A 40-year-old Lake Stevens man is dead after suffering an accident while hiking in Okanogan County on Sunday morning.

Chief Criminal Deputy Rick Balam with the Okanogan County Sheriff's Office says the incident occurred just after 11 a.m. on Kangaroo Ridge near Washington Pass.

"The victim was apparently looking for minerals since that's what they did for a hobby. And they were on a very steep slope and fell about 25 feet and suffered some type of a fatal injury."

Volunteers with Okanogan County Search and Rescue responded to the location after the man's hiking partner notified the sheriff's office about the accident. However, Balam says they weren't able to remove the victim's body until the following day, since all regional air resources were unavailable.

"I was able to insert a hasty team of three people into the location and it took a couple of hours to get into where they were. They confirmed that someone was deceased at the site and reported it would be extremely difficult to make a removal of the victim's body on foot. So after trying several sources for a removal which are nearer to us and having no success, I was finally able to get ahold of 2 Bear Air out of Kalispell, Montana who agreed to come in and do a removal."

The man's remains were flown from the scene via helicopter at around 10:30 on Monday morning.

The victim's name is not being released to the media.

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