Great Falls Hunters Vanish In Bitterroot
Two Hunters Missing – November 1987
Many people in Montana were curious and uneasy when two Great Falls hunters disappeared in November of 1987. The hunters were known to be on their way to hunt in the Bitterroot valley on Friday the 13th.; now they had vanished. While lost hunters in Montana were not unusual, the case of the two missing Malmstrom hunters seemed to reside in an eerie, dark place in the world of Montana hunting. Lots of questions came to mind quickly. What were two young Great Falls airmen doing so far from home? Prime hunting areas were available much closer to where they lived. Why hunt in the rugged Selway-Bitterroot wilderness without a local hunter or a guide? Were they familiar with the area at all?
Extreme weather conditions in mid-November were not unusual, but a report from the National Weather Service on that Friday predicted no severe weather, and not much snow. Glacier Park’s Going to the Sun Highway had just closed, yet reopening it wasn’t ruled out. It had already been open unusually late that season. A Missoulian headline on Saturday, the 14th, read: “Where’s winter? Expect to wait a bit longer.”
So, what happened?
The temperature in Hamilton, Montana on Saturday was a high of 46 and a low of 32. But Sunday’s report warned of a change. For Southwest Montana, forecasts expected scattered snow showers in the mountains, with lows of 25 to 15.
Strangely, the Sunday Missoulian on November 15th reported on the remains of an airplane that a hunter had recently discovered in the Mountains near Superior, Montana. An official with the Bureau of Montana Aeronautics was almost certain that the hunter found what remained of a plane that had crashed in a storm in 1968, spilling passengers and wreckage over a wide area not far from Stark Mountain Lookout. Searchers had reportedly found the missing passengers from that plane, but the article noted there were still two missing Montana aircraft from 1984.
“First Snow – It looked worse than it was” – read the Missoulian on Tuesday, November 17. More importantly the temperature dropped – High 33 – Low 12. A small storm left very little snow on the ground in Missoula on Monday, but the Lolo Visitor center on Lolo Pass reported 6 inches by Monday afternoon. Temperatures at that elevation were much lower than in the valleys.
On Tuesday, the Great Falls Tribune reported that 2 Great Falls hunters were missing, and that the Ravalli County Sheriff had dispatched a search and rescue unit on Monday afternoon. Relatives of the hunters reported that the men were due to return on Sunday. Their vehicle was soon found and a search centered on the surrounding area. By Monday evening 8 inches of snow had reportedly fallen in that area south of Hamilton, Montana.
On Wednesday, the two missing hunters were identified by the press; John Doyle, 24, of Great Falls, whose wife was a staff sergeant at Malmstrom, and AFC James A. Steging, 24, also stationed at Malmstrom Air Force Base. Their vehicle, a Chevy Blazer, was found Monday in the Lost Horse area south of Hamilton. Searchers from Ravalli County Search and Rescue began searching immediately and by Tuesday a Huey helicopter from Malmstrom and a fixed wing aircraft were also searching in an ever-wider area.
On Thursday, Ravalli County Sheriff Jay Printz said the search force had doubled. It now reached approximately to the Idaho border, and particularly in the Bailey Basin area. Three helicopters from Malmstrom were also now involved. In addition to Ravalli County searchers, 15 more people arrived from Great Falls and 11 more were expected by Friday. Sheriff Printz still expressed hope but admitted that their chances of survival were decreasing. The men were known to have hunted in the Lost Horse area Friday the 13th, and their vehicle was discovered at the ranger’s cabin on Monday, with all of their camping gear and food still inside. There was no evidence they had returned to the vehicle after parking it. A foot of snow fell on Friday night, causing difficulty in tracking for the searchers.
By Friday, November 20th, Sheriff Printz was disheartened. A special military team from Missoula was now involved, but the three Malmstrom helicopters were called off. A team of searchers on Granite creek were airlifted out. One of the hunters was known to smoke but they never found any evidence of a campfire. Close to 50 people had searched for 3 days and the Sheriff stated he was baffled. No mention had been made of foul play.
On Friday Sheriff Printz said the search would stop on Saturday, unless something new was found. Altogether, more than 60 people had been involved, in addition to dogs, helicopters and fixed wing aircraft. “We’ve found nothing, not a damn thing,” said Sheriff Printz.
A Missoulian article on Sunday, November 22, sounded a note of finality that no one wanted to hear.
“Search for missing hunters wraps up.” Expressing his frustration after 6 days of searching Sheriff Printz stated there were “no firm theories on what happened. There’s a million guesses, but that’s all they are. . . He said local officials may try to recover the bodies next spring. It’s my and other people’s firm belief they’re not too far from that vehicle.”
