• Dec. 10, 1946: A Marine Corps C-46 plane carrying 32 mostly young recruits was reported missing. Seven months later, climbers found the wreck on South Tahoma Glacier. The bodies were in too dangerous a spot to be recovered. On the plane were: Alben Cotner Robertson, Robert Vincent Reilly, Charles Franklin Criswell, Wallace Joseph Slonina, Leslie Ray Simmons Jr., Donald Jeff Walker, William Donald St. Clair, Charles W. Truby, Duane Roderick Abbott, Bobby Joe Stafford, Richard Paquette Trego, Robert A. Anderson, Joe E. Bainter, Walter Jay Stewart, Harry Richard Turner, John Charles Stone, Ernesto Ruiz Valdovin, Albert H. Stubblefield, Gene Louis Vremsak, William Richard Sullivan, William Edward Wadden, Chester E. Taube, Harry Kenneth Skinner, Harry Leonard Thompson Jr., Gilbert Edward Watkins, Duane Sennitt Thornton, Duane Edwin White, Lawrence Eugene Smith, Keith Kreider Tische, Louis Allen Whitten, Buddy Edward Snelling, Eldon Dean Todd.
  
  
• Nov. 30, 1957: Lowell Linn disappeared in a snowstorm as he snowshoed down from Panorama Point to Paradise. Searchers were unable to find the Boeing engineer.
  
  
• Sept. 3, 1959: Charles R. Carman and Harold L. Horn were flying a mercy mission to help an ailing geology professor near the summit. The single-engine Civilian Air Patrol plane, flying late at night, crashed into the Columbia Crest at 14,000 feet and overturned. Rescuers found the plane a few days later but could not retrieve it. Later, it later sank to the summit basin, where it remains beneath the snow.
  
  
• July 12, 1968: Sgt. Bruce MacDonald was killed while rafting on the fast-moving Ohanapecosh River in the southeast corner of the park. MacDonald, whose raft capsized, is believed to have slipped over Silver Falls. No one knows whether the current sent his body downstream or pulled him under rocks.
  
  
• Jan. 13, 1972: Bill Steitz, Kenneth Fry and Kenneth Bryde were aboard a Piper Cherokee Arrow plane flying from Pasco to Seattle. Park officials were unaware the plane had crashed in the park until 1992, when a ranger flying over Ingraham Glacier noticed the plane's tail. A single foot bone was recovered from the wreckage.
  
  
• Aug. 2, 1974: Rodney Hepworth was last seen hiking in the Dewey Lake area toward Chinook Pass. The Tacoma man, who was well-outfitted when he set out on a snow-covered trail with plans to meet friends later, was never found.
  
  
• Nov. 18, 1974: David Taylor, 23, a ranger, was climbing with fellow ranger Carl Fabiani, attempting the first winter ascent of Success Cleaver. They had given up reaching the summit and became separated in poor weather. Taylor is believed to have been caught in an avalanche.
  
  
• June 21, 1981: An icefall from Ingraham Glacier caused Rainier's worst climbing accident. It killed Rainier Mountaineering Inc. guide Tom O'Brien and clients David Boulton, Mark Ernlund, Ronald Farrell, Gordon Heneage, David Kidd, Jonathon Laitone, Ira Liedman, Henry Matthews, Craig Tippie and Michael Watts -- 11 members of a climbing party of 29 heading toward the summit. The climbers were swept into the bottom of a deep crevasse. Rangers abandoned recovery attempts after determining that the use of blowtorches to melt the ice could increase avalanche risks.
  
  
• May 7, 1983: Doug Vercoe, 34, in a party of three climbing to Camp Muir in fog, fell over a cornice and into a deep crevasse. The cliffs over which the Port Orchard shipyard worker fell now bear his name.
  
  
• July 23, 1983: Allen Douglas was last seen hiking alone in Carbon River area in the northwest corner of the park. Despite air and foot searches, rangers found no clues until five years later, when a trail crew found Douglas' backpack hanging on a tree near the Isput Trail. What happened to him remains a mystery.
  
  
• March 19, 1989: William E. Saul, 54, a pilot from Wenatchee, left Boeing Field on a clear night on his way home but flew in a straight course to Mount Rainier. Rangers speculate that Staul put his plane on automatic pilot after receiving clearance to turn left toward Eastern Washington, then suffered a stroke or heart attack. He flew directly into Willis Wall, at the 12,600-foot level on the mountain's north face, hitting so hard the plane stuck straight out for several months. Recovery of the plane was too dangerous. Subsequent snows covered the plane permanently.
  
  
• Oct. 28, 1990: James F. Kampe skied ahead of three friends during an unexpected snowstorm on the Muir Snowfield. Rescue workers suspect the Seattle aircraft engineer was heading east when he overshot the snow-covered cliffs near the 8,200-foot level and fell into a crevasse on the Paradise Glacier. Neither Kampe nor his belongings have been found, despite more than 1,000 hours of searching.
  
  
• May 17, 1991: James Clark Tuttle, attempting to climb the summit with his partner, was helping his partner cross a snowbridge when the bridge gave way. Both men tumbled into the 180-foot crevasse, where Tuttle was wedged upside down so tightly that he passed out and died an hour later. It took his partner, Leslie Spross, two days to climb out of the slippery walled cavern. Spross, a Colorado engineer, fashioned hand grips with Tuttle's crampons, back-flipped out of the crevasse and hiked to a road, where he got help. Searchers were unable to find the crevasse.
  
  
• Nov. 13, 1997: Chet E. Hanson was hiking with camera gear down Deer Creek Trail toward Owyhigh Lakes. Hanson, who worked for Alaska Airlines and occasionally took photographs for the park, lugged a tripod and heavy camera to photograph waters and streams. Rangers searched a nine-mile area between Shriner Peak, at 5,834 feet, and Panhandle Gap, at 6,800 feet. No trace of him was ever found.
  
  
• June 20, 1999: William C. Tietjen III left Camp Muir in whiteout conditions to snowboard down the snowfield to Paradise. Rangers suspect he fell over the cliffs and into a deep crevasse on Paradise Glacier. Helicopter and foot searches found no trace of him.
  
  
• July 8, 1999: Joseph Lee Wood Jr. was hiking alone on the snow-covered Van Trump Park Trail. Park rangers, notified six days later of his disappearance, launched a full-scale search of the Rampart Ridge area the next morning. Volunteers and trained hounds found nothing.
  
  

Mountain is majestic tomb for 65 men     Glaciers, bodies slowly sliding down mountain    God's monument to 32 Marines     Icefall in 1981 entombed 11 climbers    Buried somewhere on Rainier is the body of a fearless, funny doctor Birdwatching on Rainier turns fatal for writer, editor Joe Wood   Profiles of the missing     Back to Introduction

Go Back to SARINFO Home Page