EPA's Montana director suffers fatal fall on hike

A 64-year-old Environmental Protection Agency official died after tumbling down a cliff Thursday night while descending Snowshoe Peak with a fellow hiker, law-enforcement officials confirmed.

John F. Wardell, who had been director of EPA’s Montana office in Helena for the past 25 years, slipped and fell approximately 200-300 feet, according to Capt. Roby Bowe of the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office. His friend determined that he was unconscious, Bowe said, and took nearly three hours to get down the trail and call for help.

Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office received the call at about 7 p.m. David Thompson Search and Rescue, sheriff officers, the U.S. Forest Service and ALERT helicopter responded. It was dark by the time the Forest Service and ALERT helicopters located Wardell.

“It was too dark to send rescuers due to the terrain – the cliffs and slippery slopes,” Bowe said about the area, which is just above Leigh Lake, southwest of Libby.

An additional helicopter from Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls responded at about midnight but was also unsuccessful in a rescue, Bowe said.

Wardell was not reached until late morning or early Friday afternoon, Bowe said, when a thunderstorm finally subsided and allowed a Malmstrom helicopter to respond. The Forest Service helicopter landed and released rescuers on the ground within a half-mile of Wardell, while the Malmstrom chopper dropped a medic beside Wardell.

He was pronounced dead at the scene, Bowe said.

Wardell had a passion for hiking in the Rocky Mountains and in Canada. He was a member of the Alpine Club of Canada and had climbed all of the “14ers” in Colorado and several other peaks north of the border.

Snowshoe Peak’s terrain has caused injuries and fatalities in the past.

“It’s one of our more active search and rescue areas in the Cabinet Mountains,” Bowe said.

Wardell worked for EPA for 33 years and served the last quarter century as director of Montana’s office. He supervised most major federal environmental cleanups in the state, including asbestos cleanup in Libby.

Mike Cirian, the EPA field leader in Libby, worked with Wardell. 

“It’s a tragic loss for everybody in the EPA family,” he said Friday, “as well as his own family.”

Jon Tester issued a statement Friday, offering his condolences, saying that Wardell’s death was “tough news for all Montanans.”

“He was a public servant who truly left Montana a better place than he found it,” Tester said.

Wardell leaves behind a wife, Sandy, of Helena, and a son, Christopher, 28, of Denver.