A young man from Washington perished in a Sunday afternoon fall after summiting Snowshoe Peak in Lincoln County.

According to a press release from the county Sheriff’s Office, dispatch received a call shortly before 4 p.m. that a hiker fell from a cliff above Leigh Lake. 

The 24-year-old man from Shelton, Washington, who wasn’t identified, was hiking with a group of people. They were descending, hiking down from the highest peak in the Cabinet Mountains. Snowshoe is listed at 8,738 feet.

The fall was described as an estimated 1,200 to 2,000 feet and the group reported he was not moving. 

A helicopter from Spokane Regional Air Support Unit and members of David Thompson Search and Rescue responded to the area. The helicopter arrived, but due to the lack of daylight remaining, were unable to locate the hiker before dark. 

The next day, Monday, members of David Thompson SAR returned to the area, located the hiker and relayed his location. The man was lying on a ledge about 1,900 feet above Leigh Lake after falling an estimated 500 feet, according to the press release. 

The helicopter from Spokane Regional Air Support Unit returned. 

Due to the location, air medics were unable to safely retrieve the hiker. The helicopter transported search and rescue members up to a safe area to work where they were able to access the hiker on ropes and recover his body. 

A hiker who spent some time at the summit Sunday afternoon with the group of people that included the deceased man reached out to The Western News Tuesday inquiring about the situation.

Matt Adams, an Alaskan who earned his Ph.D. in physics at Montana State University while being named a track and field Academic All-American, was climbing Snowshoe Peak with a friend.

“Near the trailhead, we passed some people that we first thought may have been hunting, but when we got closer we realized they were two SAR teams,” Adams said. “We hadn’t heard what happened, so I decided to check.”

Adams grew up scrambling up and down various Alaska mountains before coming to Montana for his education. He’s climbed in the Bridger Mountains and also summited the state’s highest peak - Granite Peak in the Absaroka Beartooth Wilderness near Red Lodge. Granite is listed at about 12,800 feet and is referred to as patriarch of “the roof of Montana.”

Adams was a bit taken aback at the news of the young men’s death, calling it an “unfortunate tragedy.”

“It’s always a shock to hear that has happened, but it’s not the first time I’ve been around a tragedy,” he said. “It’s something that is always a possibility when recreating in such places.”

Adams said when he and his friend arrived at Leigh Lake Saturday, the trees were covered with frost.

“We hiked up to Leigh Lake Saturday and camped overnight before summiting Sunday and hiking out,” Adams said. “We encountered a group of about six or seven people who already reached the summit. 

“We spent a few minutes talking and they left first before we caught up with them and passed them on the way down,” Adams said.

He described the conditions Sunday morning as “still pretty frozen.”

“There was a little bit of snow and the freezing fog left the rocks that weren’t in the sun frosted. Where the sun hit the rocks, they were wet so the conditions were tricky. Coming down, it was still very slippery and as the temperature warmed, rocks loosened up,” Adams said. 

Loose rock, slope and slippery conditions are a nearly constant source of peril for mountain and rock climbers.

“On our way up another climber told us to be careful after he had dislodged a rock,” Adams said.

Adams said he believed the group had at least one climber

who was more experienced than the others.

“He seemed to be giving more direction than the others,” he said. “I heard one person in the group saying they didn’t want to return the way they had went up. They were trying to figure out how they would go down.”

Adams and his climbing partner also spent time figuring out their descent, considering the conditions.

“Everyone was mostly scrambling, it wasn’t really climbing,” he said. “We and they wore various types of footwear and had a wide spectrum of gear. Some wore trail running shoes, approach shoes and some had pretty heavy duty boots. No one we encountered wore helmets.”

Over the years, dating back to when prospectors sought silver and lead from the area, the Leigh Lake and Snowshoe Peak region has seen its share of death.

In 2020, according to a Western News story, a 67-year-old Idaho man died after falling about one mile up from the Leigh Lake trailhead.

In August 2009, 64-year-old John Wardell, an Environmental Protection Agency official, died after falling off a cliff Thursday night while descending Snowshoe Peak with a fellow hiker.

Wardell was the director of the Montana Operations Office for the EPA in Helena.

The circumstances of Wardell’s death is eerily similar to young man from Washington

According to a previous story in The Western News, David Thompson SAR, sheriff officers, the U.S. Forest Service and ALERT helicopter responded. It was dark by the time the Forest Service and ALERT helicopters located Wardell.

“It was too dark to send rescuers due to the terrain – the cliffs and slippery slopes,” then sheriff Roby Bowe said about the area, which is just above Leigh Lake, southwest of Libby.

An additional helicopter from Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls responded at about midnight but was also unsuccessful in a rescue, Bowe said.

Wardell was not reached until late morning or early afternoon the next day, Bowe said, when a thunderstorm finally subsided and allowed a Malmstrom helicopter to respond.

Wardell was an avid hiker who was in good shape, according to Bowe, but the Snowshoe Peak terrain has caused injuries and fatalities in the past.

“It’s one of our more active search-and-rescue areas,” he said.