GRAFTON TOWNSHIP – Rescuers who helped retrieve the body of a man found Monday morning on a ledge midway down a cliff on a hiking trail in Grafton Notch State Park described the operation as challenging and dangerous.

Many of them also returned late Tuesday afternoon to the same Eyebrow Trail area on Old Speck mountain to help carry out a Rumford hiker who suffered dehydration seizures.

According to Maine Warden Service spokesman Mark Latti, the body of Paul Marsh, believed to be in his early 50s, was found at the bottom of a 160 foot drop.

“It appears to be a suicide,” Latti said by phone on Wednesday afternoon in Augusta. Investigators are still waiting for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner to determine cause and time of death before closing the investigation.

According to Mahoosuc Mountain Rescue Team president Bob Baribeau of Bethel and member Toshio Hashimoto of Rumford, Marsh’s body was found on one of a band of ledges.

Both Baribeau and Hashimoto said the man had left things behind leading to the ledge, including a set of keys.

Baribeau said two other hikers had found the keys and other items he didn’t identify and took them down to the Appalachian Trail parking lot off Route 26 and left them on the car that a key fit.

An organized search didn’t start until 8:30 a.m. on Monday. Marsh’s body was located two hours later.

According to the Appalachian Mountain Club’s Maine Mountain Guide, at 4,180 feet high, Old Speck is Maine’s third-highest peak.

Called out again

Many of the same rescuers also returned late Tuesday afternoon to the Eyebrow Trail area to help carry out a Rumford hiker, Thomas Culver, 30, who suffered dehydration seizures.

Latti said a group of hikers reached the tower on Old Speck without problem climbing the Appalachian Trail, also known as Old Speck Trail, a distance of about four miles.

Then, they turned around to hike back to the parking lot. Just above the Eyebrow Trail intersection with the Appalachian Trail, nearly two miles up the mountain, Culver began to have seizures, Latti and Baribeau said.

The girlfriend stayed with Culver, who also fell on the trail and scraped a knee and was unable to walk due to dehydration. The others hiked out and called 911. Latti said the warden service was notified at about 4:45 p.m. and sent four wardens. Other rescuers responding included, Mahoosuc Rescue; Bethel Rescue; Andover, Mexico and Rumford firefighters, and Outward Bound of Newry. Overall, about 30 people came to help.

Latti said a medical team went up first to determine if it could rehydrate Culver with intravenous fluids. But that failed, and they realized Culver was unable to walk, so a carry-out team hiked up and brought him out to the parking lot by about 11:30 p.m. Culver was then taken by ambulance to Rumford Hospital.