The strange disappearance and death of Stephen Michael Morris near Billys Peak
Stephen Michael Morris, Disappeared August 2, 2014. Remains found December 2015, near Billys Peak, Stoddard Lake area, Shasta-Trinity National Forest.
Revised July 2024
On August 2, 2014, Steve Morris, 59, went camping with friends from the First Presbyterian Church of Santa Rosa around Stoddard Lake and Billys Peak in California’s Shasta-Trinity National Forest. He became separated from the other hikers and was never seen alive again.
His remains were finally found several months later after a massive private search by friends and volunteers. The story is another lesson to be careful about group hikes. There are many cases of hikers being left behind, taking a shortcut, or walking ahead and vanishing.
Where are Stoddard Lake and Billys Peak in Shasta-Trinity National Forest?
Billys Peak from the pass above Upper Stoddard Lake
Stoddard Lake is the sixth largest lake in the Trinity Alps wilderness, which covers more than 2 million acres and includes Mount Shasta. The Stoddard Lake Trail almost immediately enters the Wilderness, and the lake is named after a family that ranched in the area many years ago. The old Stoddard cabin is along the trail, but the cabin is long gone.
Upper Stoddard Lake receives relatively few visitors, though it is said that it is the most beautiful of the three lakes in Stoddard Basin, with stunning cliffs above and views of Mount Shasta to the east. The least known but most spectacular of the lakes on Billys Peak is the tiny Holland Lake, a deep, sapphire pool situated 600 feet below the summit. The rugged granite cliffs descend from the summit into the lake, and the great views to the east make this one of the most striking locales in the Trinity Alps. In addition to Holland Lake, the north side of Billys Peak is home to several small tarns nestled into small dells below the summit.
An area known as the White Trinities, between the Trinity River and the Stuart Fork, is the most famous area for visitors. Beyond these two regions, scant consideration is given to the northeast corner of the range. The popular trails in this area all go to lake basins, particularly Stoddard, Bear, and Tangle Blue Lakes. A few peaks are named, and a few have been climbed. These circumstances leave some excellent peaks and spectacular scenery to the few motivated enough to observe their existence on a map. None of these overlooked peaks in the northeastern Trinities offers as much interest as Billys Peak.
Perhaps the main reason Billys Peak has gone under the radar is the confusion over which peak the Billys Peak Trail ascends. Adjacent and connected to the main bulk of Billys Peak is a tall granite spire with 1,015 feet of prominence. Often referred to as Billy’s Peak Lookout due to the past presence of a fire lookout tower, it is officially unnamed and is an impressive granite summit when viewed from the Trinity River. This prominent peak towers directly above the Trinity River Canyon and Highway 3, giving rise to the misconception that it is Billys Peak. There is no trail up the true Billys Peak.
Billys Peak only reveals small turrets of exposed rock when viewed from below, and neither the true summit nor the true nature of the mountain is visible from any road. The southern side of the Peak is drier, brush-covered, and often uninteresting, and the north side is rock and ice-covered. In addition to claiming the large Stoddard Meadow at its foot, Billys Peak has four lakes on its north side, including Stoddard Lake.
Who was Steve Morris?
Steve Morris and his wife, Carrie, ran a family therapy practice in Santa Rosa. He was trained and licensed as a professional marriage and family therapist. He was an experienced hiker and loved spending time in the great outdoors.
The disappearance hiking to Billys Peak
Steve and the First Presbyterian hiking group decided to hike that day to Billy's Peak and back to camp. Morris was hiking ahead of the others and, for reasons unexplained, never returned to camp with his fellow hikers. He had some water and energy bars with him but no overnight kit.
The search for Morris
The group retraced the trail in search of Morris but couldn’t find him anywhere in the area. Two of the campers hiked to where they could get cellphone reception and were able to call for help at about 10.14 pm.
The area where the group was camping is about 6,000 feet above sea level, and night temperatures dropped to around 20 degrees at that time of year.
Trinity County, Marin, and Contra Costa Counties' Search and Rescue (SAR) teams began searching for Morris on the morning of Sunday, August 3rd, 2014, but were unable to locate any signs of him.
