The strange disappearance of Daming Xu from the Three Sisters Wilderness
Daming Xu, disappeared November 4 2007, Olallie Mountain, Three Sisters Wilderness, Oregon.
Daming Xu, 63, arrived in the USA from China in the late 1980s and became a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oregon. He and his wife, Shixiu, loved traveling to Oregon's wilderness areas for day hikes, and both were very fit for their age.
On November 4, 2007, Daming left for the Three Sisters Wilderness area to climb Olallie Mountain. He never returned. Then, on November 15, one-half of Sullivan’s trail book, up to page 157, was found, which included the Olallie Mt. hike on page 154. The other half had been found in his car. Apart from that no clues were discovered in the large search. As of 2024, no sign of his remains have been found.
The trip to Olallie Mountain
Olallie Mt. is in the Willamette National Forest and is one of many smaller mountains of the Old Cascades, remnants of ancient volcanoes, before a shift in the fault zones moved the active volcanoes, the tall and snow-covered Young Cascade peaks that run in a line from California up into British Columbia, further to the east.
It was a beautiful, sunny day with blue skies - perfect for a late Autumn trip into the Cascades. Daming was dressed only for a day hike, with a white shirt and a light leather jacket, but no backpack.
A couple also on a hiking trip, Stephanie and Paul Niedermeyer, happened to meet him near the peak at around 1.30 pm. They said he only spent a few moments at the top before quickly descending, appearing to be in a hurry.
When they reached the trailhead parking lot, the couple saw a white Chevrolet Impala of semi-recent vintage parked there. They were surprised to see it as the hiker (Xu) they had encountered on the summit should have been back by now unless he had decided to go to the Olallie Meadows on the way down as the trail forked. They agreed that the only logical assumption was that it belonged to another hiker on the French Pete Trail.
By late afternoon, with the sun going down and darkness descending, there was still no sign of the car's owner, and the couple got a little concerned. They thought, "It’s not like this easy hike had any challenges. Maybe he was taking his time; it wasn’t all that late yet."
The Niedermeyer's fears were proven correct a few days later.
Search
Daming failed to show up at home, and his wife reported him missing on the afternoon of the following day, November 5.
On November 6, his car was found on Bear Flats near Terwilliger Hot Springs. It contained his cell phone, water, and heavier clothing. Key pieces of his potential survival kit, like his jacket, had been left behind.
The authorities didn’t know what hike he planned, except that it was generally in the Cougar Dam area. So, search and rescue focused on a wide area covering Ollalie Mountain, south of the McKenzie Bridge, Cougar Reservoir, and the Three Sisters Wilderness area.
Over 60 mountain rescue personnel from Eugene, Portland Corvallis, Lincoln, Linn, and Deschutes counties, as well as Deschutes County sheriff’s officials and Eugene police, participated in the search. A UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter infra-red FLIR was also deployed.
It was thought that Daming must have taken the wrong trail at the junction and headed to Olallie Meadows instead of the parking area. But surely he noticed how different that trail looked and that there was no meadow on the way up. It was only a mile to the meadows, and there was plenty of time to turn around.
Efforts were made to find him on the Olallie Meadows Trail, and they found what they believed to be his tracks near Bear Flat. However, sniffer dogs inexplicably lost the tracks at this point.
Later in the week following Xu's disappearance, the weather worsened, with temperatures dropping and rain and snow. Without adequate winter clothing, Daming's situation became very precarious in the early days of November.
The Sheriff in charge of the search stated the most significant challenge the lost man faced was the weather. It had been relatively mild up to that point, but on November 8, temperatures in the search area fell below freezing overnight. His family said he was a fit and accomplished hiker, but staying overnight in these conditions would be virtually impossible in a light jacket.
On November 10, newspapers reported that rain and fog were hampering search efforts and that the snow level was expected to drop below forty-seven hundred feet overnight. Part of the search area was higher than that and expected to have some accumulation.
On Monday, November 12, the official search was called off due to bad weather, but friends and volunteers continued to search. They had focused on between fifty and one hundred square miles of thick forest, with nineteen agencies, dozens of volunteers, and over five thousand man-hours of searching.
On November 15, they were lucky, and one-half of Sullivan’s trail book, up to page 157, was found, which included the Olallie Mt. hike on page 154. The other half had been found in his car. So why did Xu get so lost if he had a map with him?
The trail book was found in a very rugged area of the French Pete Creek drainage, on the south side of the mountain. The thinking was that Daming must have followed the trail to Bear Flat, then headed down French Pete Creek, where there is no trail. French Pete Creek is full of rocks, heavy foliage, trees and is very steep and hazardous and the going is extremely difficult due to endless fallen trees, rocks and steep terrain. After the Creek, it enters the French Pete Creek Trail, which would have either taken him back to Pat Saddle or down to Aufderheide Road 19 if he was alive at this point.
One year later, a group of 45 volunteer searchers spent 400 hours looking for the remains of Xu’s body, but nothing was found. Shixiu, Daming's wife said the hardest part was that she had no remains, nor a body to return to his family.
Daming's demise is a sad tale. Despite a beautiful sunny day and a good map, he appears to have got disorientated and wandered off in the wrong direction to an unknown fate, for some reason. Unfortunately, the weather turned bad soon after he was reported missing. Given the thick, inaccessible forest around the French Pete Creek drainage where his guidebook was found, it is likely his remains will never be discovered.
A simple case of hypothermia or something more sinister? Don't take the wilderness for granted, even if you are an experienced hiker. Daming took no equipment with him at all on this day hike, and this was probably his biggest mistake.
Jake Dutton missing poster
Five years later, Jake Dutton, also disappeared from the same area whilst on a solo hike and his remains were discovered some years later. Hiking on your own in this particular area is not recommended. Read The puzzling disappearance and death of Jake Dutton from the Three Sisters Wilderness
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