Missing / Located Persons > Located Adults and Children
Found Deceased: Noah Pippin--MT--9/15/2010
Kelly:
Project Jason Profile:
Name: Noah Pippin
Date of Birth: 03/10/1980
Date Missing: 09/15/2010
Age at time of disappearance: 30
City Missing From: Flathead, Montana
State Missing From: Montana
Gender: Male
Race: Caucasian
Height: 6'
Weight: 230
Hair Color: Brown
Hair (other): Bald at crown, when last seen head was shaved
Eye Color: Blue
Identifying Characteristics: Dark brown flat mole on right wrist, surgical scars on right knee
Clothing: Noah was last seen wearing army green military-like pants, camouflage plastic rain poncho over a backpack, and a floppy brimmed camouflage hat
Jewelry: None
Circumstances of Disappearance: Noah was last seen on Sept. 15, 2010 at "Chinese Wall" in Bob Marshall Wilderness about 100 miles south of Glacier National Park in Montana in Lewis & Clark County, near the Continental Divide Trail. Trail users who saw Noah over a 2 week period stated that he was hiking with minimal equipment considering cold weather, seemed depressed and troubled.
He is a 3 tour Iraq veteran with the U.S. Marines, and had recently resigned from the Los Angeles Police Department. A trail user stated that Noah stated that he was not going to report for military duty with the California National Guard. The family said that Noah had just moved out of his apartment in Los Angeles, brought all of his belongings to his parents' home near Traverse City, Michigan, and visited with them and his brother for a week. He then rented a car, stating that he was heading back to San Diego to report for his weekend of training with the CA National Guard.
They said he did not mention his route plans for the trip back, but only that he had two weeks before he needed to report. They later found entries in a notebook he left behind among his belongings with directions to a remote lake in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. It is not known why Noah may have wanted to hike to this lake nor where he learned of it.
Medical Conditions: Excellent physical health, may suffer from PTSD.
Investigative Agency: Lewis & Clark County Sheriff's Dept.
Agency Phone: (406) 447-8293
Investigative Case #: 2010-36703
Print a poster: http://www.projectjason.org/aan/AAN_NoahPippin.pdf
Kelly:
NamUs Profile: https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/13514/0/
Story from Outdoor Magazine: http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/Why-Noah-Went-to-the-Woods.html?page=3
Charley Project Profile: http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/p/pippin_noah.html
Kelly:
http://record-eagle.com/features/x1548942214/Where-is-Noah-Pippin
October 16, 2011
Where is Noah Pippin?
Suttons Bay grad has been missing for more than a year
BY MARTA HEPLER DRAHOS
LAKE ANN — Noah Pippin looks out from a photo on his parents' dining room wall, serious in Marine dress uniform. His old dog tags lie atop a guestbook on a nearby table.
Rosalie and Mike Pippin are in mourning of a sort. The Lake Ann couple hasn't seen or heard from their oldest son since he went missing in August 2010 after a visit home.
Noah, a 1998 Suttons Bay High School graduate and a former Marine who served three tours in Iraq, had recently quit the Los Angeles police force and was serving with the California National Guard. He was expected to be deployed to Afghanistan soon.
"He needed to shake his mind off and decide what he wanted to do with his life," said Rosalie. "His plan was to stay a week with us and then go back to San Diego ... until he picked up his orders."
During their week together the family fished, practiced at a shooting range, and visited their favorite beach and restaurants, Rosalie said. A noticeably depressed Noah, 31, stored his belongings in his parents' basement and closed out some online accounts. Then, on Aug. 25, he said goodbye in the family's driveway and rode off in a taxi for Traverse City, where he planned to rent a car for the trip back.
It wasn't until weeks later, when they got a call from the National Guard telling them that Noah failed to report for duty, that Mike and Rosalie learned their son was missing.
