Missing Hunter Found Oregon Man, 70, Discovered Alive After 3-Day Search

After a three-day search by horseback and foot, rescuers on Sunday found a 70-year-old hunter who’d been lost since Wednesday.

The hunter, Richard Smith, was found alive and well in the Boundary Creek drainage area Sunday afternoon.

Smith wasn’t taken to the hospital; instead, he was dropped off at the same remote camp he disappeared from.

More than 30 searchers and five dog teams spent the weekend scouring a remote area of southeastern Shoshone County for the lost Oregon hunter.

Shoshone County Sheriff’s deputies had few details about Smith’s condition after he was found, or how he survived, saying only that he was apparently unhurt.

Smith had been hunting with his son, daughter-in-law and grandson near the basin of the North Fork of the Clearwater River in Idaho, about 25 miles southwest of Superior, Mont.

A guide took the group in to a remote camp by horseback around Oct. 12, said sheriff’s dispatcher David Peite.

When the guide returned Thursday, Smith’s relatives told the guide that Smith had been missing since Wednesday.

Smith’s relatives were still at the camp early Sunday, helping search.

The Shoshone County and St. Joe search and rescue team headed south along the river basin, while a Clearwater County team headed north.

Searchers battled wind, rain and fog, Peite said.

Low temperatures were in the 30s throughout North Idaho over the weekend.

Smith’s hometown was not known.

, DataTimes