Bangor hiker dies in Baxter rock slide

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BAXTER STATE PARK – A Bangor man was killed and another man seriously injured Saturday afternoon when they were caught in a rock slide near Chimney Pond on Mount Katahdin.

Roger D. Cooper, 51, of Bangor died shortly after 1 p.m. when he was pinned under a 500-pound boulder 4,180 feet up the Cathedral Trail, according to Irvin “Buzz” Caverly, director of the park.

“It’s just one of those unfortunate situations where people were at the wrong place at the wrong time,” Caverly said Sunday.

Rescue personnel reached Cooper’s three hiking partners Saturday night, including Stacey W. Hall, 50, of Somersworth, N.H., who injured his shoulder in the rock slide, Caverly said.

Rescuers helped Hall, Will Williams, 50, of Wells and Frank D. Atkins, 50, of Huntsville, Ala., hike back down the mountain Saturday night. Cooper’s body was airlifted off the trail by helicopter at 11:15 a.m. Sunday, Caverly said.

A 911 emergency call at 1 p.m. Saturday alerted park staff to the accident, and more than 60 search and rescue personnel went to the scene, Caverly said. Crews worked through wet conditions and darkness into Sunday, and two rangers spent the night on the mountain, he said.

Dan Sloan, a ranger at Chimney Pond, was the first person to arrive at the scene of the accident Saturday.

“You could see points of impact where the rocks had bounced,” he said after a debriefing Sunday afternoon at Roaring Brook Campground. “It was just an accident. It happens.”

Hall, Williams and Atkins left the mountain around midnight Saturday, said Sloan, who stayed overnight on Katahdin in order to aid rescue efforts the next morning.

“They looked like they were well-prepared,” he said while fellow rescuers, some visibly tired, lay on the grass and ate sandwiches at the campground.

Cooper, a former forest ranger in California, climbed Katahdin several years ago with his brother-in-law David Jackson of Berwick.

“He did a lot of hiking and walking,” Jackson said Sunday, speaking for the Cooper family. “It’s a tough situation, but everyone’s doing well.”

Cooper, a Bangor Hydro-Electric employee, lived in Bangor for 12 years with his wife, Lori, Jackson said. Cooper and his three friends planned the Katahdin trip three years ago at the 30th reunion of their class from Noble High School in Berwick, he said.

Williams, Atkins and Hall, who declined medical treatment for his shoulder injury, grieved Sunday for their longtime friend, Jackson said.

“They were very pained. It was a really tragic thing,” he said. “You just can’t predict nature.”

The Cooper family was pleased with the performance of Baxter staff in the rescue, Jackson said.

The Cathedral Trail will be closed through July 1 to allow park staff to re-evaluate potential safety hazards on the steep, rugged route, Caverly said.

Cooper’s death marks one year since the last fatality on Mount Katahdin. Dwight Rideout, a 16-year-old from Millinocket, died after becoming lost near Roaring Brook, just below the Basin Ponds, on June 25, 2003.

Saturday’s fatality was the fourth major incident in the park so far this year, the most recent involving an injured New Jersey man who was rescued from the mountain on June 9, Caverly said.

Earlier this summer, three hikers from Quebec became stranded on Mount Katahdin in whiteout conditions, and a man drove his vehicle into a brook, Caverly said.

“It just seems the last couple years there’s been more [accidents],” Caverly said Sunday afternoon during the debriefing. “It’s put a lot of pressure on my staff.”

Avalanches during the winter season pose a more frequent safety risk than rock slides in the summer months, the park director said. Rain and frost heaves may have loosened the three or four boulders that slid down the mountain Saturday afternoon, he said.

“We think [rain] might have been a major contributor,” Caverly said.

Saturday was listed as a Class II day at the state park, a designation that recommends hikers avoid traveling above the tree line, which Cooper and his party did, Caverly said.

Along with Cooper’s accident Saturday, park staff dealt with a man who refused to descend from the back side of Katahdin and reports of shots being fired on the Park Tote Road, Caverly said.

“It’s just crazy that in one day there were so many incidents in the south end of the park,” he said.

In the Cooper party rescue, Dirigo, Lincoln, Mahoosuc and Wilderness search and rescue teams assisted park staff, Caverly said.

“We saved three lives and we lost one,” he said Sunday, concluding the debriefing at Roaring Brook Campground. “One’s too many”