A Seattle man who was ascending a climbing route at Denali National Park in Alaska fell 3,000 feet to his death on June 2, the National Park Service said.

Alex Chiu, 41, was climbing along the West Buttress route with two others when he fell from Squirrel Point towards the Peters Glacier icecap. His body was recovered two days later, NPS said in a news release on June 4.

The group was ski mountaineering, which involves climbing uphill before skiing back downhill. Chiu was not using a rope at the time of the fall, officials said.

Denali National Park encompasses more than six million acres of Alaska's wilderness. Mount McKinley, the park's highest peak at more than 20,000 feet, is also the tallest mountain in North America, according to NPS .

Falls are the No. 1 cause of death at th

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