The strange disappearance of Fern Baird from the Prairie Peak Trail in Idaho
Fern Lovett Baird, disappeared October 19, 2020, Prairie Creek Trailhead, Prairie Peak Area, Sawtooth National Forest, Idaho
Revised and expanded November 2023
Fern Lovett Baird, 62, of Park City, Utah, signed in at the Prairie Creek Trailhead north-west of Ketchum in Idaho on Monday, October 19, 2020, at 1.17 pm and then vanished. The authorities were notified that Fern was missing on October 22.
She was never seen or heard from again. Extensive searches of the area have turned up no sign at all. No clothing or the black fanny pack she was carrying have been located.
Did Fern decide to take a trail off the relatively straightforward Prairie Loop trail? Did she become disorientated, or was she suffering from hypothermia? Was foul play involved?
Who was Fern Baird?
Fern Baird was 5’5” tall and weighed 115 lbs. She was last seen by the hotel concierge and picked up by the CCTV system on the day she disappeared wearing a grey jacket and black pants. She was carrying a black fanny pack.
She was an experienced hiker but not known to do technical hikes or mountaineering. She was not a risk-taker but a casual hiker and was not the type to go bush-whacking or to take shortcuts, and it was likely that she would have stayed on the marked trails.
Fern was running the owner and Principal Broker of Powder Beach Realty, doing Residential Sales and Vacation Rentals at Utah's mountain resorts and in the Salt Lake Valley. She also founded the company YopaBag; she designed bags for carrying yoga equipment to class. She was very well-liked and had many friends who would gather together to go on hikes. Fern has one son, Breck, who lives in California.
Previously, she held various positions at Snowbird Ski Resort and Park City Mountain Resort. She also worked as a ski instructor at Deer Valley Resort.
The hike on the Prairie Creek Trail
The Prairie Creek Trailhead is reached by driving north of Ketchum on Highway 75 for 15.5 miles and then west on Baker Creek Road #162.
Prairie Lakes and Miner Lakes Trails are accessible from the Prairie Creek Trailhead. The Prairie Lakes Trail is 5 miles/8 km. (one-way). The trail to Prairie Lakes winds through meadows and mixed conifer forests alongside Prairie Creek. It is a steady, but not difficult, climb to the grassy basin where the lakes lie.
The trail is within the Sawtooth National Forest and covers 2,110,408 acres (854,052 ha), mainly in Idaho and partially in Utah. It was initially named the Sawtooth Forest Reserve in a proclamation issued by President Theodore Roosevelt on May 29, 1905. On August 22, 1972, a portion of the forest was designated as the Sawtooth National Recreation Area (SNRA), which includes the Sawtooth, Cecil D. Andrus–White Clouds, and Hemingway–Boulders wilderness areas.
Prairie Creek Peak
Sawtooth National Forest is named after the Sawtooth Mountains, which traverse part of it, and it contains the Albion, Black Pine, Boise, Boulder, Pioneer, Raft River, Smoky, Soldier, Sublett, and White Cloud mountain ranges.
Prairie Creek Peak is located in the Smoky Mountains of central Idaho and is just one of a handful of peaks in the Smoky Mountains standing above the ten-thousand-foot level. The most attractive feature is its north face, which rises 1,000 feet precipitously while forming a perfect pyramid above Prairie Lakes. Its less impressive east slopes form the backdrop to Big Lost Lake, while its jagged south extending ridgeline presents a bold face to the area near Smoky Lake.
Surprisingly, few people make it to the summit of Prairie Creek Peak, considering its proximity, perhaps because of its relatively rugged appearance compared to most other Smoky Mountain Peaks or because of access issues.
It’s not uncommon for hikers in the area to report speaking with people who have become confused while hiking, and Fern May could have inadvertently taken the wrong trail. If she had gotten lost and gotten too cold, disorientation and hypothermia could have quickly occurred.
There are some sketchy sections that hikers can encounter. For example, the west fork of the Prairie Creek Trail has some poor reviews on AllTrails, warning of dangers.
The Trail logbook entries
Blaine County Sheriff’s Lt. Mike Abaid said that on October 19, 2020, a family of five from Tulsa, Oklahoma, signed the logbook around the same time as Fern Baird and hiked either the West Fork drainage of Prairie Creek or Prairie Lake. The log bog entry was barely legible, but it was believed to be Adkins.
Fortunately, The Sheriff’s office could track the family down, “but they did not see her or provide any useful information”. The sheriff’s office interviewed another couple from Boise who also signed the logbook that day, but the pair had also not seen Fern.
