Update: Body of hiker who fell near summit of North Sister located
This story was updated at 5:20 p.m. Thursday
Lane County Sheriff Search and Rescue personnel have located and identified the climber from Bend who fell several hundred feet to his death Monday while climbing to the summit of North Sister.
The body of Joel Tranby, 21, of Bend was spotted through drone footage and aerial photographs taken earlier in the week. His body was located by helicopter Thursday, but due to extremely loose and steep rocky terrain officials have yet to launch recovery.
Lane County Sheriff's Search and Rescue is consulting expert climbers from "various sources" to determine if a recovery mission can be safely conducted, according to a press release.
Original story
The Lane County Sheriff's Office said a climber who fell Monday near the summit of 10,085-foot North Sister is presumed dead after two days of search and rescue efforts.
"It has moved to a recovery operation at this point," said Tom Speldrich of the Lane County Sheriff's Office.
A woman called at 12:18 p.m. Monday and said her partner had fallen 300 to 500 feet and she could not see him, the sheriff's office said.
Speldrich said the man was communicating at the time of the call, but when rescue teams arrived at 3:14 p.m. he was no longer responding.
Speldrich said once the sheriff's office received the call, a Search and Rescue coordinator and a mountain rescue volunteer went to the Eugene Airport and flew to the area via Life Flight.
The Oregon National Guard joined the search in another helicopter. The Deschutes County Sheriff's Office Mountain Rescue and others also assisted.
The search continued Tuesday with help from the Civil Air Patrol and volunteer ground teams from Corvallis and Eugene Mountain Rescues. Responders used a small camera drone to search the steep, rocky area where the victim is believed to have fallen, but no clues were located.
The recovery operation will be based off of photo evidence from Tuesday's aerial search, Speldrich said.
"So the hope there was to be able to find a sign or a picture so that they can see where he's at, because they still don't know exactly where he is," Speldrich said. "While on a horizontal plane, he may only be 50 yards from a ledge he came off of, on a vertical plane, that could be several hundred feet."
Charles Gearing is a breaking news reporter with the Eugene Register-Guard. He can be reached at cgearing@gannett.com or by phone at 708-262-7626.
This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Body of Bend hiker who fell near summit of North Sister located