Efforts were hampered by the difficult steep terrain, decomposed slippery granite, and a nearby wildfire. Over the next few days, CHP helicopters, Marin’s elite Bay Area Mountain Rescue Unit, Human Remains Detection Dog teams, and over 100 Certified Search and Rescue volunteers were involved. Black Hawk helicopters ferried searchers up to the slopes around Billys Peak.
Trackers determined they were following the trail of a lone person. The walker's gait indicated an injury to his upper left torso. It would take them an hour or two to cover 25 feet.
However, on August 7/8, after four and a half days, the Trinity Sheriff’s Department suspended official search operations.
Friends and family persevered, and a large number of volunteers and family members continued the unofficial search for Morris. Over $42,000 was raised by 341 supporters via GoFundMe to fund the search.
From that point, the team conducted 21 expeditions over ten months. They painstakingly tracked Steve’s route more than two miles down the mountainside. Volunteers encountered two bears and five rattlesnakes.
On August 10, 2014, Jim Higgins, a private citizen and helicopter pilot from Chico, California, contacted the Morris family to offer help. When asked what he would charge, he said, “I don’t want any money. Just pay it forward someday.” What followed was an extended private search endeavor involving ground searching and search support by over 60 family and community volunteers (most from First Presbyterian Church of Santa Rosa), analysis of over 5,000 photos of the search zone by 135 volunteers with ASIST (Aerial and Satellite Image Search Team), three Certified trackers through Joel Hardin Professional Tracking Services and Seven Certified Human Remains Detection Dog Teams.
Using a low-flying helicopter, Jim Higgins was able to locate a slide area descending from the 7,500-foot peak where Steve was last seen. He spotted a slide of loosened rock that he felt marked Morris' fall, ending at a spot where searchers said they found footprints that matched the size 9 Keen boots he was wearing.
The search team concluded that Morris had fallen 30 to 40 feet from a granite cliff on the mountain, then tumbled an additional 15 feet, displacing rocks and leaving impressions in the dirt.
But there were still no signs of remains. The volunteer search continued sporadically over the winter, hoping to find bones that would yield DNA. Animals would tear apart a human body in a matter of days, and the bones would be scattered.
Jo Peterson, a professional tracker from Siskiyou County with 22 years of experience, joined the search about 50 days after Morris disappeared and traced his progress for more than a mile. His downhill path zigzagged as he tried to make his way past boulders and around manzanita thickets up to 12 feet tall, with plenty of bear tunnels. The tracks had been eroded by wind and rain, but Jo said she looked for footprints, crushed vegetation, and broken twigs. Trackers refer to these indicators as “sign”.
Remains found
Near the end of 2014, remains were finally located in the ravine and were subsequently confirmed as human by using the cadaver dog “Buster” Dostie and microscopic analysis by Bode Technologies.
Steve Morris had made his way more than 2 miles to the spot, about one-quarter mile from a logging road where he would have been easily found.
Dr. Arpad Vass, a forensic anthropologist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory for 20 years and formerly of the University of Tennessee, agreed to test the remains with a mass spectrometer, which determined they were decomposing human tissue. Carrie Morris, Steve’s wife, received Vass' email in May 2015 and decided to call off the search at this point. The Sonoma County Superior Court examined the evidence and issued a death certificate at that point.
No one knows how long he had survived, nor if that was his final resting point.
What happened to Steve Morris?
What happened to Steve that day when he became separated from his hiking partners? Why did he split from the other hikers? Was he caught in an unexpected slide, as suggested by the location where his remains were found? Kudos to the searchers for persevering and locating his remains.
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Read other strange stories from Mt. Shasta and the surrounding Shasta-Trinity Forest
The mysterious disappearance of Carl Landers from Mount Shasta
Rosemary Kunst - Strange disappearances from US National Parks
Jerry Lee McKoen - Strange hunting disappearances from U.S. wilderness
Sources
https://www.summitpost.org/billys-peak/770970
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/santa-rosa-therapist-missing-in-shasta-trinity-national-forest/?ref=related
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/windsor-wife-says-trinity-alps-search-revealed-fate-of-her-missing-husband/
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/missing-windsor-man-an-avid-hiker/