Within two days two other incidents of lost or bewildered hunters occurred in the Bitterroot valley. A woman from Lolo became lost while hunting in the East Fork of the Bitterroot near Sula, but thankfully walked out on her own, with a deputy lighting the way. A young Stevensville boy was reported missing late on Sunday, November 22. Search and rescue members found him later that night.
A chilling article in the Missoulian on Sunday, November 29, dealt with what it called the “Montana Triangle” where approximately 70 airplanes had crashed without recovery. It showed a map at the Aeronautics Division in Helena with each site demarcated with a dot; the whole of which could roughly be outlined with a triangle. “But the fact that many crashes occurred in a treacherous triangle centered around Missoula, Kalispell and Superior needs no supernatural explanation, said Fred Hasskamp, the state Aeronautics Division official who maintains the map . . . Treacherous winds, fickle weather and poor visibility, especially in winter, contribute to the hazards.” In fact, a crash had occurred near Darby, Montana just days before, but without anyone being killed. The article again mentioned the two missing flights from 1984, and noted that Montana had an average of 35 aircraft accidents every year for the past five years, with an average of 14 people killed each year.
The article finished with an incident that brought up shades of the lost hunters from Great Falls:
“Last April, for example, two antler hunters in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness in Idaho came across the wreckage of a plane and human remains about 100 yards above Glover Creek on the Selway River, 30 air miles east of Grangeville, Idaho.
“Skeletal remains were identified as those of pilot Joe Rosenkranz, a wealthy Idaho Panhandle rancher, and his passenger, W. J. Bolick. The two were last seen leaving on a flight from Rosenkranz’s ranch to Lewiston, Idaho, on Oct. 2, 1947. The aircraft was missing for 39 years before it was finally discovered some 50 miles away from the area where it originally was thought to have gone down.”
On December 2nd the Missoulian reported that a hunter found one of the aircraft missing since 1984. It was located 11 air miles west of Missoula’s Johnson-Bell airport on a “heavily wooded mountainside near Wildhorse Point about 15 miles west of Missoula.” It was the missing plane headed for Tacoma, Washington on March 9, 1984, with four people aboard. The remains of the passengers were recovered and identified, giving their relatives some closure after 3 years. The hunter who found the crash was not identified.
On December 14, a letter to the editor from Sheriff Printz appeared in the Missoulian:
Sincere thanks to all
I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere appreciation to the many people involved in the recent search for the two missing hunters in the Lost Horse area of Ravalli County.
It would be impossible to list everyone individually in this short space and if I leave anyone out, it is unintentional.
First, I wish to commend the Ravalli County Search and Rescue for their untiring efforts. The members of the Search and Rescue were truly amazing to watch. Their compassion and caring, as well as their optimism, would make the casual observer think each involved was searching for a family member. I know everyone involved is deeply disappointed we were unsuccessful.
The Air Force is to be highly commended as well for not only providing aircraft and men, but for providing the families of the lost hunters with comfort and support. This function will continue for as long as necessary because the Air Force obviously considers its members as family.
Also deserving of notice is the U.S. Forest Service for its assistance, as well as Sgt. Del Crawford of the sheriff’s department, and the entire community, specifically those individuals and businesses who opened their hearts and doors at all hours to provide necessities.
To all those who were involved, thank you!
Before closing, I would like to remind everyone the Search and Rescue is an all-volunteer, self-sustaining organization, and in order to function, it needs donations. As you can imagine, a search of any size consumes a considerable amount of funds and resources.
The Ravalli County Search and Rescue needs your help. Contributions can be sent either to the Ravalli County Sheriff’s Department, Courthouse Box 5022, Hamilton 59840, or the Ravalli County Search and Rescue, P. O. Box 1054, Hamilton 59840. – Jay Printz, Sheriff of Ravalli County, Hamilton.
As one with personal experience with Search and Rescue operations, this writer can attest to their effectiveness. An incident with a fall sixty years ago in the Rattlesnake Lakes area, north of Missoula, brought Search and Rescue help to me after friends gave me lifesaving assistance. Their help was immensely appreciated.
I have had some experience in the Selway-Bitterroot wilderness, including fishing and hiking not far from the spot where the Great Falls hunters were lost and also fishing and hiking on the Idaho side of this wilderness. One thing about the Selway-Bitterroot is its remarkable vastness. Looking west from the head of Lost Horse you can see a horizon of mountain tops for what must be 60 miles. Retreating in this wilderness can give you almost complete isolation.
