LONGMIRE, Wash. — Mount Rainier National Park officials hope they will finally be able to recover the body of a climbing ranger who was killed in a fall two weeks ago during a rescue operation.

A dog was to accompany six rangers in an Army helicopter to help them find the body of Nick Hall, said park spokeswoman Patti Wold. Rangers have the coordinates, but the body has been buried by snow and will have to be dug out, she said.

Snow storms, clouds and avalanche danger prevented its removal in the days after the June 21 accident. Officials didn’t want to unnecessarily risk the loss of another life in a recovery attempt.

A Chinook helicopter from Joint Base Lewis-McChord took a reconnaissance flight Thursday morning so the crew could check winds and look for signs of avalanches at the site on the Winthrop glacier on the 11,300-foot level of the mountain, Wold said.

If conditions allow, the helicopter will pick up the rangers and dog at the Sunrise ranger station and fly to the site, about four miles away by air. It’s unknown how long the recovery will take, but it could be completed by Thursday afternoon, Wold said.

Rangers who found Hall dead the day of his fall, have already put the body on a litter. When it couldn’t be removed it was anchored while everyone waited for better weather, which finally arrived Thursday with clear skies.

Plans call for the body to be flown back to the Sunrise ranger station and then driven to the Pierce County medical examiner’s office in Tacoma. If time and conditions permit, the copter also may recover some gear that was left during the initial rescue operation, Wold said.

Hall fell 2,500 feet while helping rescue four climbers from Waco, Texas, after two of them fell into a crevasse on the Emmons glacier at the 13,800-foot level on their way down from the 14,411-foot summit.

The 33-year-old Hall was a four-year climbing ranger originally from Patten, Maine. The park held a memorial service June 29 for Hall at the Paradise ranger station. His family is holding a memorial service for Hall on Friday at the United Methodist Church in Patten.

Mount Rainier is about 60 miles southeast of Seattle where the volcano towers over the skyline on a clear day. The national park attracts 1.5 million visitors a year. About 10,000 climbers a year attempt to climb the mountain, and about half make it to the summit.