Found Deceased CA - Steven Morris, 59, Trinity County, 2 August 2014

Steven Michael Morris, age 59, was camping with a group of friends at Stoddard Lake. The group went for a hike to Billy's Peak and back to camp. Morris was hiking ahead of the others and never returned to camp. Morris is an experienced hiker and has some food and water with him.

Morris is described as a white male, 5'7" tall, 170 lbs. with red hair and hazel eyes. He was wearing a grey plaid shirt, green pants, brown boots and a tan hat.

Trinity County Search and Rescue began searching for Morris on Sunday, Aug. 3, but have been unable to locate any signs of him. Trinity County has received mutual aid from Marin and Contra Costa Counties in an effort to locate Morris. Rescuers are continuing their search.

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“He’s a great guy. He’s kind of an outdoorsman. He spends a lot of time camping and hiking. It’s a thing he likes to do,” said his brother-in-law Mark Hurty . “This is so tragic, it seems like such an ironic way for him to become lost.”

“He loved California mountain ranges and exploring them, and he loved going to the top,” said Dale Flowers, pastor at the Santa Rosa church where Steve and his wife, Carrie, worship. “This is what is so confusing. How in the world is he lost?”

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The family of missing hiker Steven Michael Morris said Tuesday it has accepted the likelihood he died when he fell down the steep rocky walls at Billy's Peak in the Trinity Alps...

In a written statement, Carolyn Morris said the family believes her husband "lost his footing when a piece of rock gave way and he fell down one of the steep, rocky walls that surround Billy's Peak. "We do not believe Steve could have survived such a fall. These areas are too treacherous to risk further loss of life," she said.

Morris said if the family is able to obtain assistance from a helicopter or a drone in the future, his body might be located and brought home.

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Somewhere up in the craggy Trinity Alps lies something Carrie Morris dreads seeing more than anything else on this Earth. But she feels she must. And she says she won’t stop until she does.

What the Sonoma County resident is desperately hoping to find are the remains of the man she has loved for more than 40 years — her husband...

She’s been scouring the 7,000-foot mountains ever since with a small army of volunteers that include two trained trackers, two helicopter crews, relatives, friends and parishioners from her church. The hunt costs $2,000 a day, mostly for chopper fuel, and they’ve been paying for it through donations from around the nation.

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OkieGranny said:

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Trinity-Alps-hiker-mystery-leads-wife-on-sad-5841232.php

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The last search party for the missing hiker from Sonoma County folded up its tents Dec. 10, just before a series of storms dumped several feet of snow in the high elevations. That spelled the suspension of the hunt for his remains that Morris’ wife and an army of volunteers have been conducting since he disappeared Aug. 2 on a hike north of Weaverville (Trinity County).

Before they had to retreat, trackers found what they believe might be small specimens of the 59-year-old Windsor man’s remains, and one of those is being tested for identification at a DNA lab in Richmond. Those results won’t be known for several weeks at least.

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The final answer came in May of that year, when the last in a series of tests — a mass spectrometer analysis — confirmed that hair and tissue found in a ravine 2 miles from the mountain were human. No DNA was found to link it to Steve Morris, but his widow took it as a final answer.

“I want people to know, after all their prayers and support, we’ve had closure,” she said. “I know what it feels like. I think it’s a good thing.”

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She intends to make only one more trip to the Trinity Alps: to place a metal plate on the rock where her husband’s remains were found.

In her blog, Carrie Morris acknowledged the help from people who started out as strangers and became lifelong friends during her ordeal.

“They have been as compassionate to us as ‘God with skin on’ throughout this challenging process,” she said. “Because of them, we not only have closure, but I can say we have found as much healing as pain in our story.”

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