Who was Joe Eggleston? Hiker who plunged 300ft to death off cliff while taking photos with wife was railwayman
HART'S LOCATION, NEW HAMPSHIRE: A steam train engineer who hiked New Hampshire and plunged 300 feet to his death while capturing pictures with his wife has been identified. Due to snow, Mountain Rescue Service technicians were only able to climb down the cliff about three hours after the tragedy occurred.
On December 10, the hiker Joe Eggleston, and his wife, Kelley, went hiking to the summit of Mount Willard in Crawford Notch, and on reaching the summit, Eggleston fell off the cliff while the couple attempted to take pictures, according to the Daily Mail.
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Who is Joe Eggleston?
Joe "Eggy" Eggleston, 59, worked as Mount Washington Cog Railway's steam train engineer, onboard Waumbek, a 1908 coal-powered train that took the trekkers to the largest mountain east of Mississippi that is Mount Washington summit, reports the Daily Mail.
Eggleston was on a hike to the summit of Mount Willard in Crawford Notch, New Hampshire along with his wife. However, a tragic incident unfolded as he tried taking photographs with his wife after reaching the summit and unfortunately fell hundreds of feet off the cliff.
MEAWW previously reported that the incident took place at around 10.30 am. His wife Kelley heard her husband yell and she looked over finding him falling over the edge of the mountain. After she called 911, the Mountain Rescue Service technicians tackled icy conditions and located Eggleston about 300 feet below the summit. They found him dead at the place around 2.30 pm. Taking several hours to clear the path, the deceased hiker was carried down to the parking lot of the trailhead by the crew and they reached the area at around 6.45 pm.
"Eggy, living gracefully with profound hearing loss since childhood, once said to us "where else could a deaf man fulfill his dream of running a steam locomotive?" His passion for The Cog was evident to anyone who ever shared a moment, or a shift, with him", wrote the Mount Washington Cog Railway colleagues of Eggleston who expressed their grief over the tragic incident through a post shared on Facebook.
Paying tribute to his friend Eggleston, one of his friends and train master of the Mo Mount Washington Cog Railway Andy Vanguard wrote: "A tragic loss of a great man and a true Cogger. RIP to Joe “Eggy” Eggleston. 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." and shared a few pictures of him at work.
The tragic news of Eggleston's death comes just weeks after one after a 19-year-old named Emily Sotelo was found frozen to death at another summit of New Hampshire. She was attempting to reach her goal of hiking to all of the state's 48 peaks.
With an elevation of 2,865 feet, the Mount Willard Trail where Eggleston's death took place is 3.1 miles (5 km) long out and back with an elevation gain of 908 feet (277 m)