Missing California engineer found dead at Grand Teton National Park, officials say

A man found dead at the base of a Wyoming mountain has been identified as Hitoshi Onoe, a 42-year-old Japanese national who worked as an IT engineer in San Jose, California.

His body was discovered on Sept. 4 by another climber who was climbing up Teewinot Mountain in Grand Teton National Park, according to a Sept. 6 news release from park officials.

Onoe was traveling alone and had been staying in an Airbnb in Jackson, Teton County Coroner Brent Blue told The Jackson Hole Daily.

Park rangers believe he was climbing alone and attempting to ascend the East Face route based on a marked map that was found with him, according to the release from park officials.

Many climbers regard the area as being difficult to navigate, the Daily said.

The East Face is rated a Class 4 climb, The Mercury News reported, but local guides say that the East Face is on the difficult end of that range.

“It’s very underrated,” Jim Woodmencey, who worked as a Jenny Lake climbing ranger for 14 summers, told the Daily. “It’s real easy to get off-route there. There’s so many ledges and goat paths from people zig-zagging up the East Face.”

Onoe’s body was found near the base of the Black Chimney route, which is known for crumbling rock and black ice, The Mercury News reported.

Teewinot Mountain has claimed other lives in the past. In 2015, two Jackson women died after getting off-route and falling from a 200-foot ledge, the Daily reported.

Teton County Sheriff Matt Carr told the Daily that climbing Teewinot is deceptively difficult.

“It’s so easy to underestimate it,” he said. “You’ll read the guidebooks and they’ll say it’s fourth-class climbing and yeah, if you’re right on route it is, but it’s nearly impossible to stay right on route and that’s where people underestimate it and get into big-time trouble.”