Search for answers after Windsor man disappears in Trinity Alps

One of the last photographs of Steve Morris was taken high up on a ridgeline in the Trinity Alps, the same day Morris would disappear without a trace.

Three other people are with him in the clearing where they had stopped for lunch after a hike that had taken most of the morning. Tim Bowen and Jim Bankson are off to Morris’ left and Bob Shoulders, who would be the last person to see Morris alive, is taking the photograph.

In it, Morris is standing on some jutting rocks, slightly higher than the others. He is tugging on the brim of his hat. It is a gesture that almost looks as if he is surveying the vistas around him, looking for a new route to conquer.

It was, say family and friends, his way.

“He was always looking for another challenge, another mountain to climb,” said Carrie Morris, his wife of 37 years. “It was just he had to be higher to feel that wonderful soul-clearing peace. There was always some place higher.”

Later that afternoon, Morris would become separated from his hiking partner and vanish. Rescue teams from several agencies, including Trinity, Marin and Sonoma counties, scoured the mountain for the 59-year-old Windsor husband and father, who was an experienced hiker.

The search was called off Aug. 7, after five days with no sign of Morris, only speculation and guesses as to what happened to him.

Four weeks later, he still is missing. A private service was held for Morris at the First Presbyterian Church of Santa Rosa, which sponsored the backpacking trip and where Morris was an active, involved member. And while family and friends continue looking for him, including a ground search of the area over Labor Day weekend, the hope at this point is that his body eventually is recovered.

But in the vacuum his disappearance has created, friends and family are left to face the loss of a man who loomed large in their tight-knit religious community, leaving them with a mystery that has tested the very tenets of their belief system.

“This is a moment where yes, you could have a crisis of faith,” said Dale Flowers, the pastor at First Presbyterian and a longtime friend. “But part of faith is leaving the outcome to God, and for us, it’s believing in the goodness of God. There is no formula.”

For his wife, the whole tragedy, and the outpouring of support from strangers and friends alike, has made her believe more deeply in what she calls “God with skin on.

“If anything, it tends to strengthen one’s faith when you experience the presence of God in such a profound way,” she says, “both in a deep internal sense but also through the myriad ways that people all around you and across the country move toward you with love and compassion.”

It is a place, say family and friends, where Morris lived and breathed. He was deeply devoted to his beliefs, and fiercely protective of his wife and teenage daughter, both of whom he doted on.

A skilled carpenter and trained family therapist, he was quick to help friends and others in need, many who he met through the church. With his wife, he ran a Christian counseling practice in Santa Rosa, where she said he made deep connections with the people in his care.

“He had experienced great pain in his life,” Carrie Morris said. “And he knew how to put people at ease no matter what they were going through. It was a gift.”

For the past seven years, he was a member of a mens group from his church who meet every Saturday morning to talk about matters of faith and share life experiences. The group has become important in the lives of the men who attend, said Flowers and Shoulders, both of whom were part of it. Morris, they said, was a steady, quiet and positive force.

But it was out in nature - hiking, biking, climbing or camping - where Morris seemed most at home.

“He was not the kind of person who could sit for long indoors,” his wife said. “He was happiest in big, open spaces.”

Like the Trinity Alps.

Beauty and wildfires

Aug. 2 was an achingly beautiful day. The only blemish in the sky was a vague misty gray from wildfires that were burning in the forests well below where the men were hiking. But although they were far from their base camp at Stoddard Lake, those fires were on everybody’s mind.

The group - nine men from the church - arrived a day earlier, and along with the birds and wind in the trees, the soundtrack around them included the whir of helicopters, which at regular intervals were dipping into the lake for water to douse the fires. It spoiled the solace of this remote, natural place.

“It was a strange trip from the beginning,” Shoulders said. “Even before Steve went missing, it was the most unusual trip I’ve ever been on. It was kind of a bummer. The helicopters landing in the lake was interesting at first, but after a while it wasn’t anymore.”

