A body was found below High Steel Bridge in Mason County, Thursday afternoon. Mason County Coroner Jaime Taylor told KIRO that her office has determined the deceased to be a 22-year-old man.
Taylor said that although her office has yet to conduct an official autopsy, it is likely that the body had been in the canyon below High Steel Bridge for more than a week before it was located by officials via drone surveillance.
According to a Facebook post by the Mason County Sheriff’s Office, deputies, search and rescue, and detectives worked with search and rescue teams from Jefferson County, and Olympic Mountain Rescue to retrieve the deceased. The public was urged to stay away from the area Thursday afternoon as emergency teams swept the area.
Taylor said her office is working to contact the family of the deceased and will perform an official autopsy in the coming week.
The young man’s death comes as the latest in a long history of deaths and injuries surrounding High Steel Bridge. Built by the Simpson logging company in 1929 and converted to a road around the 1960s, it has remained a point of public safety controversy in the county as officials have struggled to keep the public away from the site. In 2019, following several incidents the county increased the penalties for trespassing on the area around High Steel Bridge.
A trail does descend the over 360 feet into the canyon below, but hikers are advised by the Washington Trails association, to stay away and called the path ‘too dangerous’. Taylor told KIRO, that pending an investigation, it is likely that the man fell from the bridge.
Following the fall of a teen from the bridge in 2024, Mason County reported to the media that crews are called into the area ‘three to five times a year’. At the time, Fire Chief Matthew Welander said that for every person that survives the fall, 20 die.
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