Very sad news from the San Francisco Chronicle:

Yosemite National Park, Calif. (AP) — A 12-year-old Boy Scout from Modesto died over the weekend after falling from a sheer granite cliff in Yosemite National Park.

A spokeswoman for the park says the boy died Saturday afternoon when he fell about 300 feet after wandering away from his group that was hiking toward Upper Yosemite Fall.

. . . Park spokeswoman Adrienne Freeman says the accident happened when the boy and another Scout started hiking in front of their group and ventured off the trail toward a steep drop above Columbia Rock. . . .

[1] http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/02/19/state/n094740S38.DTL&tsp=1

Rest in Peace, and prayers for the family and the other Scouts and Scouters.