Part of the appeal of that day’s hike was to get far away from the constant refrain of helicopter engines. Among the topics at lunch was a debate on whether to continue up the mountain - the destination the top of Billy’s Peak, which is looming behind them in the photograph.

Morris wanted to keep going, Bowen and Bankson wanted to go back to camp and Shoulders says he was on the fence. The hike up had been strenuous and exhausting over terrain that was a mix of thick, prickly manzanita brush and rough, jagged rocks, all on a bed of decomposed granite that could be as slippery as ice. It wasn’t an expert’s hike, but it was hard and the group was weary. Except Morris, who was the only one in long pants, which unlike the guys in shorts, protected his legs from the brambles of the manzanita.

In the end, though, Shoulders told Morris he would go with him up to Billy’s Peak while the other two men returned to camp. Shoulders took the photograph just before they started off.

Forty-five minutes later, Morris and Shoulders made the summit. The reward is a stunning view that on clear days features a series of mountain ranges set off against the horizon like whales in the sea. Below them are lakes and rivers. The massive peak of Mount Shasta lords over all of it.

The two men spent a few moments at the summit, mostly in silence. Shoulders snapped a photograph of Morris. His friend, Shoulders said, was completely in his element.

“It wasn’t a hard climb to the peak,” he said. “There was a steep part at the end and we had to scramble up it, grabbing at ledges and pulling ourselves up. Steve loved that sort of thing. He loved a good challenge.”

The day growing late and a good two-hour hike back to camp ahead of them, the two started back down off the mountain. Somewhere along the way, they got separated. Looking back now, Shoulders said he believes he misunderstood what Morris was trying to do.

“I had water, but I didn’t have enough electrolytes,” Shoulders said. “I bonked. I wasn’t thinking clearly. Now, I think Steve had another route entirely that I didn’t imagine.”

At the time, though, Shoulders thought the idea was to get back to the clearing on the ridge where they had stopped for lunch earlier. As he made his way toward what he thought was the spot, Shoulders could see Morris several yards away below him, working across the ridgeline.

“I waved to him, but he didn’t see me,” he said. “I thought he was trying to find a way over the ridge.”

Shaky and losing his legs, Shoulders kept moving down, keeping his friend in his sights. But when he got to the clearing, he could no longer see Morris.

Experienced, careful hiker

It was not like Morris to get too far ahead. He was an experienced hiker, careful, deliberate. More apt to slow his pace than make you quicken to meet his. Shoulders called out, but all he got back was the echo of his own voice. He kept calling. He spent an hour looking for him, but finally, thinking Morris was already on his way back to camp, Shoulders headed down hoping to find he had gotten there before him.

But Morris wasn’t there. They waited. When he didn’t show, several of the men retraced their steps back toward the ridge and spent about four hours searching for Morris, calling his name over and over.

They had no choice but to go back to camp. Once back, two members of the group hiked out toward where they could get a cellphone signal and called for help.

But by the time the Trinity County Sheriff’s Office was notified, it was dark, too late to begin to search a mountain that could be unforgiving even during the day.

By first light, though, they were out in force. Trinity’s search and rescue team started combing the mountains with search dogs. A helicopter was dispatched. The pilots of the fire tankers were told to be on the lookout for Morris.

Back in Santa Rosa, Carrie Morris was notified. She spent Saturday night searching the Internet, Googling things like boot prints and how to ping a cellphone. The next morning she and her sister began the six-hour drive to Trinity. On Monday, Pastor Flowers followed them up, in part to lend help and comfort and also to allow Shoulders and the other campers who were with Morris that weekend to get needed rest.

Exhausted and spent, most of them drove home. But as soon as Shoulders got back to town, his wife implored him to go back.

“I knew immediately she was right,” he said. “I just had to go back and at least try to be there for Carrie.”

Within a few hours, he was back on the road headed north.

At the time, nobody thought the worst. Nobody thought he would never be found.

But the hours and then days went by and, except for one fleeting moment when search dogs picked up and then lost Morris’ scent, there was nothing.

