Crew finds body of man stuck in snow for months

[May 14, 2011]  PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- The Oregon man's body was found along with his diary in a pickup truck on a remote mountain road.

"Heavy snow. Snowed in," he wrote three months ago.

Officials said Friday that a U.S. Forest Service survey crew found Jerry McDonald's body in a sleeping bag in the back of his 1997 GMC pickup truck, where he had been stranded for nearly 70 days by bad winter weather.

The Linn County sheriff's office said the log showed McDonald's truck got stuck Feb. 14.

The truck was located Thursday on a one-lane dirt road about four miles from Marion Forks. The forest service road is in the remote foothills of the Cascade Range, about 70 miles east of Salem.

His first log entry was Feb. 7, indicating he had been in the area for a week before he became stuck. The last entry was on April 15, about 60 days later.

By late February, McDonald was detailing the weather and repeating his location, "Horn Rd.," daily.

"The road Mr. McDonald was on is in a mountainous area of east Linn County, and the way in or out would have been impassable once it snowed," said Sheriff Tim Mueller. "There were no indications that he had attempted to walk out of the area."

McDonald was carrying $5,000 in cash. There were no signs of foul play and he had not been reported missing.

Deputies said McDonald had warm clothing and water but no food or cellphone.

The calendar showed that he scrawled brief notes about the weather daily. "Snowed 1 foot night," he wrote on March 15.

He marked April 12 as the day his motor vehicle registration expired.

The discovery of McDonald's body came nearly a week after a Canadian woman who had gone missing with her husband in Oregon was found alive in a stranded van in a remote part of northeastern Nevada. Officials have not yet found Rita Chretien's husband, Albert, who had set off on foot weeks earlier in search of help.

There have been several cases of motorists getting stranded on remote roads in the backwoods of Oregon during the past couple of years. In 2006, San Francisco journalist James Kim died of hypothermia after he, his wife and two children became stranded in Oregon's southern mountains.

[Associated Press; By NIGEL DUARA]

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.