Mountain climber dies in Sierra. Authorities to retrieve body beneath California peak
UPDATE: Climber was a doctor and search and rescue volunteer
Authorities are working to retrieve the body of a mountain climber who apparently fell to his death in a remote area of the Sierra Nevada.
The male hiker, who was not named, was on Mount Humphreys, on the border between Fresno and Inyo counties. The California peak, nearly 14,000 feet tall, is located above the Eastern Sierra community of Bishop.
Fresno County Sheriff’s spokesman Tony Botti said the Inyo County Sheriff’s Office reached out around noon Sunday, saying the man “fell off some large boulders along the western slope” of the peak on the Fresno County side. That report came from a hiker who “was able to scale the granite slope and determine the man was deceased.”
Fresno County’s EAGLE One helicopter flew over the area and spotted the man’s body a few hundred feet below the peak of the mountain.
That helicopter and a search and rescue team were still working to recover the body late Monday morning. No more information about the hiker or incident was immediately available from authorities.
This story was originally published August 3, 2020 at 1:56 PM.
