ANGELES NATIONAL FOREST >> Authorities have identified a 67-year-old Gardena man who died in a hiking accident that left four others injured in the Angeles National Forest on Saturday.
Michael J. Yoo died at the scene of the incident, which was first reported about 11:10 a.m. near Islip Saddle, along Angeles Crest Highway, just west of San Gabriel Canyon Road, Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner Investigator Rudy Molano said.
He and four other members of a hiking club, described as three men and a woman in their 60s, when at least one of them fell down an ice chute, Sgt. Michael McGratten of the Los Angeles County sheriff’s San Dimas Station said.
It appeared the other hikers were trying to help when they fell as well, he said.
Ventura County search and rescue team members, who happened to be training in the area, worked with Los Angeles County sheriff’s search and rescue teams and Los Angeles County firefighters to reach the group using helicopters, as well as ice axes and other climbing hear, officials said.
“The injured hikers were located approximately three hundred feet down an icy slope, approximately one mile north of the starting point,’ Ventura County sheriff’s Deputy Chris Dyer said in a written statement. “The elevation was approximately 7,000 feet with a 70 degree incline. Rescue rope systems were implemented and rescuers made contact with injured hikers.”
Yoo was pronounced dead at the scene. An autopsy was pending.
Three of the other hikers were hospitalized, two of them with serious injuries, officials said. Another hiker suffered injuries described as minor.
“All were suffering from shock and hypothermia,’ Dyer said.

PHOTO courtesy of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department