The body of a climber who went missing on Washington State’s Mount Rainier has been found.
Dawes Eddy, 80, of Spokane, Wash. went missing on May 30 while on a solo climb of the volcano south of Seattle, the National Park Service said. Eddy, who was celebrating his birthday, had climbed the mountain 50 times previously.
He was last seen around 8:30 p.m. the day he went missing and was reported as overdue the next day. Rangers “immediately used aerial and ground resources to search likely climbing routes,” the National Park Service said.
Multiple helicopter searchers were conducted, including a National Guard Blackhawk night flight that used infrared sensors to try to detect body heat and other signs of the missing Eddy, but none were found.
Around 9 p.m. on Monday, two climbers reported an unresponsive person in a crevasse at about 11,500 feet along the volcano’s Ingraham Direct climbing route, one of its most popular trails.
After a reconnaissance flight of the area, four climbing rangers and a guide from a private company ascended to the scene and recovered the body, ending a frantic six-day search. The body was then flown off the mountain and will be identified by the Pierce County Medical Examiner, but it is believed to be Eddy.
Eddy previously escaped death on the mountain in March 1999. According to an Associated Press report, Eddy tumbled 1,900 feet down a gully after falling over a cliff before he was rescued by other climbers and rangers. His survival was attributed to soft snow conditions and good luck.
“If this were to happen later in the season when a lot of the softer snow is melted and harder ice or rock [is] exposed, he definitely wouldn’t have survived,” NPS ranger Rick Kirschner said at the time.
The incident was the second death to occur on the mountain in recent days.
Brian Harper, 41, of Bremerton, Wash. collapsed near the summit during a guided climb on May 31. He stopped breathing and CPR was unsuccessful, but no cause of death has been released, the NPS said.