Image via Shutterstock Authorities have sadly found the body of a missing woman after she failed to return to a cruise ship docked in Alaska. The woman died while venturing away from her cruise for a hike near Juneau.

Marites Buenafe, originally from Kentucky, told her family she'd disembarked from the Norwegian Bliss for a hike. She never came back to the ship.

When Buenafe failed to return to the ship that afternoon, a large-scale search and rescue operation was launched using canine teams, helicopters, and drones. An update from Alaska State Troopers reports her body was spotted just before noon Thursday by an Alaska Army National Guard helicopter crew approximately 1,700ft (518m) below the ridge.