--- title: "Hiker Dies in Death Valley Hours After Doing Interview With Newspaper" description: "A 71-year-old hiker died in Death Valley, California just hours after giving an interview to the Los Angeles Times about his voyage." date: "2023-07-23" modified: "2023-07-23" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/death-valley-hiker-dies" categories: - "Science & Energy" tags: - "death valley" - "extreme heat" - "hiking" - "the digest" --- # Hiker Dies in Death Valley Hours After Doing Interview With Newspaper ![A 71-year-old hiker died in Death Valley, California just hours after giving an interview to the Los Angeles Times about his voyage.]() *Death Valley, CA - July 18: Steve Curry, 71, of Sunland, is accustomed to the heat and hiking he says as he sits in the shade. He walked to Zabriskie Point in Death Valley National Park on Tuesday, July 18, 2023, in Death Valley, CA. It was well over 100 degrees by 10:00 am today. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images) \Image: Francine Orr via Getty Images\* ## Dangerous Levels A 71-year-old hiker died in Death Valley, California just hours after [giving an interview to the *Los Angeles Times*]() about his voyage. As the [*LA Times* reported in a followup](), its recent interviewee Steven Curry died last week after collapsing from what officials believe were heat-related causes in the hottest place on Earth. Death Valley, like the rest of the country, been experiencing a blistering heat wave this summer as climate change [continues to wreak its havoc](). Early on the morning of his passing last week, the *LAT* conducted a brief interview with Curry for a piece about the increasing heat in the famously-scorching Southern California desert while he crouched beneath a metal sign that provided, as the paper noted in its follow-up, the only shade nearby. "It’s a dry heat,” the hiker said while sitting atop the desert's Zabriskie Point summit. "Everything is hot here." That was far from an understatement: the high during the week the hiker died [got up to nearly 126 degrees](), which even for Death Valley is tremendously hot. https://twitter.com/US_Stormwatch/status/1680999145224704000 ## Left Behind As Curry's widow Rima tells the newspaper, this kind of dangerous hike was par for the course in their 29-year marriage. "He had talked about Death Valley for at least a week or more," the hiker's 76-year-old widow said. Though she'd voiced concerns about the temperatures recorded there in recent weeks, Curry insisted on going — and did so without telling his wife, who had been expecting him home that night. "I thought, ‘That rascal. He just took off because he knows it’s hard for me to let him go,'" she added. Curry apparently got the outdoors bug after marrying Rima in 1994, and would set up a tent in his own backyard or hike up Mt. Lukens, a San Gabriel mountains peak near his home in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Sunland-Tujunga. "He was always happiest when he could be out there sleeping under the stars," she told the *LAT*. "That was his joy." That Curry completed his round-trip hike from Death Valley's Golden Canyon to Zabriskie Point is some comfort to his widow, she's still devastated. "We were supposed to grow old together, sit on our rocking chairs on the porch," she said. **More on extreme heat:** [*Brutal Heat Wave Is Literally Putting People Into Comas*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()