His wife said she'd never seen him so happy.

His last two weeks were a grand adventure for Pittsburgh lawyer Randy K. Hareza, a big-game hunting excursion in the bush country of Zimbabwe that he had planned for a year to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary and his approaching 50th birthday.

But Thursday, their last night in the wild, Mr. Hareza's African safari ended tragically when he fell off a cliff, plunging 100 feet into a ravine.

His wife, Lorrie, and their hired guide rushed down to his side, but there was nothing they could do. He died at the scene.

Mr. Hareza, of Scott, was 49.

His death left his family and co-workers at the North Side law firm of Burns, White & Hickton, where he was a senior partner, stunned that such an experienced outdoorsman would meet so bizarre a demise.

"It was just one of those freak accidents," said Dave White, a senior partner at the law firm who recruited Mr. Hareza from the attorney general's office in the late 1980s.

Mr. Hareza excelled as a trial lawyer, but his colleagues and family said his true passions were hunting, fishing and golfing. A member of the Safari Club International, he traveled often to Alaska and Canada with Lorrie, also a hunter, and his brother, Scott, of Peters.

But they had never been to Africa.

He and Lorrie had been tromping in the bush for two weeks with a guide, hunting zebra and other animals, when they settled in for a dinner on a bluff high above their camp to enjoy their final night in the wilderness before returning to civilization.

"It was a beautiful night," said his brother, Dennis, of Chicago. "It was the time of their life."

The site for their dinner was surrounded by high grass, but the perimeter was uneven and not well-defined, particularly at dusk. Mr. Hareza stood up after the meal, stepped into the high grass and fell backward off the bluff.

His body was being flown back to the United States yesterday.

Mr. Hareza, the son of an ironworker, grew up in Scott and graduated from Chartiers Valley High School. Dennis Hareza said he and Scott, who were both younger, looked up to Randy then and now.

"He was the glue of our family," he said. "He was the leader. He was the one that walked into a room and everyone stopped and saw him."

He earned a degree at Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 1978 and was working in construction, not sure what to do with his life, when he met Lorrie Phillips of Robinson. His future wife, now a flight attendant, saw his potential and encouraged him to go to Duquesne University Law School.

"Lorrie said, 'You can do a lot more than this,' " Dennis Hareza said.

He graduated in 1988 and went to work at the attorney general's office as a deputy attorney general before joining Burns, White & Hickton in 1989.

"I recognized that he was a shining star," said Mr. White, "and he certainly lived up to everything we hoped he would be."

His family and colleagues said Mr. Hareza was a player in Pittsburgh legal circles, specializing in malpractice and professional negligence litigation in state and federal court. But he never lost the common touch.

"I think one of his best attributes was that, not only was he a bright trial attorney but he had the ability to reach down and talk to the jurors in a way that they grew to like him," said Mr. White. "He had a lot of credibility with jurors."

Beyond his career and his outdoor pursuits, Mr. Hareza enjoyed an active family life. After the death of Lorrie's sister, Leslie, he and Lorrie raised Leslie's three children along with their own daughter, Elizabeth, now a junior at Bethany College in West Virginia.

Besides his wife, daughter and brothers, Mr. Hareza is survived by his sister, Linda Hareza, and his parents, Frank and Dolly Hareza.

Visitation will be Wednesday from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. and Thursday from 10 a.m. until the funeral service at 1 p.m. in William Slater II Funeral Service, 1650 Greentree Road, Scott.