Prairie Creek trailhead
The search for Fern
Blaine County Sheriff Search and Rescue members (BCSAR) and BCSO deputies began a search for Fern on Thursday afternoon, October 22, 2020, after being notified she was missing. The hotel called the sheriff’s office that day to report their concerns when she did not return to check out after she’d inquired at the front desk about good hiking locations.
Her 2018 Subaru Crosstrek was found in the Prairie Creek parking area. From the trailhead, there are multiple hike options that Fern could have taken in the Prairie Peak area north of Ketchum, Idaho.
Fern Bair’d Subaru Crosstrek was found in in the Prairie Creek parking area
Lt. Mike Abaid said they've been working with Idaho Mountain Search and Rescue to help locate Fern. They also used several National Guard helicopters, two drones, three K-9 Units, and numerous searchers on foot, motorcycles, and horseback. "People have gotten turned around and lost out there before. I mean, it’s big country Idaho Mountains."
The search had focused on the Prairie Lakes, Minor Lakes, Norton Lakes, and Mill Lake at elevations from 7,100 feet to 9,200 feet. Early winter conditions challenged the high-elevation search with below-freezing night-time temperatures and covering the ground with a fresh blanket of mountain snow.
The temperatures were as follows: Oct 19 63°/37°, Oct 20 61°/36°, Oct 21 55°/37°, Oct 22 43°/27°, Oct 23 46°/25°, Oct 24 54°/28°, Oct 25 29°/10°
One last major search was made on Friday, October 30, 2020, when Blaine County Sheriff Search and Rescue (BCSAR) airlifted seven K9 teams into the search area, ranging from 7,100 – 9,200 feet, along with teams of ground searchers. With no results, the search for Fern was officially terminated.
Blaine County Sheriff Steve Harkins said, “This is not the outcome we were hoping for, but after ten days of searching, we have exhausted our resources. We will continue to investigate any leads we gather."
There has been no bank account, credit card, or cell phone activity since October 19, 2020.
Will Fruehling, chief deputy of the Blaine County Sheriff’s Office, said it’s possible that Baird ventured off the main trail and became disoriented, “As far as a working theory goes, I’m afraid we still have numerous possibilities of what happened to her. I still think that anything is possible at this point, but I do believe it is most likely that something happened to her in the Prairie Creek area. The most likely theory is that she became lost, perhaps left the trail and had to spend the night. There is nothing that points to foul play, but there is nothing that points to anything concrete either.”
Updates and Follow-up searches
The following summer, on June 25, 2021, the Blaine County Sheriff’s SAR searched the Prairie Lakes Trail as part of a training operation. The team deliberately chose the “waterfalls” location about 2 miles up the trail to help search for evidence related to Fern.
Search members found a cell phone left in the area over the winter; detectives determined it belonged to a local man who said he had lost it while hunting last fall. It’s unknown if the hunter was in the area the week Baird went missing.
Further viewing
Read other strange stories from Idaho
The tragic disappearance and deaths of Jo Elliott-Blakeslee and Amy Linkert in Idaho
The Strange disappearance of Connie Johnson from Big Fog Mountain
The shockingly weird disappearance of Terrence Woods
The unexplained disappearance of Susan Seymour Adams
The strange disappearance and death of Todd Hofflander in Hells Canyon
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Sources
https://www.linkedin.com/in/fern-lovett-baird-4a9aba55/
https://www.summitpost.org/prairie-creek-peak/154813
https://blainesheriff.com/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=222
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sawtooth_National_Forest
http://www.news9.com/story/5f98e2e7d576e50c31ad6d44/group-of-tulsans-believed-to-be-last-people-to-see-missing-idaho-hiker-
https://kutv.com/news/local/idaho-police-suspend-search-for-missing-park-city-woman-last-seen-oct-19
https://www.mtexpress.com/news/blaine_county/police-keep-searching-for-missing-hiker/article_cfb9952e-1894-11eb-a788-bba1f7d8ef52.html#:~:text=Fern%20Baird%2C%2064%2C%20has%20been,but%20did%20not%20find%20Baird.
https://magicvalley.com/news/local/vanished-in-the-magic-valley-part-2/article_6201abd3-d0d3-5f08-b4e7-ddb2ff99ee8f.html
https://www.mtexpress.com/news/blaine_county/after-9-months-utah-woman-s-disappearance-still-a-mystery/article_6c96a62a-e9af-11eb-a1bc-d3010b878380.html#:~:text=The%20Sheriff's%20Office%20officially%20terminated,Harkins%20stated%20at%20the%20time.
