Search and rescue teams from the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office were working Sunday to recover the body of a hunter from Hubbard who was reported missing in late October in the Mount Hood National Forest southeast of Estacada.
In a news release on Sunday morning, the sheriff’s office said that crews were navigating difficult, hard-to-reach terrain and that their efforts were expected to take at least several hours.
Fifty-one-year-old Devon Dobek’s truck was found at the Fish Creek Trailhead at the intersection of Oregon 224 and Forest Service Road 54, the sheriff’s office previously said.
Jace Cook, a deputy district attorney in Linn County whose sister-in-law was a close friend of Dobek’s, set up a GoFundMe for volunteers to continue the search for Dobek after the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office suspended its efforts on Nov. 7.
A hiker who was part of that effort found Dobek’s body on Saturday, about 900 yards from where his truck was parked near the Fish Creek campground, Cook said. Cook suspects Dobek had fallen from a ledge. He was found with the buck he harvested and his backpack, Cook said.
“Devon Dobek was a man full of light,” Cook said in an interview with The Oregonian/OregonLive on Sunday. “My sister-in-law, his close friend, cherished his warmth and he treated our family with kindness, often sharing his bounty, like fresh fish from his hunts. His generosity and spirit touched everyone.”
The GoFundMe raised nearly $34,000, including support for helicopter efforts, searchers on horseback and K-9 teams that were scouring the area looking for Dobek before he was found, Cook said.
The independently coordinated search efforts came after a seven day effort that the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office said involved more than 4,000 volunteer hours in an area with steep, wildfire-damaged terrain. Technical ground teams combed the area, along with helicopters, airplanes, drones equipped with thermal cameras, K9 units, ATVs and cell phone tracking specialists.
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