Weather delays recovery of Patten native’s body on Mount Rainier

The Associated Press

Posted June 26, 2012, at 3:09 p.m.

National Park Service | AP

Climbing ranger Nick Hall is shown on Mount Rainier in Washington state. Hall, 33, was killed Thursday, June 21, 2012, as he was helping evacuate climbers from a crevasse near the summit of the 14,441-foot mountain.

ASHFORD, Wash. — Foggy, wet weather Tuesday at Mount Rainier National Park again is preventing a helicopter from recovering the body of a ranger.

Park Service public information officer Rick Jones says officials hope for a break in the weather Wednesday that would allow them to recover the body of Nick Hall, a native of Patten, Maine.

Hall died Thursday when he fell about 2,500 feet while helping rescue four climbers after two of them fell into a crevasse on the Emmons glacier. Three of the climbers from Waco, Texas, remain at Madigan Army Medical Center on Tuesday in fair condition.

Hall’s body is at the 11,300-foot level, at a spot threatened by avalanches. He had been a ranger four years.

The park remains open. It gets about 1.5 million visitors a year.