Sierra Loses a Star
Award-winning photographer dies in fall
Multiple Sierra communities reeled this week after news emerged that celebrated photographer, climber, and family man Vernon Wiley died in a fall near Lake Tahoe while shooting photographs.
Wiley, 42, of Truckee, died on Thursday, July 14 after slipping and falling at Eagle Lake Buttress, according to Detective-Coroner Jacob Groen of El Dorado County. Wiley was an award-winning outdoor and wedding photographer who also made money taking “stock photos,” or photographs licensed for use by businesses, websites and advertisers. The last photo Vernon Wiley sent to his wife Ashley, who grew up in Mammoth Lakes, was of him sitting above a blue Lake Tahoe and Emerald Bay, his feet clad in approach shoes. Detective-Coroner Groen told The Sheet that El Dorado County Search and Rescue and California Highway Patrol responded to Ashley Wiley’s call to check on her missing husband at around 6:00 a.m. on July 14 and subsequently found Vernon’s body.
