(Reuters) - A ranger at Mount Rainier National Park in Washington state fell 3,700 feet to his death late Thursday during a rescue effort for two climbers who had fallen into a crevasse, the Seattle Times reported.

Nick Hall, 34, was part of a rescue team that went to the aid of a party of four climbers, two men and two women, from Waco, Texas, the paper said, citing a National Park Service spokesman. The women had fallen into a crevasse during their descent from Mount Rainier's 14,411-foot (4,392-metre) summit on Thursday afternoon.

Hall, originally from Patten, Maine, fell as he was preparing some of the party to be airlifted off the mountain by helicopter, the paper said. Climbers reached his body several hours later and confirmed his death.

Park officials did not disclose the incident until late Thursday after notification of Hall's next of kin, the paper said.

A spokesman for the park service did not immediately return a phone call for comment.

Hall's is the second death of a Mount Rainier park ranger this year. Margaret Anderson, 34, was shot and killed on New Year's Day at a roadblock when she stopped a man suspected in a New Year's Eve shooting in Seattle.

(Reporting By Dan Burns; Editing by Vicki Allen)