UPDATE
The Inyo County Coroner's Office has identified the man as Steve Curry from the Sunland neighborhood of Los Angeles.
Investigators said that hours before his death, he had been interviewed at Zabriskie Point by a reporter with the Los Angeles Times. According to the article, he had hiked there from Golden Canyon, which is about two miles away.
"It's a dry heat," he told the reporter. "Everything is hot here."
At some point, he left the destination and hiked back to the Golden Canyon trailhead where he had left his car.
ORIGINAL STORY
A 71-year-old California man has died at Death Valley National Park.
National Park Service officials said the Los Angeles native collapsed outside a restroom at the Golden Canyon trailhead and believed he had just been hiking on the popular trail. They state he was wearing a sunhat ad hiking clothes, had a backpack, and his car was in the parking lot.
On Tuesday, other park visitors spotted the man and called 911 at 3:40 p.m. The National Park Service and the Inyo County Sheriff's Office responded with park rangers arriving on the scene at 3:47 p.m. They state rangers did CPR and used an AED device but weren't able to save the man.
A cause of death hasn't been determined as of Wednesday afternoon. However, park rangers believe heat played a factor and the temperature at nearby Furnace Creek was 121 degrees at the man's time of death. They believe temperatures inside Golden Canyon were likely much hotter since the canyon's walls radiate heat.
This is believed to be the second heat-related fatality at Death Valley so far this summer.
Park rangers are encouraging Death Valley visitors to sightsee for short distances in their air-conditioned cars or hiking in the park's cooler mountains. Rangers don't recommend hiking at low elevations after 10 a.m.
