempts of standing at the edge of cliffs ⛰and skyscrapers🌆, but did you know that wind gusts can be FATAL??? ☠️ Is our life just worth one photo? ... When we squirm at another selfie attempt gone south 😱 from a skyscraper, let’s remember to save that in our core memory 🧠 and not the memory dump 🛢(I am still on the Inside Out 🎬 train y'all 😬) Same applies when we get our knickers in a twist and hog a spot till we get the perfect shot🙄 I know I know, I am guilty as charged for all of this 🤦‍♀️ and if I didn’t have Mr. Two Goody Shoes, Vishnu 🤭 with me, I am not even sure if I would have written this post. ... Let us all try to be responsible digital citizens and use our “numbers” to be transparent and honest, shall we?🤗 None of us is perfect and the more we accept it and share our flaws as much as our wins, we are one step closer to creating a sane social media without the scary brouhahas.💕✨ ... Still there?👀 Woohoo, a backflip is in order, or wait maybe a pizza? 🍕 What about a unicorn ice-cream 🦄 🍦 with some Disney-approved cotton candy 🍭🍬 and pixie dust infused sprinkles 🧚‍♀️ if…..IF you could tell me the one time you were effin’ proud of being candid and real AF in social media? 😎 ... PS - Not sponsored but sweatshirt is from @radearthsupply • • • #grandcanyonnps #northrim #instagramaz #visitarizona #travelarizona #shotzdelight #discovertheroad #usaroadtrip #visittheusa #outdoorsusa #exploretheusa #womenwhoexplore #iamtb #radparks #thediscoverer #gtgi #sheisnotlost #wearetravelgirls #hikemore #radgirlslife #travelreality #dreamscape @womenwhoexplore @visit_arizona @visittheusa @shotzdelight

A post shared by TravelCreatives❤️Minaxi+Vishnu (@holidaysandhappilyeverafters) on Mar 28, 2018 at 8:45am PDT

Jamie Richards, a Yosemite National Park spokesman, told The San Francisco Chronicle that although investigations were still ongoing, the couple indeed appeared to have fallen from the cliff.

“We still do not know what caused them to fall,” he said. “We’re trying to understand what happened. We may never know, [but] from everything we see, this was a tragic fall.”

“Yosemite is a wild and scenic place. If you are not paying attention to your footing, it is very easy to have a slip and fall.

“Now, we don't know what happened in this case, but we urge hikers to stay on the trail.”

Additional reporting by AP