Revised January 2024
There are relatively few deaths on Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) thru-hikes, considering the number of hikers, and the leading causes of death are heat exhaustion, falls, and drowning due to either misadventure or bad luck. There have been 15 deaths on the PCT since 1983. Their stories are listed below.
What is the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), how long and where is it?
For an article covering the PCT background, read the article at The Disturbing Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) disappearances.
LIST OF PCT DEATHS
Gerald Duran and Jodi Zatchick
Since its formation in 1977, there has been only one known attempt to hike the PCT in winter, by the couple Gerald Duran and Jodi Zatchick in 1983. They were traveling south to north and were hiking towards Wrightwood, California, to resupply when they got lost. They had started down the wrong canyon and ended up on much steeper terrain than their planned Acorn Trail route. As they were climbing down, they slipped on ice and fell several hundred feet off a cliff to their deaths.
Jane and Flicka Rodman
On Sunday, November 19, 1995, Jane and Flicka Rodman, two young long-distance hikers from Worcester, Massachusetts, were killed near Pearblossom. The couple had started their PCT through-hike at the Canadian border in July and hiked south, allowing this year’s unusually heavy Sierra snows to melt ahead of their arrival. They had left the trail, apparently trying to catch up with another southbound couple a few days ahead. While walking eastward on a path along Highway 138, some distance from the trail itself, they were struck and killed by a driver who lost control of his vehicle after falling asleep at the wheel.
John Lowder: Dr Lowder, 69, a doctor from San Diego, was hiking the Pacific Crest Trail from East San Diego County to Canada when he was found dead June 5, 1999, near Lone Pine. He was an able and experienced hiker, and he had begun his hike on April 23 at Boulder Oaks, where the Pacific Crest Trail crosses Old Highway 80. He had hoped to complete the through-hike by October.
With a snowstorm expected, Dr Lowder had separated from his hiking group as he struggled to keep up with them. He decided to hike down the mountain, but as the storm hit, his vision became impaired. He tripped or slid on ice and fell about 60 feet from a cliff into a canyon. Despite breaking both legs and an arm, John survived the fall and was able to crawl into his sleeping bag. But his injuries were too much, and by the time hikers reached him the next day, he was dead. "He broke his own rule: Never hike alone," said his former wife, Ida Lowder.
John Donovan
John Joseph Donovan, 59, was hiking near Southern California's Mt. San Jacinto on May 6, 2005. That day, a blizzard dropped 8 inches of snow and he was trapped on the mountain.
John was a veteran hiker who was a notoriously lousy navigator and reckless with it. He had strayed from the Pacific Crest Trail, which he was thru-hiking. He carried no compass, useful maps, or a compass and only a tarp instead of a tent and socks in place of gloves, and he had few provisions. He always traveled Ultra-light, so if things went wrong he was in trouble.
He was an active member of the Old Dominion and Tidewater Appalachian Trail Clubs and had just retired after 20 years as a licensed clinical social worker with Central State Hospital. He served 15 years in the United States Navy.
Around 1 pm on May 3, he climbed into Little Tahquitz Valley, just south of Saddle Junction, and found the trail concealed by snow. John sought help from two other hikers, a Canadian nurse named Connie Davis, 46, and her 20-year-old son, Alex, both of whom had extensive altitude experience.
When Donovan began following the Davis’ through the snowfield, Connie told him, "We're not going to take the most direct route." He stayed about 30 feet behind them, and he put on crampons, but the spikes didn't work well with his lightweight trail runners, and he slipped and fell repeatedly. Eventually, Connie and Alex followed a small creek uphill and turned northwest roughly half a mile south of Saddle Junction. "That's where we saw him last," Connie Davis later wrote in a letter to the PCT community. It was at about 8,080 feet on the afternoon of May 3.
That was the last time Donovan was seen alive. Twelve days passed before anyone realized he was missing.
Many hikers believed that Donovan headed toward Fuller Ridge and then froze to death in the blizzard on San Jacinto's west side, near Saddle Junction. On Memorial Day weekend, 2005, Riverside County Rescue Unit personnel combed the area with dogs. After two days without clues, the authorities called off the search for good.
After leaving the Davis’ on May 3, he tried to detour west into Idyllwild. But with no way to navigate, he became disoriented. In a journal written in the margins of photocopied guidebook pages, Donovan scribbled, "Couldn't find the trail to Idyllwild." So instead, he cut away from Idyllwild, drawn by the lights of much larger Palm Springs. Traveling about 3 miles northeast of the Saddle Junction area that night, he crossed skinny Willow Creek, climbed a small ridge, and plunged into a steep gash called Hidden Valley.
Donovan's journal places him in Long Valley, at about 4,300 feet, on May 3. On May 5, still camped in the same ravine, he took a fall. How badly he was hurt is unclear, as Donovan didn’t write detailed notes. He wrote that he had already become too weak to climb out of the canyon.
