The death came two days after another hiker died on the same mountain trail in northwestern Washington, officials said.

A green and tree-lined hillside with switchback trails along it and mountains on the horizon.

The switchbacks of Sauk Mountain trail.Credit...Washington State Parks

Johnny Diaz

By Johnny Diaz

Sept. 24, 2026, 3:12 p.m. ET

A man died after plummeting several hundred feet during a mountain hike in Washington last week, local authorities said, days after another hiker died on the same mountain.

Gary Idleburg, 66, of Olympia, Wash., was hiking on a zigzagging switchback trail on Sauk Mountain on Saturday when other hikers observed him falling 800 to 1,000 feet off the edge of the trail, the Skagit County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement released earlier this week.

“Emergency personnel immediately began lifesaving efforts; however, Mr. Idleburg was pronounced deceased at the scene,” the Sheriff’s Office said.

Sauk Mountain, which is about 100 miles north of Seattle, reaches a peak of about 5,500 feet and has a popular hiking trail filled with switchbacks.

Mr. Idleburg’s death came two days after another hiker on the mountain, Peter Kalapaca, 78, was reported missing, the Sheriff’s Office said in a separate statement this week.

Mr. Kalapaca was last seen about 12:30 p.m. on Sept. 17 near the top of the Sauk Mountain Trail. During search efforts the following day and evening, a helicopter crew found Mr. Kalapaca “in steep terrain that was inaccessible” to ground search and rescue teams, the authorities said.

“Sadly, he was not moving and was deceased when found,” the Sheriff’s Office said. The statement did not describe a cause of death. The Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for more details on Thursday.

The Sauk Mountain Trail was temporarily closed during the recovery efforts but has since reopened.

Mr. Kalapaca’s son, Andy, thanked emergency crews for their efforts in a post on Facebook.

“We are fortunate he didn’t suffer and that his last steps were doing something he very much enjoyed rather than a hospice bed,” Andy Kalapaca wrote.

“He went doing what he loved,” he said in a separate post with photos of his father.

The Sauk Mountain trail is a 4.2-mile round-trip, according to the Washington Trails Association.

The trail group described it as “steep and narrow, and in some places eroded from hikers cutting the switchbacks.”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5906543&forum_id=2#50153686)