A 25-year-old Bremerton man was rescued Tuesday after falling down an embankment under the High Steel Bridge. Raymond Horton was hiking with friends near the bottom of the ravine under the Bridge when he slipped and fell to the water embankment of the south fork of the Skokomish River. Mason County’s Special Operations Response Team (SORT) responded to the bridge and used a rope team to hoist Horton 420 feet to safety. Horton was transported to Mason General Hospital and treated for a leg injury. The SORT Team has personnel from the Mason County Sheriff’s Office, Central Mason Fire & EMS, and Mason County Fire Districts 4, 6, 9 & 18.
The High Steel Bridge, located off of US Forest Service Road #2340 in the Olympic National Forest, was built by the Simpson Logging Company in 1929 as a railway bridge and it stands 420 feet above the south fork of the Skokomish River, which makes it the highest bridge in Washington State.