He tried to signal for help and built a few weak fires that quickly disappeared, but no one saw him. A 100-foot waterfall lay directly below, and the canyon's walls were virtually sheer. He was boxed in, and he likely knew it would be days, maybe a week or more before anyone noticed he was missing.
At one point on May 5, Donovan took an inventory of his supplies. He was down to 12 cheese crackers. In his last entry, May 14, he scribbled that he was going to Long Creek for water. "Goodbye and love you all," he wrote.
Donovan's remains were discovered by a 20-foot waterfall in a pool set amid birches and mossy green rocks in May 2006.
Brandon Day, 28, and Gina Allen, 24, of Dallas, were found in May 2006, spending three nights in the San Jacinto wilderness. On the third night, they came across a backpack of supplies at a deserted campsite. The remains were found near the camp.
Day and Allen were visiting the desert east of Los Angeles for a convention when they wandered off a mountain trail during a two-hour stop with other tourists. Prepared for a brief hike, they wore light windbreakers and tennis shoes and had no food, spare clothing, or cell phones.
At first, they were not too worried because they could hear voices. “I still felt we were relatively close,” Day said, recalling that he thought the trail would “be around this next boulder.”
With night closing in, they took shelter in a small cave between boulders and spent the night sleepless, freezing and hungry. In the morning, they struggled to follow a stream downhill through boulder-strewn terrain. They decided to keep going, with “the mantra from night one: ’We’re going to get out of here. We’re not going to die. It’s not our time,”’ Day said.
The couple found items Donovan had left behind in a dead-end gorge on Monday, May 8, 2016. They included a warm sweater, foam sleeping mat, poncho, a backpack, disposable razor, spoon, dry socks and matches that the couple used to light a signal fire. Day and Allen were elated, thinking someone there could help them find the way out. But something was wrong. The gear was wet. A radio and flashlight were corroded. They realized the place was deserted.
They found identification showing the pack belonged to Donovan, who had vanished a year earlier. “His last journal entry was one year ago to the day that we found it, which was very eerie,” Day said. “Nobody knew where he was, nobody knew to come looking for him, so he was preparing for the end. We were looking at the words of a man who was passing.”
They were rescued after the flames from the fire were seen from a helicopter. “The whole acre or two caught fire created a really big smoke signal” that finally alerted a helicopter crew.
“Even in his death, he was helping people,” Donovan’s longtime friend, Chris Hook, of Richmond, Va., said at the time. The couple said they had “a real special thanks” for Donovan.
Ray “No Way Ray” Echols.
On May 15, 2006, Wendell Ray Echols (“No Way Ray”) of Mariposa, California, was approximately 300 miles into a northbound PCT thru-hike with his wife, Alice Tulloch, when he lost his footing and fell about 200 feet to his death. Alice was hiking about 20 yards behind him when he disappeared around a corner. The accident occurred in a remote part of the San Bernardino National Forest near Deep Creek. Another group of hikers heard Alice’s pleas for help and could use a satellite phone to call for assistance. Ray was pronounced dead at the scene.
Before his retirement, Ray worked as a junior high school teacher in a four-room, nine-grade country school in the Mariposa County Unified School District. He is best known in the hiking community, however, for his frequent posts to the PCT-L, his service on the American Long Distance Hiking Association-West’s Board of Directors, his participation in events such as Trail Fest and the Annual Day Zero Kick-Off Party, and his inspired writing.
Timothy Evan Nodal
On April 24, 2014, Near Lake Morena (California), Tim Nodal, 19, began to feel unwell, and he called his stepfather for help, who then called 911. He was hiking with a friend in the Cleveland National Forest in temperatures between 72 and 80 degrees.
When firefighters got to the camping area around 1.30 pm, they talked with the teenager and reviewed his symptoms. He said he wasn’t feeling good, and then he suddenly went into cardiac arrest. Tim was pronounced dead at 2.23 pm.
There was no evidence of dehydration, alcohol, or substance abuse, according to the coroner's report.
Dawson Johnson
Dawson Johnson, a 75-year-old hiker from Redwater, Texas, hiked to the Mt Whitney summit on Tuesday, July 29, 2014, but failed to return to his campsite at Crabtree Meadow. His wife reported him missing, and his body was spotted on the north side of Mt Whitney, where he apparently had fallen and died.
Marvin Novo
On May 29, 2017, in the Mission Creek Preserve (California), Marvin Novo's body was discovered along the West Fork Trail. He was 58 years old and died whilst hiking near Whitewater Preserve. He had been planning his PCT thru-hike for at least a decade. It is suspected that his death was heat-related.
Rika Morita
Rika “Strawberry” Morita came to the Pacific Crest Trail from Japan to thru-hike. She was 32 and lived in Osaka. She was hiking alone and was reported missing. Other PCT hikers found her on July 23, 2017, submerged in the South Fork of the Kings River in Kings Canyon National Park, California. The 2017 hiking season had many dangerous river crossings because of the unusually high snowpack from the previous winter.
