A Lakeville man who went missing while climbing a Wyoming mountain in July was found deceased this week, and officials believe he died from a “tragic accident.”
Grant Gardner 38, was last heard from on the evening of July 29. He texted his wife to let her know that he reached the top of Cloud Peak — at an elevation of more than 13,000 feet — in a rugged wilderness area in north-central Wyoming.
Gardner said the climb was more taxing than he expected, and that he was planning to head to a lower elevation for the night. He never returned.
Despite an extensive air and ground search for Gardner, he was not found and officials last week said they were heartbroken to shift the search from a rescue to a recovery operation.
Gardner’s body was found Wednesday after a professional climbing team from North Carolina summited Cloud Peak on Tuesday and while making camp for the night spotted a slight reflection a few hundred feet above them under a ledge, according to a post on the Big Horn County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page.
The climbers told officials via satellite phone that they were confident the item was a backpack, but because the sun was setting it would be too dangerous to investigate that night.
Authorities asked the climbers to wait to descend until a search-and-rescue team arrived at daylight, the post said.
Search teams prepared during the night and saw that the forecast showed a “very narrow window” before an impending weather system moved in.
Searchers found Gardner’s remains near the backpack. They said it was a difficult and dangerous recovery operation.
The Big Horn County Coroner’s Office is investigating when and how he died, but officials said in the post they “believe Gardner succumbed to a tragic accident as we all have surmised.”
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