An Oregon man died after getting lost on a hike and apparently falling off a cliff near Ketchikan, according to Alaska State Troopers.
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Searchers found the man, believed to be 49-year-old Portland resident Heath Didier, near Silvis Lake early Monday after he had gotten lost near the Deer Mountain trail on Sunday.
Didier sent an alert Sunday night using a locator beacon with messaging capabilities saying he was lost, cold and wet and did not have water, food or proper clothing, troopers said.
Troopers lost contact with Didier about an hour later, around 10:30 p.m., and the Ketchikan Volunteer Rescue Squad started searching from the Silvis Lake Trail. They were unable to locate him on foot.
Volunteer rescuers began a helicopter search Monday morning. They found a man believed to be Didier dead and partially submerged in water at the bottom of a cliff at about 9:40 a.m.
The body matched Didier’s physical description and is near his last known location, trooper spokesperson Austin McDaniel said.
Crews were unable to recover the body but planned to return Tuesday.
Didier reportedly told troopers he had intended to hike to Blue Lake and return. He had picked up the locator beacon from the Ketchikan Visitors Bureau, which helped them pinpoint his location. Using that and a compass on his phone, troopers tried to get him back on the trail before losing contact. They believe his phone died.
Another trooper spokesperson, Justin Freeman, told the Anchorage Daily News that Didier appeared to have fallen off a cliff about 400 yards from the intersection of two trails.
Didier did a lot of things right, like carrying the locator beacon, said Jerry Kiffer with the Ketchikan Volunteer Rescue Squad.
But Kiffer urged hikers to be cautious about going off trails and to be prepared to be outside overnight. Kiffer recommended that anyone who is the subject of a search stay put.
“The trip took longer than he anticipated,” Kiffer said. “He got off of the trail, and it got dark, and at that point, activate your beacon, and don’t go anywhere, just sit down and wait. We’ll come, we’ll send a team up to help you out, but walking around in that country at night is not a good idea.”
It is not clear whether Didier was visiting Ketchikan or in town on a longer-term basis.
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