Katherine Huether -- Found Deceased 3/13/10

Portland State University student from N.J. remains missing in Washington

By Ryan Hutchins/For The Star-Ledger
March 11, 2010, 7:40PM

Katherine Huether sent a text message to a friend at 3 p.m. last Thursday: She said she was at a trailhead, going for a short hike and would be back at her Portland, Ore., home by 8 p.m.

That was the last anyone heard from the 24-year-old Huether, an aspiring forest ranger who grew up in Franklin Township, Somerset County.



Authorities say the Portland State University student has seemingly vanished. Her car was found Saturday, parked at a trailhead near the Bonneville Dam in Washington’s Skamania County. A hiker later stumbled upon a credit card receipt, bearing Huether’s name, on a steep and rugged trail on Table Mountain. The slip, found about seven miles from her car, is the only clue authorities have that she’d been in the area.

"I can’t think of the last time we had someone go missing off the trail," said Skamania County Undersheriff David L. Cox, adding that most searches happen when a hiker is injured. "This is a little bit odd."

The trail Huether chose climbs steeply out of the Columbia River Gorge, taking hikers into the heart of the Cascade crest. It reaches the summit of Table Mountain and is about six miles long, with steep drop-offs near its end.

Huether is a fit and experienced hiker, her family said. Some friends and relatives flew out to Washington to join the search.

"We’re still holding out hope that Kate will come back to us alive and we’ll be able to hold her and talk to her again and tell her how much we love her," her father, Robert Huether, said at a press conference Wednesday.

More: http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/03/portland_state_university_stud.html

Body of Missing Portland Hiker Found
Sunday, March 14, 2010



STEVENSON, Wash. — Authorities say the body of a missing 24-year-old Portland woman has been found.

Katherine Huether's had been missing since March 4 when she went hiking near Bonneville Dam in Washington's Skamania County.

Undersheriff Dave Cox says her body was found Saturday in the Columbia River Gorge by some hikers wedged behind rocks at the base of an 800-foot cliff.

He says deputies confirmed the body was that of Huether but because of darkness and hazardous conditions authorities postponed recovering it until Sunday morning.

Cox didn't disclose any information how she died in a news release, but he told the Portland Oregonian that Huether appears to have fallen from a cliff that is part of a steep rock face marking the site of the historic Bonneville Slide.

The only information that authorities had to go on was her car found at a trailhead and a credit card receipt with her name found about four miles north of Bonneville Dam.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,589191,00.html?test=latestnews

This is sad news. My heart goes out to her family.