Chaocui “Tree” Wang
Chinese citizen and PCT Thru-hiker, Chaocui “Tree” Wang, 27, was found on July 30, 2017, in Rancheria Creek in Kerrick Canyon, downstream from where the PCT crosses the creek in Yosemite National Park.
Finn Bastian
On August 27, 2019, in Stevenson (Washington), Finn Bastian, 28 years old, a German thru-hiker on the PCT, was crossing a wooden bridge along the trail at around 4 p.m. when a tree fell on him. Two women hiking with him, Larissa Stawicki, 27, of Lunenburg, Germany, and Melanie Teek, 38, called 911, and search-and-rescue crews responded.
After pulling Bastian out from under the tree, medics transported him to a trailhead and began performing CPR. They were not able to revive him. The tree that killed Bastian had rotted at the base, the sheriff's office reported.
Trevor Laher
On March 27, 2020, Trevor Laher slipped on a patch of snow-covered ice near Apache Peak (PCT NOBO mile 169.5), just outside Idyllwild, California. He was not wearing microspikes.
Gavin Johnson
Gavin Johnston
Gavin Johnson, 28, who was missing for eight months, was found in June 2019 after heading out on the PCT.
Gavin Johnston’s family said he had virtually no hiking experience and was likely having a mental health crisis before he disappeared. His remains were eventually found south of Stevens Pass in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area (Central Cascades of Washington state).
Gavin had called his father, Marvin, saying he wanted to go into the forest to pray and become closer to God. The weekend before he went missing, Johnston told his parents he’d been talking with Jesus and that he wanted to quit his new job and be homeless, according to his stepmother, Debora Johnston.
A forest official spoke with Johnston at 5 pm. on October 2018 in Skykomish. That was the last confirmed sighting.
He was a devout Catholic who attended daily Mass several times a week at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Everett. When he wasn’t at church, he could often be seen at the Safeway on Broadway, where he spent much of his working life. He also had a job at an aerospace parts manufacturer. In his spare time, he liked to play video games and classical guitar and spend time with his parents.
According to the family, a hiker spotted Johnston’s body near the trail by Glacier Lake in a sleeping bag with a rosary in his hand. He was found with a phone, wallet and gear that he reportedly bought before leaving.
Gavin reportedly sold his belongings and bought over $1,100 in gear from Cabela’s. Before heading out, he stopped by the Everett Gospel Mission’s men’s shelter to donate money.
Gavin’s car was parked on the north side of Stevens Pass, but he said he was going south on the trail. Then, a hiker reported possibly seeing Gavin about 75 miles south, near Snoqualmie Pass.
Family members spent weeks searching, and Search and rescue volunteers also scoured the rugged terrain.
The first few days of the search were summer-like, and after that, the temperatures dropped into the 30s and 40s. It began raining and snowing. The ground became soggy. Marvin said they bought equipment such as snowshoes to keep up with the weather, but eventually, he recalled thinking, “We’re not going to find him.”
Gavin Johnston made it less than 15 miles south of Stevens Pass before stopping. Marvin Johnston said he set up camp away from the trail, toward Glacier Lake, such that other hikers might miss him as they walked by.
Tied to his tent was a note on the paper wrapping from a flare. On it, Gavin Johnston explained he had run out of food and would likely die soon. He wrote about what he wanted his funeral arrangements to look like, said Gavin’s uncle, Carl Johnston. Also on the note was a date. Marvin Johnston believes his son was in the wilderness for about 25 days before he passed away.
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Sources
https://www.halfwayanywhere.com/trails/pacific-crest-trail/list-of-deaths-on-the-pacific-crest-trail/
https://www.heraldnet.com/news/missing-for-8-months-everett-man-found-dead-in-cascades/
https://www.outsideonline.com/1930861/first-ever-winter-thru-hike-pct
https://www.pcta.org/about-us/history/in-memoriam/jane-and-flicka-rodman/
http://www.backcountry.net/arch/pct/9906/msg00102.html
https://www.backpacker.com/trips/lost-found
https://www.dailynews.com/2006/06/06/missing-hikers-remains-found/
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/38540863/john-joseph-donovan
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/12737512/ns/us_news-life/t/couple-recalls-how-missing-hiker-saved-them/#.X19ItmhKhPY
https://www.pcta.org/about-us/history/in-memoriam/ray-echols/
https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/death-of-teenager-along-pacific-crest-trail-ruled-an-accident/1994660/
https://www.pcta.org/2017/sadness-deaths-pacific-crest-trail-50680/
https://komonews.com/news/local/german-hiker-killed-by-falling-tree-on-pacific-crest-trail
https://thetrek.co/pacific-crest-trail/trevors-eternal-trail/