After another weekend went by without Noah reporting, the couple called the Michigan State Police. It was mid-October when the police got permission to investigate, Mike said. Michigan law prevented them from placing Noah on the National Crime Information Center, the central database for tracking crime-related information.
Finding a trail
Police did learn that Noah had dropped off his rental car at Glacier Park International Airport near Kalispell, Mont. It's the county seat for Flathead County, near the vast Bob Marshall Wilderness and two national forests, 30 miles from Glacier National Park.
In November Mike made the first of several trips to the area, where he spoke with police officials and posted fliers. He also gave the first of many media interviews.
Since then, Noah's cellphone records and sightings confirm that he bought pizza at a shop in Columbus Falls and stayed at a hotel in Hungry Horse.
Then, carrying only water and a backpack, he hiked on foot to a trailhead of the Continental Divide Trail in the Bob Marshall Wilderness.
In the wilderness
Over subsequent days in the wilderness, the Pippins would later learn, Noah was spotted by and talked to everyone from forest rangers to hikers to hunters.
"He had plans to follow the Chinese Wall when the trail turned east," said Flathead County Detective Pat Walsh, referring to a 22-mile-long, 1,000-foot-high limestone outcropping. "When he was last seen in September he was at a spot that was at least 20 miles from the closest trailhead."
An early winter prevented an extensive search for Noah, whom Walsh believes may have been trapped by the weather. He said the most logical conclusion is that Noah was overcome by hypothermia -- those who saw him say he was fit but underequipped -- or had a fatal encounter with a grizzly bear.
"He was carrying a .38 caliber gun, which is not a big enough gun if you run into a grizzly," Walsh said.
Back to Montana
The Pippins returned to the area in June for a fruitless search with forest rangers. In September more agencies mounted an exhaustive search-and-rescue effort. It, too, failed to turn up anything but decomposed material near the Chinese Wall, where a group of Boy Scouts claimed to have found some of Noah's clothes this summer. Three bones that also were found turned out to be those of an animal.
Walsh isn't surprised and said that the Pippin family may never learn what happened to their son. Because of the vast and rugged terrain, "we have a lot of missing people over the years that have never been found," he said.
Silver linings
The Pippins take comfort in knowing that the search for Noah led to the wilderness rescue of another young man -- Kevin Latshaw, 22, of Lake Orion -- who was in danger of diabetic shock after his insulin pump broke. Rosalie said she draws additional strength from talking to those who knew or last talked with Noah and from comments posted on the family's Facebook pages, "Have You Seen Noah Pippin?"
The couple, who have two younger sons, Caleb and Josiah, also are attending a "grief share" program together at their church.
"It's hard, but it's drawn us together as a family," Rosalie said.
Wishes, regret
Mike, who tracks Noah's progress through the wilderness on maps with thick red marker, plans to search again in November.
"We went from knowing nothing a year ago to knowing a lot now," he said. "At this point on the trail there are still doors to open. As long as there are still doors to open, we'll knock on them."
The Pippins' efforts to find their son have attracted the attention of national media including "Outside" magazine and the Discovery network. Noah's disappearance will be the topic of a "Disappeared" episode on the network's upcoming season.
Meanwhile, the couple continues to talk with everyone from survivalists to post-traumatic stress disorder experts in the diminishing hope that their son merely went off the grid and eventually will surface alive.
"I would hope that he faked his disappearance. That would be the best case scenario," Pat Walsh said.
But there's another possibility-- one that Rosalie chews on, but believes unlikely.
"Why would he go 2,000 miles away and spend all that time and money to go to the wilderness to kill himself?" she said.
Rosalie said she's haunted by her final week with her son, when obligations prevented her from making a bigger fuss over him.
"I keep thinking, 'Next time I'll do better,' and there isn't a next time," she said. "I'm insane I didn't make more of an effort to honor him."
