19-year-old dies after apparently falling on mountain in Glacier National Park
A 19-year-old western Montana man has died in an apparent fall in Glacier National Park, park officials said.
A man called park dispatch on Tuesday afternoon to report he had planned to climb Mt. Brown with Winslow Nichols of Columbia Falls, but that they became separated.
Park rangers found a vehicle believed to be Nichols' at Lake McDonald Lodge and began a ground search while Two Bear Air started an aerial search.
At about 7 p.m. the helicopter crew spotted Nichols' body on Mt. Brown and recovered it, park officials said in a Wednesday news release.
At an elevation of about 8,500 feet, Mt. Brown has "spring conditions at the top with mixed snow and rocks," officials said.
The circumstances leading to Nichols' death are still under investigation, but rangers suspect he fell while climbing.
The news of Nichols' death came a day after another climber, 32-year-old guide Jillian Elizabeth Webster, was killed and five others were injured on California's Mount Shasta.
More than 2,700 people died at U.S. National Parks from 2007 to 2018, according to a 2020 analysis.