It was as if he disappeared off the face of the earth.

Carrie Morris drove up with her sister-in-law early in the week. Word that Morris was missing had reached the congregation, newspapers and social media. People on Facebook offered their prayers, many who Carrie says she didn’t even know. A vigil was held at the church. The public attention was almost too much for a woman who is painfully private, but, she said, in some ways it helped.

“It was very profound for me,” she said. “There was this sense of the whole community lifting me up. It spread so fast and so far. In my mind, it was as if all of those people were holding us up.”

Still, it wasn’t until they arrived in Weaverville that she began to prepare for the worst.

“I had this anxiety the whole weekend,” she said. “But about halfway up on Sunday, it just dissipated and was replaced by this kind of feeling, I don’t know .?.?. it’s so hard to describe, but it was like a net was holding us up. And I had this uncanny sense of peace that said ‘It’s OK, you’re not alone.’ And when we got to the place, I couldn’t feel Steve. I just knew. He was gone.”

New helicopter search

Last week, a helicopter equipped with a high-speed camera system and piloted by volunteers experienced in search and rescue returned to Trinity to look for signs of Morris. Authorities speculate that he may have fallen and his body is hidden in deep brush or, perhaps, somewhere in the Trinity River. It’s not common for there to be no sign of a hiker who has disappeared, but understandable. The area is treacherous in places and there are spots where it’s impossible to see large portions of the mountainside, the ground below, in rivers, streams and in between rocks and thick, impassable brush.

Based on what they found, and with information provided by Shoulders about where Morris was when he disappeared, a group of searchers agreed to do another sweep of the mountain. The group - about 20 people, including 11 of Morris’ friends from the church - met in Trinity last weekend.

According to Carrie Morris, searchers found several clues but returned home Sunday, dispirited.

While they remain hopeful his body will be found, Carrie Morris and the couple’s teenage daughter have begun the grieving process which, Carrie says, is “basically one day, one step at a time.”

The pain is fresh and raw and she says there are moments when she gets angry at her husband for taking risks. But she says it’s a thought that passes quickly, replaced by something else entirely.

“I know God loved Steve and I have to believe, I have to believe that God has a bigger plan,” she said. “It’s too soon. It stinks for us, the people who loved him. But we had so much time together, so many beautiful memories and I’m thankful for that. There is meaning in all of it, even if it’s not clear to us in the moment.”

Shoulders said he has been buoyed by Carrie Morris’ grace over the past few weeks as he struggles with being the person who he says “lost her husband.

“Those first few days, it was hard,” he said. “I was asking God. I was definitely in a mind where I was bargaining.”

Help from grief counselor

Shoulders is not the only member of the congregation who expressed feelings of guilt and helplessness, Pastor Flowers said.

Flowers said that in response to that, Carrie Morris asked a grief counselor to come to the church and talk to the group so they could work through what happened and how to deal with it.

He said he expects there’s a lot more work ahead for many of them.

“Time will pass and things will ebb,” he said. “But these are the tensions of having faith. First knowing that God is responsible for everything, but also that we have free will. Somewhere between the two you can’t explain everything. And so you learn through faith to give up control, that there are things that you can’t understand. You can’t attribute it to humanity, and you can’t attribute it all to God, either.”

It’s that knowledge that has helped Shoulders cope, too.

“I have to have faith that He knows where Steve is and he’s taking care of him,” he said. “We can’t have him with us. That’s terrible and it’s tragic and awful, but it’s not ultimately awful.”

And, say Morris’ friends and family, there is a small amount of comfort in having apparently lost their friend in a place that gave him a great deal of joy. A place, they say, where he could feel God.

“The way that he died was the way that he lived,” his wife said. “There is something beautiful in that.”

Donations to the Morris family can be made to the Morris Family Fund at the Exchange Bank branch in Windsor, 8700 Lakewood Drive, Windsor 95492.

You can reach Staff Writer Elizabeth M. Cosin at 521-5276 or elizabeth.cosin@pressdemocrat.com.