Kelly:
http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2012/06/08/mystery-missing-marine
Friday, June 8, 2012
The Mystery Of The Missing Marine
Why does someone go missing? In the case of former Marine Noah Pippin, we may never have any answers because he left so many unanswered questions behind when he disappeared in August of 2010. A few hikers, including another vet, saw him before he vanished in the Bob Marshall Wilderness in Montana. Mark Sundeen tells his story in a lengthy article in Outside Magazine.
Outside Magazine: Why Noah Went To The Woods
“It seemed like everyone that Pippin ran into in his last final days in civilization were left with this really haunted sense that this was a man wrestling with demons. I heard this from the hikers, from the hunters, from the motel owners that this was man struggling with something,” he told Here & Now‘s Robin Young.
Sundeen says the place Pippin was is difficult to get to.
“There hasn’t been a whole lot of searching. Last year the snows were so deep they couldn’t get a search crew in there ’til August and by October it starts snowing again. It’s about a three or four day hike to get to the spot where he was last seen. And then it’s just thick forest, lots of steep cliffs. You’d have to have a crew of 20 or 30 people fanning out looking under every boulder if you’re looking for a body.”
Still, Sundeen said, Pippin’s parents, Mike and Rosalie Pippin, still have hope they will see him again.
“They’ve certainly accepted the possibility that they won’t see him again but they’re not going to forget about him. They’re always praying and hoping that he’ll be back,” Sundeen said.
Noah Pippin saw some of the bloodiest fighting in the Iraq War. He got out of the Marines in 2007 but never seemed to find anything besides the military that he could hold onto.
He eventually joined the National Guard and was supposed to show up for duty in California on September 11, 2010.
Shannon:
http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/new-wilderness-search-to-be-made-for-missing-hiker/article_3375b8d7-96d8-5a3b-8767-5ecc5de3df83.html
New wilderness search to be made for missing hiker
August 21, 2012
By ANGELA BRANDT
Lewis and Clark County officials along with others will once again venture into the Bob Marshall Wilderness to search for a Marine who went missing in 2010.
Starting Wednesday, Sheriff Leo Dutton along with three deputies, eight search and rescue members and a handful of civilians will trek into the area starting at the Benchmark Trailhead. The U.S. Forest Service and Border Patrol will also assist. The plan is for the team to return the following Tuesday.
“We are looking for remnants like a laptop, a blue tarp or a backpack,” Dutton said.
If evidence of Noah Pippin is located, more officials will be called in to search for human remains, he said.
Last year a similar search was conducted after clothing thought to be Pippin’s was located. Pippin was last seen in September 2010, while trying to cross the Chinese Wall.
His family has been returning to the area to keep Pippin’s name in the news and on people’s minds. While the hope is that he made it out of the wilderness and assumed another identity, his loved ones are looking for any information they can gather.
His father, mother and brother have been traveling the state talking with the people who last saw Pippin and anyone who can help with the search.
Mike Pippin, his father, said he is encouraged by and thankful for the enthusiasm shown by the sheriff and other local officials.
Pippin’s brother, Caleb, had planned to search in the Bob Marshall but a wildfire derailed that effort.
“From the ashes of that, Sheriff Dutton’s plan arose,” Mike Pippin said.
“We’re just hoping there are other people who remember seeing him even if it was before he went missing,” he added.
Pippin was last seen on Sept. 15, 2010, when he told fellow hikers that he planned to hike along Chinese Wall to White River.
At dusk that day, a family encountered him just south of Salt Mountain. That was the last time he was seen. He was 30 years old at the time.
Officials said people who had contact with him in the area reported that Pippin was ill-prepared for an extended time in the wilderness and did not have any maps.
It is unknown if he had a global positioning system. He was carrying a .38-caliber revolver and a backpack. Pippin was believed to be dressed in woodland camouflage and green clothes.
Pippin was a Marine who toured overseas in the Middle East. After returning home, he became an officer with the Los Angeles Police Department and later served with the California National Guard.
Anyone with information on Pippin is urged to contact the sheriff’s office at 406-447-8293.
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