Missing without a trace

Glacier National Park has its fair share of ghosts -- men who have gone off into the wilds and have never been found.

In June 2003, park rangers found Larry Kimble's 1998 dark blue GMC truck parked at the Rocky Point Trailhead.

Kimble, 40, of Dorr, Mich., was described at the time as 6-feet 1-inch, 150 to 160 pounds, with brown hair and eyes. He had long hair and a pony tail.

Park rangers searched the area, including using dogs and a dive team. The theory was that Kimble may have fallen into Lake McDonald.

Rocky Point has steep cliffs along the lake and the water below is quite deep.

Kimble was never found, and any evidence of him may have been permanently deleted by Mother Nature. The area where Kimble likely disappeared was scorched that summer to mineral soils by the Robert Fire.

The most recent disappearance in Glacier was that of Yi Jien Hwa, a native of Malaysia. Hwa, 27,  planned an ambitious multiday hike through Glacier in August 2008 that included the off-trail Floral Park traverse.

Park officials discouraged Hwa from the journey -- solo travel, particularly off trail, is not recommended -- but Hwa went anyway. His plan, at least according to his backcountry permit, was to camp at Sperry Campground, do the Floral Park traverse -- a rugged off trail hike near Sperry Glacier -- camp at Reynolds Creek Aug. 12, then Granite Park Aug. 13, followed by a night at Fifty Mountain Aug. 14, then Kootenai Lakes Aug. 15, the Hole-in-the-Wall Aug. 16 and then Upper Kintla Aug. 17. He'd hike out of the Park on Aug. 18, finishing up a long trip.

But no one reported ever seeing him on the trail or along his route. He never made it, as far as anyone can tell, to Kintla Lake.

A massive search for Hwa began and lasted into September. Searchers combed Sperry Glacier and its basin -- the Floral Park traverse runs along the base of the glacier and some people actually hike the ice as an alternate route.

Searchers also climbed mountains in the Sperry Glacier area and did helicopter surveillance as well. No clues turned up. Posters of Hwa were nailed to trailheads in 2008 and again in the summer of 2009, but Hwa, like others before him, remains a Glacier ghost.

One of the most mysterious disappearances took place in 1934 when Dr. E.H. Lumley took off, supposedly to walk to Waterton, and simply vanished. A postcard of Gunsight Lake written the day before he disappeared read: "Dear Kay, Here is the drink that satisfies. I have been having early morning, afternoon and evening cocktails of the one and only aqua pura a la Many Glacier. But swimming is out. Two cold baths have sufficed to prove to prove to me that uncleanliness is preferable to uncomfortableness anytime -- Hillis."

Twenty-eight experienced woodsmen searched the trails, a boat patrolled the shorts of Waterton Lake and climbers checked nearby Mt. Cleveland. The search continued until winter set in, then resumed in the summer of 1935. Lumley's father offered a $500 reward, but the 27-year-old Ohio State University professor was never found.

A HAUNTING postcard was also the last message from Bill and Joe Whitehead, who wrote to their mother on Aug. 23, 1924. It read: "Dear Mom, We've seen beargrass on our trips. These postal cards are on top of the menus. We are just leaving Many Glacier for Granite Park. We are both O.K."

The two young Chicago brothers disappeared the next day. After a night at Granite Park Chalet, the two headed down the Garden Wall toward the Lewis Hotel, now Lake McDonald Lodge. They mentioned plans to stop along the way to do some fishing. They never made it to the lodge. Rangers searched every lake within 20 miles. A $1,700 reward was offered by their family and the case received national attention, but once again, they simply vanished.

SEVERAL decades later, on July 21, 1963, David Wilson decided to squeeze two more mountain climbs that weekend after returning from Chief Mountain with friends. He left them a note saying he was going to tackle Going-to-the-Sun Mountain alone.

Wilson, 21, was a summer park crew employee, a senior in pre-medicine at Ohio Weslyan University. He was never heard from again.

The incident raised some eyebrows, considering the story behind Goind-to-the-Sun Mountain. According to Blackfeet legend, after the god Napa created the world, he climbed back to heaven via the Going-to-the-Sun peak.

Many more people have vanished within the park, many of them drowning victims believed to be entombed in the icy depths of the park's glacier-carved lakes.