The Baker City man who died last weekend when the car he was driving careened off a road near Huntington, went down a steep slope and landed in the Burnt River, was apparently returning from a weekend fishing trip on Brownlee Reservoir.

Daniel Earl Marshall, 55, died in the crash.

Baker County Sheriff Travis Ash said on Wednesday, April 23, that Sgt. Craig Rilee is leading the investigation and has talked with Marshall’s relatives.

The sheriff’s office’s search and rescue team recovered Marshall’s 2005 Subaru Outback during a three-hour operation on Monday morning.

Marshall was in the driver’s seat and his seat belt was buckled, Ash said.

Police haven’t found any evidence that another vehicle was involved, or that excessive speed was a factor, Ash said.

He said he doesn’t know whether the county medical examiner will order tests to determine whether Marshall was intoxicated or otherwise impaired, or order an autopsy to determine the cause of death.

Baker County District Attorney Greg Baxter said he doesn’t expect there will be an autopsy given that there was a single car, with only the driver, involved.

Based on the investigation so far, Ash said, it appears that Marshall, who was driving west, toward Huntington, on the Snake River Road, failed to make a corner. The paved road has no guardrails in that area, which is between Brownlee Reservoir and a bridge over the Burnt River.

It’s not clear when Marshall went off the road.

The crew of a Union Pacific Railroad freight train reported a white vehicle in the river at 9:54 a.m. on Sunday, April 20.

The search and rescue team assessed the situation on Sunday and decided to return the next day to set up ropes to allow a person to reach the car and attach lines for Halfway Towing and Repair, which pulled the car to shore.

Ash said the county’s ropes rescue team, which had a four-day training last fall and practices regularly, anchored ropes to the railroad bridge and to a three-quarter-ton diesel pickup.

He said team members were concerned that Marshall’s car, which was “bouncing up and down” in the snowmelt-swollen river’s swift current, was not stable.

But the car stayed in position during the recovery, and Derek Miller, a member of the SAR team, attached ropes to the car.

Ash said two experts in swiftwater recovery were at the site to help Miller if needed.

Ash called the operation “high risk” due to the strong current.

“The risk factor is the water flow and all that hydraulic pressure,” he said.

Ash said the river is 3 to 4 feet deep but with pockets that are about twice as deep.

He said windows in the Subaru were broken during the crash, which allowed water to pour into the car after it landed in the river.

The car was swept almost 100 yards downstream from where it went into the river, according to the sheriff’s office.