Body recovered from Boise Foothills was missing hiker, coroner says

A body that was discovered in the Boise Foothills on Wednesday night has been positively identified as a hiker who went missing in early February, according to Boise County Chief Deputy Coroner Mike Johnson.

Kyle Crowden, 27, was last heard from on Feb. 9.

Crowden was found about 8.5 to 9 miles up Bogus Basin Road near Dry Creek, which is in Boise County. An autopsy done Friday morning by the Ada County Coroner’s Office found no sign of foul play or injury, Johnson said.

Conditions were cold and snowy at the time Crowden went missing, so he may have died of exposure. But his cause of death won’t be known until toxicology tests have come back, Johnson said.

The all-volunteer Idaho Mountain Search and Rescue Unit, which deployed teams on snowcats and snowmobiles, suspended search efforts on Feb. 11 due to poor weather conditions, and they resumed the search on March 18.

Ada County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Patrick Orr said in an interview Thursday that law enforcement first received a report of a possible body in the Foothills on Wednesday evening.

A man was looking for antler sheds near the confluence of Dry Creek and Shingle Creek on Wednesday, Orr said, when he saw what appeared to be a body in a ravine. He reported the sighting to the Ada Sheriff’s Office, but search efforts were delayed by Wednesday’s thunderstorms.

On Thursday morning, the man led crews to the area. Officials were able to recover the body, which they then transported down several miles of trails. According to a blog post by the Ada County Sheriff’s Office, the body was located 30 or 40 feet off of Dry Creek Trail.

This story was originally published March 28, 2019 at 4:32 PM.