The strange disappearance of John Devine from Olympic National Park

November 22, 2017 StrangeOutdoors

John Devine disappeared September 7, 1997, Olympic National Park, Washington State.

Revised July 2024

John Devine was a 73-year-old hiker who headed to the Olympic National Park in Washington on Friday, September 6, 1997, for camping and hiking.

He was said to be an experienced hiker who had intended to climb the 6,796-foot-high Mount Baldy in Olympic National Forest using the extremely steep and rugged Maynard Burn Trail.

He failed to show up after the hike on September 7, as planned, and his family reported him missing to the authorities.

John was never found, and the search was curtailed by a fatal helicopter crash whilst looking for him.

Who was John Devine?

John lived in Sequim, and he was in excellent physical condition, although legally blind in one eye. He had hiked long distances by himself in the Olympics before.

The trip to the Olympic National Park

He was last seen on the afternoon of September 7 while hiking along Gray Wolf Ridge on the park’s north side. He had been camping with a friend since Friday night near the Mount Baldy area, just outside the park boundary in the Buckhorn Wilderness Area of Olympic National Forest.

He was carrying snack bars but had no other gear or food.

Helicopter crash

During the search, a Bell 205A-1 rescue helicopter crashed, killed three people and injured five others at the 5,000-foot level of Mount Baldy, 20 miles south of Port Angeles. It fell shortly after taking off from the mountainside. Kevin Johnston, 35, the pilot of Springfield, Oregon, a former flight instructor with an 18-month-old daughter Rita McMahon, 52, a search volunteer who trained dogs to help with rescue missions, and Taryn Hoover, 31, a seasonal park employee, were killed.

Robert Feldmann, 27, of Mukilteo and Cynthia Stern, 24, of Port Angeles. Another passenger, Heidi Pedersen, 32, of Port Angeles, was in stable condition at Olympic Memorial Hospital in Port Angeles.

The search

Weather conditions deteriorated at the time of the crash as snow and cold swept through the mountainous area.

A dozen searchers continued to comb the Meuller Creek area looking for John, but they were brought out before dark. Jason Berry, 23, in his second year as a Park Service volunteer, said, “It's steep and rugged . . . the bushes are super thick, and it's tough to walk down the drainages.”

Sgt. Don Kelly of the Clallam County Sheriff's Office, which coordinated the search with the National Park Service, said: "If he were walking around up there, we would have found him by now. And if he had fallen and hurt himself, he probably wouldn't be alive."

The search was called off on September 13, 1997. Unfortunately, John Devine was never found. Another strange disappearance in the Olympic National Park.

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