Missing hiker’s body found in Montana mountains after nearly 2-month search

RED LODGE, Mont. — Twenty-three-year-old Tatum Morell set off on West Fork Trailhead near Montana’s Red Lodge on July 2 but never returned.

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The body of the experienced hiker and Montana State University graduate student in engineering was discovered by a group of hikers Saturday in the White Tail Peak area, the victim of an apparent rockslide, the Billings Gazette reported.

According to the newspaper, Morell had not been heard from since the night of July 1, when she contacted family using a Garmin InReach satellite communicator, but search-and-rescue officials were never able to obtain a signal from the satellite communicator or a cell phone throughout the seven-week search.

Carbon County Sheriff Josh McQuillan told KTVQ that the hikers, who first noticed a piece of hiking equipment on the trail, were aware of the ongoing search efforts, and a closer look of the area revealed Morell’s body beneath what appeared to be a rockslide in an area that had been previously searched.

The hikers provided authorities with GPS coordinates, and McQuillan told the TV station that they confirmed the location of Morell’s body on Sunday morning in a helicopter owned by the Yellowstone County Sheriff’s Office.

Morell, an Idaho native who had completed similar hiking and camping trips in the past, had intended to summit five peaks above 12,000 feet in Beartooth Mountains during her trek, McQuillan told the Billings Gazette.

He also stated that while it is difficult to estimate distance in the mountains, Morell’s body may have been found about half a mile from her Shadow Lake campsite, the newspaper reported.

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