A Texas man fell to his death while on a climbing trip with his son in Washington state.
Dallas resident Robert Jake Colburn, 60, died while descending Washington's Aasgard Pass earlier this week, according to a statement from the Chelan County Sheriff's Office. Rescue personnel said Colburn appeared to have slipped and fallen several hundred feet.
Colburn's son, 23, called a regional dispatch on Thursday night just before 11 p.m. to report that his father had not returned to base camp after climbing the mountain pass.
Colburn was last seen at approximately 3 p.m. on Thursday descending Aasgard Pass on his way back to camp. He had been descending the pass with three other people, then got ahead of the group and began hiking alone, Jerome Moore, a patrol sergeant with Chelan County Sheriff's Office, told NBC News.
On Friday morning, four Chelan County Mountain Rescue personnel entered the area to search for Colburn. A helicopter used in the search located him at approximately 1:30 p.m. around the 7,300-foot elevation level on the mountain pass. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Aasgard Pass reaches 7,800 feet in elevation at its highest point and rises nearly 2,000 feet in three-quarters of a mile. It can be "treacherous" and "punishing," according to the Washington Trails Association, and should only be climbed by experienced hikers.