A 63-year-old man suffered fatal injuries Saturday when he slipped off a popular trail in Skagit County and fell 200 to 250 feet, according to sheriff's deputies.
He was part of an eight-person group hiking Sauk Mountain, a 5,545-foot-tall peak that overlooks the Sauk and Skagit river valleys in the North Cascades. The steep, narrow trail goes for about two miles, full of exposed switchbacks.
The accident was reported at 2:04 p.m., and arriving deputies found hikers and bystanders administering CPR and trying to stop the man's bleeding, said Sgt. Steve Gonzales of the Skagit County sheriff's office. The man's identity had not been released as of Saturday evening, and the incident remained under investigation, Gonzales said.
Saturday's tragedy was the second Cascades hiking death in September. Andrew Wong, 37, of Long Island, New York, fell near Dragontail Peak in the Enchantments on Sept. 7.
Previously, a woman from Birch Bay died in a fall on Sauk Mountain in 2017, and a woman from Connecticut fatally fell in 2018.
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