Friday’s kickoff of the annual “Make Waves” film festival, hosted by the local chapter of Surfrider Foundation, was to be the culmination of months of planning by Kenneth Taylor, 21, of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.
The mechanical engineering student from Richland, Washington, was known as much for his advocacy of the outdoors as for his enjoyment of it. Taylor was a founding member of the school’s Alpine Club and served as a trip leader for the campus’s Poly Escapes program, which provides trip planning services and outdoor education to students.
He loved snow sports and climbing, his friends said, until the end.
School officials sent a campus-wide email Monday morning confirming that Taylor died Saturday “after an accident while traveling to Big Sur.”
“The university is in contact with Kenneth’s family and is fully supportive of them and his friends,” Cal Poly San Luis Obispo President Jeffrey D. Armstrong wrote in the e -mail. “Our thoughts are with them as they mourn their loss.”
Kenneth Taylor, right, was known as one half of “Kenneth Squared,” a nickname he shared with his friend and fellow Cal Poly SLO student Kenneth Bevens, left.
(Courtesy of Kenneth Bevens)
The Monterey County Sheriff’s Department requested help checking on an overdue hiker at Salmon Creek Falls and Pacific Coast Highway, according to a San Luis Obispo County sheriff’s spokesperson.
San Luis Obispo County deputies responded and found a deceased hiker Saturday evening at the base of a 12-story waterfall in the water, according to county officials. The death was not considered suspicious.
The Monterey County Sheriff’s Department, which is leading the investigation, did not respond to calls or emails requesting more information.
The death left one of Taylor’s best friends, Kenneth Bevens, in disbelief.
“What stood out to me about Kenneth was how positive and passionate he was,” Bevens said. “If you needed help taking photos, safety instructions, climbing tips or anything else, he always helped you.”
Bevens met his fellow outdoorsman and namesake in October 2022 at a two-day event hosted by Poly Escapes, which offered CPR training and wilderness certification, he said.
They called themselves “the other Kenneth” and shared an age, a passion for the outdoors, and were photographers. They were known around campus and at school events as “Kenneth Squared.”
Bevens, a Camarillo native, said he has known a few Kenneths throughout his life, although they all preferred to be called Kenny or Ken. Taylor was the first person he knew, like him, to use his full first name.
“We were often confused for each other because we had so many of the same hobbies and friends,” Bevens said. “But there was no one like Kenneth.”
Bevens said Taylor was more of a landscape photographer and called himself a portrait photographer.
“I was going to teach Kenneth how to print so we could sell our pictures at the film festival,” Bevens said. “We had so many plans and I can’t believe he’s gone.”
Bevens said he was walking down a hallway Monday when a mutual friend informed a teacher that “Kenneth” had died in Big Sur.
“Her eyes got wide and she asked, ‘Oh my God, which one?'” Bevens said. “I felt like a ghost in a way, because I was always the other, the other Kenneth. Now I’m not.
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