Back to the BYU Cougars Newsfeed

‘Is our life worth a photo?’: The tragic death of a couple in Yosemite

From the Grand Canyon to the California coast, Meenakshi Moorthy and Vishnu Viswanath documented a life of travel and natural beauty in their adopted homeland for more than 10,000 Instagram followers.

The pair had immigrated to Silicon Valley from India. Moorthy described herself as the “high-spirited storyteller” who penned their social-media entries. Viswanath, she said, was the “head photographer of our most pretty pics." Posting online was about more than just receiving “likes," she often remarked. And she warned about the dangers of scaling high places just for photographs.

In October, the couple’s bodies were discovered after tourists came across their abandoned camera equipment at the top of Taft Point, a granite outcropping 1,000 feet above the floor of Yosemite Valley.