While most of my time in the Selway-Bitterroot involved fishing and hiking, rather than hunting, the opportunity for hunters was noticeable everywhere. I’ve had deer visiting my tent flap and a moose crashing into an Idaho mountain lake almost beside me, and then panic-stricken, observed his butt protruding from the water while he casually ate grass from the bottom. Or listened to them puffing as they swam across beautiful Big Creek Lake where I was lucky enough to visit ten times over 40 years. Or almost tripping over grouse while hiking in Idaho and jumping for dear life as one exploded beside me. The opportunities in that huge wilderness are unbelievable and it is a wonderful but dangerous resource, because you are often truly isolated. So, if you can, always go with caution, and as the ever-prescient scout motto says: Be Prepared.
The next year, in June of 1988, the Missoulian reported a new search was planned for the lost hunters. Tracking dogs had recently scoured the area around where their vehicle was found, as well as the area around the cabin at the trail head, with no luck. A wider search planned for June 24 would involve as many as 6 dog teams and up to 150 people from Malmstrom, who would help local people with logistics and setting up a camp. Ron Garlick, President of the Ravalli Search and Rescue Association said a detailed plan would involve grid searching over an 18 square mile area.
Another new twist came about when two different psychics zoned in on the lost hunters. The parents of John Doyle enlisted these two, hoping against hope that outside help could provide new information. The two had already made some similar predictions. They believed the hunters would be found near a shelter of some type, and they concurred that one of men had been hurt and the other stayed with him to provide help, but the two then died of exposure the first night. The psychics’ comments led officials to now seek information regarding old mining claims, caves and shelters.
The article also gave new details that were not revealed in earlier news articles. Ron Garlick had seen the hunters on Friday the 13th, the first day they were hunting in the area. In fact, he had apparently seen them twice, once in the morning and again at noon, and knew they had parked their vehicle at the cabin Friday afternoon. Somehow, he knew that one of them had matches. It was now revealed the men worked the previous day and drove all night from Great Falls to get there, a distance around 275 miles. There were surely exhausted by Friday night. Another critical element had come to light; by Monday there was several feet of snow at the trail head, not one.
The Missoulian reported on June 27th that the latest search effort was again unsuccessful. After three days involving 79 people from Malmstrom, with many more from the Bitterroot, and several teams of tracking dogs, it was decided to call a halt to it. Sheriff Printz stated that it would likely be the last organized search.
A Great Falls Tribune article on the same day quoted Chris Devine, also of the Ravalli County Search and Rescue: “If they are up there, they’ve got to be somewhere else from where we went because those guys were really looking.” Sheriff Printz also stated that not knowing the fate of the two was hard on the families and opens the door for rumor and speculation. “I don’t know if there’s been a crime or if there was an accident.”
A Malmstrom officer, Tech Sgt., Al Lugo, whose team was also involved in the search, gave awards to the city of Hamilton and the Ravalli County Search and Rescue organization for their assistance. He stated, “This town opened up their arms, hearts and pocketbooks to us.”
Finally, a break came on July 25th when Art Griffith, a packer from Hamilton, noticed something unusual as he moved down the trail beside Cox Creek in Idaho, where he was fishing. He was about 15 miles from the Montana border. The owner of an outfitting business, Iron Horse Outfitters, he had guided his animals and clients into the Selway-Bitterroot wilderness for close to ten years. He was also a member of the original search team for the lost hunters the previous year. What he suddenly saw “didn’t match” the flowers, he said. It was the blade of a buck knife and beside it lay a rifle.
A Missoulian article on July 26 quoted him thus, “I put two and two together real quick.” John Doyle was found in Idaho 20 miles from the Bailey Lake basin area where he was supposed to be, “lying beneath a large rock overhang at the junction of Battle Creek and Cox Creek trails.” His shoes were unlaced and there was no wallet or identification. “The body was fairly intact but still too deteriorated for an autopsy.” The remains were being examined for any evidence of foul play.
A Great Falls Tribune article the following day quoted the Sheriff of Idaho County, Idaho, Randy Baldwin, “From where he parked his vehicle he walked close to 20 miles. . . We believe he died from exposure – probably the second night.” Ron Garlick of Ravalli County Search and Rescue said, “He got himself into some very, very tough country.” Garlick noted that the original search didn’t cover the Idaho area, “We didn’t consider them going that far because of weather conditions.”
