Northern California authorities have identified a climber who died earlier this month after falling 2,000 feet down a glacier on Mount Shasta in Siskiyou County.
“The Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office offers ... heartfelt condolences to the family and loved ones of Matias Travizano,” the office said.
Travizano was a physicist and entrepreneur who lived in California, where he worked as a visiting scholar at the University of California at Berkeley’s HuMNet Lab, according to the lab’s website.
The group reached the summit of Mount Shasta in the early morning of Sept. 12 before descending on the Clear Creek Route, considered one of the mountain’s safer trails, according to the sheriff’s office.
On the descent, two of the climbers accidentally wandered off trail, becoming stranded on an ice sheet at the northern tip of Wintun Glacier, at around 13,500 feet, the sheriff’s office said.
The two climbers realized they were on the wrong route and attempted to glissade down—or slide carefully down—the ice-covered slope to reenter the trail at a lower point.
While sliding down the ice, Travizano began sliding out of control and collided with a large boulder, about 300 feet below his climbing partner, according to authorities.
Travizano appeared to have been knocked unconscious by the impact for up to 10 minutes while the second hiker tried to reach him, according to the statement.
When his hiking partner got within about 80 feet of Travizano, he regained consciousness and started moving.
“Tragically, this movement dislodged him from the rock and he slid down the remainder of the glacier and out of sight,” the sheriff’s office said.
The third hiker arrived on scene and called 911 to report the incident.
A search and rescue team from the sheriff’s office and the U.S. Forest Service climbing rangers, along with a California Highway Patrol aircraft team, searched for Travizano.
Highway Patrol air operations found the missing hiker dead at about 10,200 feet near the base of the Wintun Glacier a couple of hours later, according to the sheriff’s office.
While Clear Creek Rout is considered a safer trail to the summit, climbers can become disoriented in low-visibility conditions, especially when descending from the summit plateau, the sheriff’s office reported.
“Once off trail, these climbers often wander into more hazardous areas in the Ash Creek or Mud Creek drainages, where accidents are more likely to occur,” the sheriff’s office said.
Travizano is the second man to die after reaching the summit of Mount Shasta this year.
He and his climbing partner were returning to their base camp when they also became disoriented and could not locate their campsite, which was at about 11,000 feet of elevation. His friend eventually located the camp but reported his partner missing after he didn’t return.
Rescuers were hindered by bad weather and didn’t locate the man until the next day, when he was found at the base of a cliff, wedged between the slope and an ice sheet.
He was found with significant injuries and flown to a hospital in Redding, California, but later died from his injuries.
