Dad found face down in Colorado creek after falling over 100 feet from waterfall
Hikers found a man face down in the creek bottom beneath a Colorado waterfall after he’d plunged more than 100 feet from the falls, officials said.
The father had hiked the Agnes Vaille Falls trail to the falls with his wife and daughter earlier on May 27, the Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office said in a post on Facebook. The hikers found him in the creek about a half-mile up the trail around 4 p.m.
The family had traveled about 140 miles southwest to the area from Aurora for the hike. Once they reached the falls, 38-year-old Ronald Eugene Stamm kept hiking while his wife and daughter went back to the trailhead, officials said.
“Based on items of evidence found at the scene it was apparent that Ronald attempted to climb the cliff face at the falls without equipment, possibly lost his grip and fell over a hundred feet to the creek bottom,” officials said.
He didn’t survive the fall, officials said. The Chaffee County coroner pronounced him dead at the falls, and a search and rescue team helped bring his body back to the trailhead.
A photo shows the rescuers toward the base of the rocky cliff face with a stretcher.
“Just like that, a wife is widowed and a child is fatherless,” someone said in the comments.
“This is so, so tragic,” another person said, adding their family had also hiked the trail that day and had noticed the sheriff’s office and coroner were there. “We knew something bad happened. Prayers for his poor wife and daughter.”
This story was originally published May 29, 2025 at 1:13 PM with the headline "Dad found face down in Colorado creek after falling over 100 feet from waterfall."
