by Peter Mertz and Huang Heng
ASPEN, the United States, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- The spectacular Rocky Mountains may be the most beautiful and rugged in America, but they are claiming lives like never before.
On Wednesday, a Korean-American became the third person to die in just the past 22 days attempting to climb a 14,000-foot (4,267 m) mountain in the heart of the Rockies.
The rash of deaths in the heart of the biggest mountains in the United States -- Colorado's Rockies -- underscores a record number of missing and killed in America's wilderness and park areas in 2017.
Even though there are no official statistics on how many hikers went missing or died this year, professional rescue crews believe the number is increasing sharply.
"Over the past five to 10 years, the number keeps growing each year," Brian Duffy told Xinhua Wednesday. Duffy is the president of the Southern Arizona Rescue Association, a volunteer organization that performs 85 to 100 search-and-rescue missions every year.
Jeffrey Blevins, who assists in search and rescue operations in the Roaring Fork Valley, told Xinhua that "every year the rescues and stories get worse."
More hikers joining the adventure sport is a key factor pushing the number of accidental deaths higher.
"They're coming to this part of the country in record numbers, especially during the summer, and they don't realize the dangers," said Blevins.
The number of people who hiked and backpacked in the United States jumped from 29.21 million in 2008 to 44.11 million in 2016, according to Statista, an online statistics portal.
Each year, records are being broken on the numbers of people visiting America's legendary national parks.
About 260,000 people hiked Colorado's "Fourteener" mountains in 2015, with the mountains closest to Denver on the state's "Front Range" seeing the most activity.
"Fourteener" is a mountain peak with an elevation of at least 14,000 feet (4,267 meters). As hiking became a popular sport in the country, many peak baggers try to climb all "Fourteeners" in the contiguous United States, one particular state, or another region.
Zion National Park in Utah had the most visitors with 4 million for 2016, a record, and nearly 3 million people visited Glacier National Park in Montana last year, another record, park officials said.
Lack of skills and experience is a more important cause.
"Safety starts with education and planning and too many people take risks ... deadly risks," Blevins told Xinhua.
Combinations of factors are causing people to get lost in the wilderness, caught in floods, or die falling off mountains, Blevins said, adding "some people go off into the wilderness to die."
Last week at Zion National Park, several hikers formed a human chain across a river swollen with flash flood waters in the Utah desert to bring 15 people to safety.
Zion officials closed the area later that afternoon after a flash flood warning and park rangers posted warnings of fast-moving water and for people caught in risky weather to get to high ground immediately.
"We are ruining our park with too many people," Zion National Park volunteer Lisa Zumpft told Xinhua. "It has not been fun."
