Searchers will resume combing the rugged Willamette National Forest after the snow leaves the higher elevations in weeks to come, looking for the remains of a 32-year-old Eugene hiker who disappeared last summer.

James "Jake" Dutton, a 5-foot-10, 180-pound Lane Community College graduate, left his 1998 Nissan Frontier pickup at a U.S. Forest Service trailhead near Cougar Reservoir June 15, 2012. An unmarried former Coast Guardsman who stayed fit by hiking and riding bicycles, he carried a backpack and was believed heading toward the Three Sisters Wilderness boundary.

Dutton had plans to return to his truck June 18, according to the trailhead pass he signed.

He was never seen again.

As Oregonians begin heading for the trails this summer, Dutton's disappearance a year ago is one reminder of the risks.

A staggering 189 men and 51 women officially remain listed as missing since 1997 by the Oregon Office of Emergency Management after trekking into Oregon's wildest places, said Georges Kleinbaum, search and rescue coordinator for the office.

"It only takes a mile before you get totally turned around and don't know which way to go," said Kleinbaum, adding that 1,036 search and rescue missions were conducted across Oregon last year.

While more than 89 percent of those sought by searchers are recovered alive, the consequences of getting lost can be dire. Eight percent die, and 2 percent are never found, said Kleinbaum.

"Often, we find hunters who had a map and compass with them, but we find them deceased in the woods," said Mary King, emergency services coordinator for the Benton County Sheriff's Office. "That's not rare."

University of Oregon mathematics professor Daming Xu failed to return after walking into the Willamette National Forest in November 2007.

University of Oregon mathematics professor Daming Xu failed to return after walking into the Willamette National Forest nine miles east of Dutton's departure point in November 2007. Xu, in his 50s, was on a day hike carrying a water bottle and guidebook. He wore lightweight clothing despite the lofty 4,500-feet elevation and lateness of the season.

Part of Xu's guidebook was found by another hiker in the French Pete Creek drainage 1 1/2-weeks after he was reported missing. Winter storms forced suspension of the search for him Nov. 18 that year, and nothing more has been seen or heard of him.

"There is a mystery here," says Dutton's mother, Cynthia Boucher, 66, of Vancouver, Wash. "Both Jake and the professor were experienced hikers on wilderness trails. Two grown men can't simply disappear from the mountains five years apart."

Unfortunately, they can.

More than 30 people have wandered into Lane County's mountains and never returned over the past 40 years, estimates John Miller, search and rescue coordinator for the Lane County Sheriff's Office in Eugene.

"Oregon is still a pretty primitive state," he said. "We have a lot of national forest and U.S. Bureau of Land Management land. A lot of it is heavy second-growth and old-growth. That keeps us from bringing closure to the families when their loved ones go missing."

Lane and Deschutes counties probably are the two likeliest places in Oregon to go missing, owing to spectacular scenery and lots of enthusiastic hikers and backpackers, says King. The parched forests and deserts of eastern Oregon make getting lost harder and searches less challenging than in the drippy, dense foliage of the Coast Range and Cascades.

Still, people get lost everywhere in Oregon at one time or another, including the Pacific sand dunes and along the spectacular rim of Crater Lake during whiteouts and blizzards.

More than 11 search and rescue operations were launched daily in America's national parks between 1992 and 2007, according to studies released in 2009 by the American Mathematical Society and the online journal of Wilderness and Environmental Medicine. The average cost of a search in the national parks was $895.

Green Lakes trail in the Deschutes National Forest in Bend. Lane and Deschutes counties probably are the two likeliest places in Oregon to go missing, owing to spectacular scenery and lots of enthusiastic hikers and backpackers, said Mary King, emergency services coordinator for the Benton County Sheriffâs Office.

Surviving in the backcountry after straying off a trail often is a matter of knowing how to read a map, compass or GPS unit, and many who have those tools aren't proficient with them, said King, whose office in Benton County conducts about 20 searches a year. Many who fail to survive have poor fire-building skills, are unable to keep warm and dry and didn't bring extra food and water, she said.

Jude McHugh, spokeswoman for the Willamette National Forest, said dense, coastal type rain forest covers much of the terrain where she works, raising the odds that a hiker or backpacker might wander off an established trail. If that happens, the foliage can mask steep drop-offs and cause fatal falls, she said.

People disappear for a lot of reasons, says McHugh.

"Some probably go missing on purpose, some by accident," she said. "Some go to a beautiful spot to take their own lives."

Criminal activity also comes into play, said Miller, the Lane County search coordinator.

"People who make mistakes out there and are by themselves sometimes don't survive," he said. "And sometimes they aren't found. There are not enough people in the world to put eyes on every bit of that ground out there."

Christopher Feightner and his wife, Kelly, are reunited after searchers found Feightner and his hiking partner, Michael Burk, in the Mount Hood National Forest on June 11, 2010 after a two-day search. Georges Kleinbaum, search and rescue coordinator for the Oregon Office of Emergency Management, said there were 1,036 such missions statewide in 2012.

Kleinbaum's best advice for people planning a backcountry excursion is to prepare for the worst and let somebody know where they're going and when they plan to return.

"Those things make all the difference," he said.

As for Dutton, the Eugene hiker who vanished in 2012, Lane County search teams plan training exercises in Willamette National Forest this summer.

"We are not done searching for him," said Miller.

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