The kickoff to the annual Make Waves Film Festival, hosted by the local chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, was scheduled 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 for championing the outdoors as much as he enjoyed 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 and outdoor training services to students.
His friends said he loved snow sports and rock climbing to the hilt.
School officials sent a campus-wide email Monday morning confirming Taylor died Saturday “following an accident during a trip to Big Sur.”
“The university is in contact with Kenneth’s family and offers their full support to them and his friends,” Cal Poly San Luis Obispo President Jeffrey Armstrong wrote in the email. “Our thoughts are with them as they grieve their loss.”
Kenneth Taylor, right, was known as one-half of “Kenneth Square,” a nickname he shared with his friend and fellow Cal Poly SLO student Kenneth Bivins, left.
(Courtesy of Kenneth Bivins)
The Monterey County Sheriff's Department requested assistance to check on a late hiker at Salmon Creek Falls and Pacific Coast Highway, according to a San Luis Obispo County sheriff's spokesman.
San Luis Obispo County deputies responded and found a hiker deceased 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 Police Department, which is in charge of the investigation, did not respond to calls or emails requesting more information.
The death left one of Taylor's best friends, Kenneth Bivins, in a state of disbelief.
“What caught my attention about Kenneth is how positive and passionate he is,” Bivins said. “If you needed help with photography, safety instructions, rock climbing tips or anything else, he always helped you out.”
Bivins said he met his outdoor companion and namesake in October 2022 at a two-day event hosted by Poly Escapes, which was offering CPR training and wilderness certification.
They called each other “the other Kenneth,” shared an age, a passion for the outdoors, and were photographers. They were known on campus and at school events as the “Kenneth Square.”
Bivins, a Camarillo native, said he has known a few of Kenneth's family members throughout his life, although they all preferred to be called Kenny or Kane. Taylor was the first person he knew who, like him, used his full first name.
“We were often confused because we had a lot of the same hobbies and friends,” Bivins said. “But there was no one like Kenneth.”
Bivins 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,” Bivins said. “We had so many plans and I can't believe he's gone.”
Bivins said he was walking down the hallway Monday when a mutual friend informed the professor that “Kenneth” had fallen to his death in Big Sur.
“Her eyes widened and she asked, 'Oh my God, which one?'” Bivins said. “I felt like a ghost in some way, because I was always the other person, the other Kenneth. Now I'm not.”
