The wife of Steve Curry reportedly commented, “The heat is not a foe that you can overcome.”

Before passing away last week at a trailhead in Death Valley National Park, a 71-year-old man told a reporter that he had braved the intense heat hours before.

According to CW station KTLA-TV, NBC affiliate KNBC-TV, and The Independent, Steve Curry, who has been named as the victim by the Inyo County Coroner’s Office, spoke to The Los Angeles Times hours before passing out outside the restroom at the Golden Canyon hiking route on Tuesday. On that day, the park’s temperature rose to 121 degrees.

Curry revealed to the reporter that he had hiked that morning from Golden Canyon to Zabriskie Point. This place is hot, he declared.

When asked why he was doing the hike, he reportedly responded, “Why not?” according to a follow-up article published by The Los Angeles Times following his passing.

According to a news release from the National Park Service, the Los Angeles guy, who was wearing a sunhat, hiking boots, and a rucksack, had just finished hiking the “popular trail” when other park visitors saw the man had collapsed and dialed 911 at about 3:40 p.m. local time.

Park rangers attempted to revive Curry using CPR and an AED, but they were unsuccessful.

According to KTLA-TV and the Times, authorities thought his death might have been brought on by the heat, though a formal cause of death has not yet been established.

The official temperature in the vicinity of Curry’s death, at Furnace Creek, was 121°F, according to a statement from park officials. Due to the sun’s heat being radiated by the canyon walls, the actual temperatures inside Golden Canyon were probably far greater.

His nearly 30-year-old wife, Rima Curry, revealed to KNBC-TV that her late husband loved hiking, mountain biking, and rock climbing.

She told the Times, “We were supposed to grow old together, sit on our rocking chairs on the porch.”

Both the photographer and Times reporter Hayley Smith attempted to assist him, according to KNBC-TV.

“We provided him with water and a ride. Do you want to spend a little time sitting in our car with the air conditioning on? we asked. They were both “pretty shaken up” by his passing, she added, adding that he was “really determined to finish what he had started.”

Rima didn’t learn of her husband’s passing until the coroner placed a call-in request on her door on Thursday. She remarked, “Boy, talk about a gut punch,” to KNBC-TV.

Curry’s death was “possibly” the second heat-related death in Death Valley this summer, according to park officials, who mentioned this in their statement. A 65-year-old man was discovered dead on July 3 inside a vehicle that had two flat tires and a malfunctioning air conditioning system.

According to the organization, “park rangers encourage people to visit Death Valley safely in the summer by sightseeing close to their air-conditioned cars or hiking in the park’s cooler mountains.” Low-elevation hiking is not advised after 10:00 a.m.

In her interview with KNBC-TV, Rima urged people to take extreme heat seriously.

“The heat is not a foe that you can overcome,” she said to the outlet. Your body is only capable of so much.