• OK Slip Falls, the Adirondack's highest waterfall.
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OK Slip Falls, the Adirondack's highest waterfall.
OK Slip Falls, the Adirondack's highest waterfall.
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Wayne Failing, rafting guide for Middle Earth Expeditions, walks along the OK Slip Brook to the OK Slip Falls about a half mile in from the Hudson River between Indian Lake and North Creek, NY on September 15, 2009. For LeBrun story about the Hudson River. less
Wayne Failing, rafting guide for Middle Earth Expeditions, walks along the OK Slip Brook to the OK Slip Falls about a half mile in from the Hudson River between Indian Lake and North Creek, NY on September 15, ... more
Photo: LORI VAN BUREN/TIMES UNION, TIMES UNION
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OK Slip Brook taken from a hike to OK Slip Falls which is about a half mile in from the Hudson River between Indian Lake and North Creek, NY on September 15, 2009. For LeBrun story about the Hudson River.
OK Slip Brook taken from a hike to OK Slip Falls which is about a half mile in from the Hudson River between Indian Lake and North Creek, NY on September 15, 2009. For LeBrun story about the Hudson River.
Photo: LORI VAN BUREN/TIMES UNION, TIMES UNION
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OK Slip Falls about a half mile in from the Hudson River between Indian Lake and North Creek, NY on September 15, 2009. For LeBrun story about the Hudson River.
OK Slip Falls about a half mile in from the Hudson River between Indian Lake and North Creek, NY on September 15, 2009. For LeBrun story about the Hudson River.
Photo: LORI VAN BUREN/TIMES UNION, TIMES UNION
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Forest rangers are investigating the death of a hiker in the central Adirondack Mountains.

State Police confirm Saturday that the man was found dead at OK Slip Falls, a trail near Indian Lake that ends at a steep ravine that features a 250-foot waterfall.

The case is being handled by state forest rangers. A spokesman for that agency could not be reached late Saturday afternoon.

The Register of New Haven, Conn., reported the hiker was the city's Chief Public Defender,  Thomas Ullmann died Friday.

Police have not released a cause of death.

Ullmann, 67, had retired from his job last August. He worked for 32 years with the New Haven Public Defender's Office, which handles defendants who are too indigent to hire private attorneys.

The newspaper reported his death stunned those in New Haven's legal community.

"Tommy was a giant and the notion that he's gone is hard to fathom," Norman Pattis, a friend of Ullmann's and a prominent New Haven area defense attorney, said Saturday. "Life is very cruel."

Senior Assistant State's Attorney Eugene Calistro Jr. was another friend of Ullmann. Calistro called Ullmann's death "a huge loss to the legal community."

"I just talked to him the other day," Calistro said. "He told me about the trip he had taken to Italy and all of the things he planned to do with his wife and kids."