The pictures from the air were taken from a NPS helicopter. It was obviously in the Sept/Oct/Nov time frame, and I recall about 3 - 4 years ago. They were trying to find out more info. on a guy who had fallen from that section.
The episodes tend to blur together, but at least two of the cases involved crampons (like the climber was wearing them, or had them in his pack suggesting that he expected snow or ice). Some people fell from the section between notch and summit, but some fell doing the so-called easy "walk off", which can be extremely dangerous when covered with snow (after the snow hardens).
They end up at about the 13,000' level in some rocks, after having plunged over a vertical 200' cliff. It's messy.
I don't recall fatal falls during full-on winter, when there is good snow to step-kick up. Also, many winter MR climbers take ropes. As inferred above, at least a couple of the fatalities involved ice. But I remember two during summertime; there might be ice in that section, but it's easy to avoid, so it's puzzling. The exact mechanism for slipping/tripping/sliding is probably never known for sure.
Doug has these helo pictures in his store, and the Lone Pine Ranger Station has them posted.
These helo pictures make it look really steep, but it isn't nearly that bad. The one I took looking down from the summit, paints a more realistic picture. It's the one showing people coming up. The whole section is really barely class 3, and a lot of it is class 2. My first time up it was in 1972 and I took my 10 year old son - I put a rope on him only for about 50' near the top. Now that I am familiar with the route, I wouldn't bother with it. (Although at the time my wife was happy I took it!) Actually, it must have been less than 50' because the rope was a 50' piece of 1/4" goldline)
