'The river ripped him from me': A father, a son and a trip that turned tragic in Interior Alaska

When Gary Pitt and his son set off on one last trip up a river in Interior Alaska last week, it was ostensibly to camp and hunt for moose.

But he was really looking for some closure — a way to say goodbye to the state he had loved and explored for many years, and to his wife, who died in May.

Instead, the Goodpaster River snatched Gary Pitt in an instant when his boat hit a logjam and sank Friday morning.

Troopers and volunteers have been searching the Tanana River tributary for three days. They've found no sign of the 66-year-old miner and father of four.

His son thinks he drowned trying to save him.

"My guess is he tried to save me and fell in himself," said Gary Pitt II.

Gary Pitt had raised his family working as a miner in small towns all over the West, from Elko, Nevada, to Lander, Wyoming.

Somewhere along the way, he'd fallen in love with Alaska. For the past decade or so, he'd been working alongside one of his four sons at the Pogo Mine, an underground gold mine northeast of Delta Junction, while living mostly in Kenai.

Pitt and his wife were planning to retire on land they'd bought in a small town in Texas, where they hoped to farm and ranch.

But before Pitt could permanently move down, his wife of nearly 45 years died suddenly at the end of May.

"He was old-school when it came to his emotions. He always said he would show us he loved us by what he did," said David Pitt, one of De'ette and Gary Pitt's four sons.

But he was clearly devastated by his wife's death, David Pitt said.

Some of the family's happiest times had been far up the Goodpaster River, known for its beauty, bounty and treacherous conditions.

A Fairbanks boat dealer even launched a "Goodpaster challenge," in 2011, offering $500 to anyone who could make it far enough up to take a photo with a sign that said "If you can read this, you must be driving an SJX jetboat from Compeau's."

For more than a dozen years, the Pitt family had taken boats up the river to camp and hunt caribou and moose.

With all four Pitt brothers and their own kids, the group could total 15 or 20 people. The family would camp at a spot just above the Pogo Mine, at Mile 88 of the river. Only a few types of boats could make it up that far.

"It was kind of our bonding place," said David Pitt.

This summer, Gary Pitt wanted to see it one more time.

"He wanted to go one last time, because him and my mom — my mom loved going up there," said Gary Pitt II, who lives in Kenai. "He just wanted some closure."

So last week, Gary Pitt and his eldest son bought their hunting permits, loaded up their boat and drove north from Kenai. They put in their jet boat at the Tanana River bridge toward the Pogo Mine. Part of the fun was always the difficulty of getting to their spot.

"It's a very hard river to run," said Gary Pitt II. "It's twisty, braided."

But at about 10:30 a.m. Friday, they ran into trouble.

They'd just turned a corner at a spot about 3 miles south of the mine when something got sucked up in one of the jet boat's engines, Pitt II said.

Before there was a chance to clear it out, the engine lost power and a ferocious current forced the boat into a logjam. Within seconds, the boat sank.

"It tea-cupped the boat, just filled it with water," Pitt II said.

Pitt II saw a flash of his father holding on to the logjam, he wrote in an account he posted on Facebook. Then he was underwater himself for what he thinks was close to a minute.

Suddenly, he felt like he was being grabbed by the top of both shoulders and pulled up. Above the surface, he looked around. His father was about 5 feet away, in the water but holding on to the logs.

He managed to pull himself up on the logs and crawled to his father.  He grabbed him by the coat and yelled for him to hold on.

"I know he felt my grasp. I tried so hard, yelling and screaming for him to hold on, to pull him up out of the water," Pitt II wrote. "I pulled and pulled and could not bring him to me. I had no strength, nothing to bring even his head up out of the water."

"He went so, so heavy," Pitt II wrote. "The river ripped him from me."  

In shock

Pitt II said he laid there on the logs, yelling for his father. No one answered. Eventually, he was able to crawl off the logjam to the bank of the river.

Someone he knew came down the river and saw him. They contacted troopers.

When medical help arrived, Pitt II had water in his lungs and was bordering on hypothermia. He refused medical treatment. When he got back to his truck, he drove all night. Back in Kenai, he went to church. People prayed over him.

The Alaska State Troopers, along with volunteers from the Pogo Mine, members of the Fort Wainwright rescue and dive team and other river locals, have been searching for Gary Pitt using aerial fly-overs in helicopters, plus river boat patrols and underwater cameras.

Searchers have found no sign of Pitt. Troopers will continue to run periodic aerial searches over the river, said spokesman Tim DeSpain.

Pitt II wrote out what happened in a Facebook post, thanking his father for the life he gave his sons.

"He taught us boys with a firm hand and a loving heart and we love him for that," he wrote.

Pitt II said he's been thinking about those fishing and hunting trips up the river, and what they were really about. 

"If there was one thing he wanted more than anything, it was a grizzly bear. But for the most part, it wasn't about the hunt for him. It was about the time being out there, together."