By The Chronicle staff
A two-vehicle collision near Alder Lake resulted in the death of a well-known Mount Rainier National Park volunteer on Sept. 1, according to the Washington State Patrol.
Annemarie Randall, an 88-year-old woman from Ashford, was announced deceased on Sept. 2 following the notification of next of kin.
The accident occurred about 3:36 p.m. Sept. 1, when Randall, the driver of a 2015 Subaru Legacy traveling southbound on Alder Cutoff Road, failed to stop at the stop sign at state Route 7. A 2001 Chevrolet Silverado truck, traveling northbound on state Route 7, struck the Subaru.
According to the state patrol, the vehicles came to rest on state Route 7, blocking both directions of traffic for roughly two hours and 21 minutes.
The driver of the Chevrolet, Larry E. Magill, 82, of Eatonville, was transported to Tacoma General Hospital with injuries.
Randall was declared dead at the scene, though her identity was not released until the following day.
Both drivers were wearing seatbelts. No drugs or alcohol were involved.
Randall was featured in The Chronicle for her volunteer work and hikes at Mount Rainier National Park in 2018.
Randall, who was 81 at the time, told The Chronicle she had lived just outside the park’s entrance for the better part of three decades. She was hiking in the park at least four times a week.
“Born in Munich in 1937, Annemarie grew up amid the horrors of Nazi Germany,” former Chronicle reporter Alex Brown wrote. “After the war, though, as she got older, she began to find joy in the mountains. When she was 17, she joined the local chapter of Naturfreunde, a conservation and outdoor recreation organization, partially because of a romantic interest in a young man who was a member of the club. Within a year, Annemarie was organizing group expeditions — trips to Italy, Switzerland and Austria. She’d hop on a motorcycle with her fiancé, somehow managing to bring along two pairs of skis, and head for the mountains.”
