A Vancouver man hiking in the Trapper Creek Wilderness on Friday came upon the body of an Oregon man who had been missing since last month, according to the Skamania County Sheriff’s Office.
The man had disappeared into the woods after he allegedly led police on a chase in a stolen truck.
Barry Hart of Vancouver called the sheriff’s office around 7:15 p.m. Friday and told deputies he had been hiking near Dry Creek, about 16 miles north of Carson, when he found a man’s body.
The body was identified Monday as Joshua A. Brown, 24, of Sunriver, Ore.
After the call, deputies responded and interviewed Hart, who told them he was about 3 miles from the Trapper Creek trailhead when he found the man Friday. He continued to his vehicle, called the sheriff’s office once in cellphone range, and provided a photo of and GPS coordinates for the body.
Deputies and search and rescue workers trudged through waist-deep snowdrifts and downed trees when retrieving the body, which they located around 2 a.m. Saturday.
The body was turned over to the Clark County Medical Examiner’s Office.
The sheriff’s office said Brown was the suspected driver of a stolen truck involved in a high-speed pursuit in the Carson area on March 20.
The chase ended with the suspect, the truck’s lone occupant, fleeing on foot into the Government Mineral Springs area, which is in the Trapper Creek Wilderness in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest.
The area was snowbound at the time, and it typically takes snowshoes or snowmobiles to get there in wintertime.
Deputies, with a police dog, were unable to find the suspect, and the sheriff’s office advised cabin owners to watch out.
The sheriff’s office said search efforts continued since the chase, with the most recent on Thursday. During that time, Brown’s family reported him missing.