Doyle’s body was flown by helicopter to Grangeville, Idaho. The Tribune article said that both men were experienced hunters and had hunted together for two years, “although it was Steging’s first trip into the Selway- Bitterroot.” Doyle was an Eagle Scout, raised in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, and had hunted a lot with his father. “He chose to be stationed at Malmstrom and worked at St. Mary Lodge and joined the Montana Air National Guard after leaving the Air Force. . . Steging, a mason for the 341st Civil Squadron at Malmstrom, was from Aurora, Ill., as is his wife, Laura. They have been married four years.”
An article in the Ravalli Republic on July 25th had even more details. Beside Doyle’s body were 11 spent shells, a desperate sign that he had attempted to signal rescuers or his partner. The article also noted that Art Griffith saw the hunters the year before on Friday the 13th. “I seen them on Friday and found them on Friday,” Griffith said. Ron Garlick from the Ravalli Search and Rescue assisted in removing the body from Idaho. A group of eight men then searched a 20-mile area nearby but found nothing.
Where was James Steging?
Later that fall Art Griffith again set up a camp in Idaho not far from where he found John Doyle’s body in July. He later stated that he had returned to the area about 30 times since finding Doyle. On October 10th an employee of Griffith’s, Ray McBride, led two of their clients into a nearby drainage called Chute Creek. While walking the trail, McBride suddenly kicked something that fell into the creek beside him. It was one of James Steging’s boots.
In an interview with Ray McBride,[1] he stated that he then quickly found the second boot and then noticed the remains of James Steging’s hunting vest. He was aware of the missing Great Falls hunter and knew immediately who it was. Several newspapers, including the Missoulian, reported incorrectly that Art Griffith had found Steging. McBride said that Steging’s hunting vest had a good-sized burn whole in it, leading him to believe that Steging had tried to burn his vest. The remains of his body were almost completely destroyed by the time he was found. Griffith, in an interview with the Ravalli Republic reported that neither he, or anyone else, touched the remains.
Steging’s rifle was never recovered. Ray McBride stated that Steging may have actually attempted to burn the stock of his rifle. Art Griffith said Steging was found about a half mile due east of where they found John Doyle, but McBride believes it was considerably farther than that. Griffith had earlier alerted his employees and clients about the missing hunter, and was constantly on the search for more evidence. He stated that his son had recently hunted in the Chute Creek drainage and must have walked right by Steging’s body without noticing it. McBride said that Steging’s remains were flown out of Chute Creek by a helicopter.
Griffith believed the men were lost in the snowstorm which began Friday, Nov. 13, and then headed west into Idaho; and then, thinking they were walking east, turned north, leading them down the drainage. “It seemed very normal that both of them made it down the drainage,” he said. “I knew he had to be back there. Putting two and two together, it just made sense . . . When it starts to snow back there you can’t see a quarter of a mile in any direction.”
Art Griffith had a thriving guiding business in Hamilton in the 1980’s. An Air Force veteran himself, he migrated from Pennsylvania to Montana in 1978 and followed his lifelong dream of becoming a hunting guide. With his wife Joann, he operated Iron Horse Outfitters until 2008, when he felt that wolves had ruined his business. When he died in 2013, he still had 30 head of mountain horses.
In July of 1989, five military policemen from Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls went into the Selway-Bitterroot on an exercise hoping to find Steging’s missing rifle. They were assisted by members of the Ravalli County Search and Rescue organization. After an 18-mile hike and constructing a base camp, the group began their search. The team also had to relocate their camp in the dark as part of an orientation exercise. A group of Bitterroot search personnel known as the “Hasty Team” also assisted in their exercises. A leader of the group stressed safety and training, “Take the proper gear along with you and if you get lost stay put. If these two airmen had done both of those things, they would have been waiting for us.”
On July 27, 1989, an article about the search for Steging’s rifle appeared in the Ravalli Republic:
Searchers recover hunter’s scope
Clues continue to baffle searchers who scattered in the forest
By Drake Kiewit
Members of the Ravalli County Search and Rescue involved in a training and evidence gathering exercise, with five airmen stationed at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls, recovered the missing scope of hunter James Steging.
The scope was found by Dusty Wood, 18, a three-year veteran of the Hasty Team. He noticed part of the scope protruding through the duff. It was found following a grid search of the Chute Creek area near Twin Lakes.
The scope was in the same location where Steging’s remains were found a year after his disappearance. Steging had scooped a shallow depression in the ground next to two large trees. In the process apparently the scope was covered. It had apparently broken off his rifle. One clamp was broken and the glass at one end was broken out. No evidence of the rifle was found.
Sgt. Michael Gage said that the search exercise was tougher than anything he had ever undergone in the Air Force.