Hiker dies of heat stroke while spreading father’s ashes in Utah

James Bernard Hendricks was found dead in Arches National Park

A Texas man died of heatstroke in a Utah national park as he hiked to spread his father’s ashes, his family say.

James Bernard Hendricks was reported missing in Arches National Park on 1 August, according to the National Park Service.

Rangers found the 66-year-old’s vehicle at Sands Dune Arch Trail parking lot the following day, and shortly after that discovered his body in a nearby off-trail area.

Temperatures in the area topped 90 degrees Fahrenheit during the afternoon before Hendricks was reported missing.

An investigation is underway but Rangers believe that the death was caused by a combination of heat, dehydration and altitude. Officials say that a quart water bottle he had with him was empty when they found his body.

The Sand Dune Arch Trail takes hikers to a “hidden arch between tall sandstone walls,” according to park officials.

His sister Ruth Hendricks Brough said that her brother loved nature and had been on a road trip to scatter his late father’s ashes.

She told The San Antonio Express-News that his final destination was Reno, Nevada, where their father, Neil Hendricks, had lived most of his life and that her brother had named the trip “Last Journey With My Father.”

“He was a person who spread joy to every living thing he met, and to him, all the universe was alive, from human beings to fossils to stardust. It was all precious to him,” Ms Brough told the outlet.

“People all over the United States and many in other countries were friends with Jimmy. He was loved by countless people because he was an unusually kind, sweet person who made friends easily. Now all these people are grieving. It was a horrible shock.”