Hiker, a beloved teacher, falls to his death on Northern California trail
Harris Levinson, who taught American studies and theater at Vashon High School for two decades, planned to start his hike on June 23 after leaving a food resupply cache at Onion Valley, which he planned to pick up on June 29th, according to the Inyo County Sheriff's Office.
By July 8, however, his food cache had still not been picked up, prompting a friend of Levinson to contact Sequoia-Kings National Park, which initiated a search using helicopters from the California Highway Patrol Office of Air Operations and Inyo National Forest.
Levinson's car was located at Whitney Portal in Inyo County, and his body was found at approximately 9,400 feet in the North Fork of Lone Pine Creek, 'apparently the victim of a fatal fall,' according to the sheriff's office. He was 61.
He had fallen 100 feet off of a ledge on a treacherous section of terrain just 2 miles into his trip, according to a July 11 post by his friend Carrie McCarthy on Caring Bridge, an online platform to share information about the well-being of loved ones.
A profile in the Vashon-Maury Island Beachcomber newspaper said Levinson was 'widely known and beloved on Vashon for his remarkable work as a teacher, youth mentor and theater-maker.'
McCarthy said Levinson was an experienced hiker, had been 'planning this trip for months and was thrilled and excited to begin.'
'Folks who connected with him in his final days report that he was joyful, eager, friendly and full of appreciation for his life and the opportunity to go on this adventure,' McCarthy wrote. 'In other words, he was Harris.'
Levinson, who taught at Vashon High School from 1997 to 2017, also taught Spanish. In 2017 he was hired as a Spanish teacher and youth mentor at Tacoma School for the Arts. He co-founded the nonprofit Sharing the Stage, which engaged local youth musicians to open for headliners playing Seattle venues.
Levinson also was a 'talented writer, theater artist, puppeteer, and stand-up comic' who regularly acted with local theater groups, according to the Beachcomber. He last performed on Vashon in 2024 in Drama Dock's production of 'The Hatmaker's Wife.' In recent years he had become a dedicated pickleball player, the local paper reported.
Another friend, Bill Jarcho, told the Beachcomber that he and his wife had been with Levinson the night before he left Vashon for the hike. Jarcho said Levinson had been both excited and a bit nervous about the journey, detailing how he would have to rapidly climb to an elevation above 11,000 feet because he had not received a permit that would have allowed him to take a lower route.
'When we said goodbye, Harris said, in both a joking and not-joking way, 'If I don't come back, you know that I've had a fantastic life and I have no regrets,'' Jarcho told the Beachcomber.
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