The mood on Monday for a 17-year-old girl who died after she fell off a cliff during a spring break hike might have been best symbolized by a note left at a makeshift memorial.
“We are so sorry and so saddened of your early passage. What a beautiful, young, vibrant, and ever so promising soul you are!” -- With love Krystal Irwin and Family
Mourners brought flowers, notes and other mementos in honor of their friend, Esther Suen. They brought them to the trailhead of Eaton Canyon, a popular hiking spot at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains in Pasadena, where she died on Friday afternoon.
She was with three other friends during the hike in which an 18-year-old man was also injured.
Rescue crews from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department used a helicopter to pull the man and two others off the mountain and rushed them to a hospital.
Emmanuel Duran, a friend of the surviving hiker, said the he’s recovering well and was released from the hospital on Monday.
“He tries to be strong, tries to be positive,” Duran said. “But he’s saddened by the loss of his friend."