The strange death of the cyclist Jacob Gray in the Olympic National Park

Jacob Gray, disappeared April 6, 2017, Sol Duc Hot Springs Road, Body Found, Hoh Lake, August 10, 2018, Daniel J. Evans Wilderness, Olympic National Park, Washington.

Revised January 2024

Jacob Gray, 22, originally from Santa Cruz in California, left Port Townsend alone on his bicycle on April 5, 2017, towing a trailer full of camping gear. He planned to travel to the Daniel J. Evans Wilderness in Olympic National Park in Washington before heading east.

His bike, trailer, and gear were found about 6.5 miles up Sol Duc Hot Springs Road on April 6. Sol Duc is Quileute Indian for sparkling waters by park rangers. Strangely, a bow was on the ground, and arrows were sticking in and out of the back of the trailer. But the owner of the bike and gear was nowhere to be seen.

On that afternoon, Ranger John Bowie checked the area around the bike. Maybe the cyclist had made the short walk to the river to get water. If he slipped in and couldn’t escape, he would have succumbed to the freezing water. Maybe the rider hitchhiked up to the hot springs?

Bowie called his fellow officer Brian Wray and asked him to recheck the area the following day. But the bike and trailer were still untouched when Wray checked the site on April 8.

The puzzling discovery remained a mystery for another year. What exactly happened to Jacob remains unclear. How did he end up near the top of a ridge above Hoh Lake, 5,300 feet above sea level and at least 15 miles from where he left his bike?

The Bike and trailer on Sol Duc Hot Springs Road

The bike and trailer that Ranger Bowie found were in complete working order. Nothing appeared wrong, and there was a lot of gear in the trailer. The rangers checked the Sol Duc Hot Springs Resort; no one had seen him, and they felt sure that the owner had fallen into the river, “we’ll check the river in the summer when the water goes down”.

On Friday, April 7, Ranger Wray found a list of phone numbers among the things which identified the owner as Jacob Gray, and he called his sister, Mallory. She told Wray to phone their parents in Santa Cruz right away.

A water filter and a Camelback backpack, which holds a plastic water container, were missing from the trailer, according to a list provided by the family.

Rangers photographed the bike, trailer, and gear, loaded everything up, and locked it in a boathouse on Lake Crescent, where they took a detailed inventory.

The search for Jacob Gray

The Clallam County Sheriff’s Office picked up the search and had about 30 people and dogs combed the area the next day to no avail.

Volunteer trackers from Olympic Mountain Rescue were finally requested and searched the area on Wednesday, April 12, 2017, nearly a week after discovering the bike. They found evidence that someone had swapped hiking boots for running shoes, walked to the river’s edge, slipped and fell in, leaving a mark on a mossy rock. There were signs that someone may have scrambled out downstream, thirty yards or so. A state fisheries biologist, not swift water rescue divers, was assigned to search the log jams in the river.

Dog teams began searching at 5 pm on Thursday, April 13. By this time, they were clearly searching for a body and not a live cyclist. Two cadaver dogs hit on a log jam, which could have meant a corpse was trapped underneath. It could also mean cadaver material washed in from the bank and scent molecules swabbed the log. But all the logjams for 12 miles on either side of the bike area were searched, and there was no sign of a corpse.

Searches continued in Olympic National Park that week before the park moved into a “limited continuous search” on April 14. This meant the SAR operation by Olympic rangers was effectively over before other jurisdictions got involved.

The Coast Guard, based in Port Angeles, was not requested, and neither were aircraft from Whidbey Island Naval Air Station, which assists with some Olympic National Park searches. Dog teams are almost entirely volunteer-led, and the family had lined up a willing team, but the park said no; they had another volunteer team in mind (they were hesitant to request).

On Saturday, April 15, Clallam County Search and Rescue started a search and, with the help of volunteers, worked the west side of the river on Olympic National Forest land and inside the park. Flyers were tacked up on park kiosks and in gas stations in Port Angeles to the east and the logging town of Forks to the west. Clallam County’s search was scaled back by April 16, 2017.

A pair of Burnside brand shorts in Jacob’s size was found a couple of miles downstream, and he’d been given a similar pair as a Christmas gift sent to the crime lab in Seattle for DNA testing.

In July 2017, more than 100 search and rescue volunteers from across Western Washington searched along the Sol Duc River but found no clues.

Remains found

Over a year later, on Friday, August 10, 2018, late in the afternoon, a team of biologists who made a trip into the mountains to study marmots found Jacob’s remains, clothing, gear, and wallet near the top of a ridge above Hoh Lake, 5,300 feet above sea level and at least 15 miles from where he left his bike.

His body wasn’t found near a trail; in April, the terrain would have been snowy and prone to avalanches. The remains were found on a treeless ridge and might have been seen from the air.

Hoh Lake is about 10 miles from the Sol Duc trailhead. The trail climbs through old-growth forests and alpine slopes before arriving at the lake, 5,300 feet above sea level.

The following day, law enforcement rangers searched the area and found more clothing and skeletal remains. The clothing matched what the family said Jacob would be wearing, according to Penny Wagner, spokesperson for Olympic National Park.

The identity of the remains was confirmed on August 18th, 2018, by the King County Medical Examiner’s Office, according to the Clallam County deputy coroner. The area the remains were found in was not described as a campsite, and what was initially found did not make investigators believe foul play was involved.

Before the body was found, Randy Gray, Jacob’s father, said he wanted to believe his son, who has been described as an avid outdoorsman who enjoyed camping alone, was out working or fishing somewhere, still living his life. Since Jacob’s bike was found on Sol Duc Hot Springs Road, Randy has relentlessly searched for his son. He said he lost track of how many times he searched the Sol Duc Valley and searched in other parts of the country and Canada, too.

What happened to Jacob Gray?

What happened to Jacob Gray remains a mystery.

Clallam County Deputy Coroner Christi Wojnowski found that the official cause of death was inconclusive as the body could only be identified through dental records. An autopsy on Gray could not be performed. He had a cigarette lighter, insulated clothing, and plenty of food with him at the scene where the body was found. The authorities believe that it is likely Jacob succumbed to hypothermia as there were no signs of trauma to the remains.

Why did he plan to tell people he was headed east and then went west without telling anyone?
Why was the bike parked where it was, unlocked and in full view of traffic, with gear laid out?
Why were four arrows stuck in the ground?
How did he travel 5,300 feet above sea level and at least 15 miles from where he left his bike in the snow?
How did he get hypothermia if he was well-clothed?
Did he intend to kill himself in the wilderness?

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