A hiker fell to his death Saturday while taking photos with his wife along a New Hampshire trail, according to authorities.
Joe “Eggy” Eggleston, 59, and his wife Kelly, 57, were snapping photos at the summit of Mount Willard in Crawford Notch around 10:30 a.m. when his wife heard Eggleston yell as he fell off the edge of a steep cliff, the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department said in a statement.
Eggleston fell about 300 feet off the cliffside, but steep terrain and icy conditions impeded the rescue effort for several hours.
Responders eventually made their way to Eggleston around 2:30 p.m. where he was pronounced dead. Rescuers didn’t make their way back up the cliffside with Eggleston’s body until about 6:45 p.m.
He was an engineer on a 1908 coal-powered steam train for the Mount Washington Cog Railway, a rail company that offers scenic tours of the White Mountains region in northern New Hampshire, according to Yankee Magazine.
The rail company commemorated Eggleston in a Facebook post early Monday morning, saying, “His passion for The Cog was evident to anyone who ever shared a moment, or a shift, with him.”
Train Master Andy Villaine also said that “Eggy’s warm smile and passion for what he did will always be remembered by those he touched. I’m honored to have shared a cab with him. His home will always be in these mountains he loved. Gone too soon, never forgotten. That whistle will forever echo off these peaks for you.”
Eggleston’s death comes less than a month after Massachusetts resident Emily Sotelo, 19, froze to death while hiking Mount Lafayette in New Hampshire.
Sotelo was trying to climb all 48 of New Hampshire’s 4,000-foot mountains before she turned 20, the Boston Globe reported. It took rescuers multiple days to recover Sotelo’s body due to inclement weather.
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