A Siskiyou County woman has not been heard from since Thursday, when she set out from Happy Camp on what family believed was a simple errand: driving to Gold Hill, Oregon, to buy peaches for her mother. Joyce Hammon was last seen driving her silver 2017 Ford Edge in the Happy Camp area around 2:19 p.m. on August 6, and she has not resurfaced since, prompting an active search by local authorities.
The Siskiyou County Sheriff's Office is tracking Hammon's case under file number 26-2118, according to Action News Now. Investigators believe Hammon was traveling via Greyback Road to Highway 199 and then Interstate 5, a route that would have carried her north out of Happy Camp toward the Rogue Valley community where her mother lives. The sheriff's office has asked anyone with information about her possible location to contact Deputy Garrison.
That route is part of what makes the case especially urgent. Greyback Road, also known as Forest Highway 48 or Indian Creek Road, climbs from roughly 1,200 feet in elevation at Happy Camp to a 4,800-foot summit pass near the California-Oregon border over about 20 miles, according to Rider Magazine. It is a narrow, winding mountain corridor, and long stretches of it pass through dense Klamath National Forest canopy where cell service is effectively nonexistent, according to the West Branch Campground trail guide. Severe weather and landslides are also known to create hazards along that stretch, per the same source.
A Search Complicated by Scale and Silence
The geography working against searchers is not incidental. Siskiyou County is California's fifth-largest county by land area, spanning 6,347 square miles, with more than 60 percent of that land managed by federal and state agencies including the U.S. Forest Service, according to the Siskiyou County government. Happy Camp itself is a remote, sparsely populated community of just 905 residents as of the 2020 census, per the U.S. Census Bureau, and it functions as a hub for the surrounding Klamath National Forest and Karuk Tribal lands.
Under California law, county sheriffs hold primary authority over search and rescue operations within their jurisdictions, coordinating volunteer teams with state support from the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services, according to the California Rescue Dog Association. Because a single county can cover so much rugged, unpopulated ground, Northern California agencies routinely lean on multi-county mutual aid, pulling in volunteer ground teams, K-9 units, and state air support when a search stretches across large wilderness corridors, according to the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association. Past missing person cases in the county's forested mountains have drawn on California Highway Patrol helicopters, off-highway vehicle teams, and specialized search dogs, as documented by SFGATE.
Errand to Oregon
Gold Hill, Oregon, sits along the Rogue River in Jackson County roughly 85 miles north of Happy Camp via Highway 199 and Interstate 5. It is a historic agricultural town in the Rogue Valley known for its fruit orchards and farm stands, according to Western Mining History — the kind of destination that would explain a trip to buy peaches for a family member. It is not yet known whether search efforts have expanded across the border into Josephine or Jackson counties along that intended path, and that remains an open question as the investigation continues.
Whether ground or aerial crews have begun sweeping the Greyback Pass corridor itself has also not been publicly detailed. What is confirmed is the timeline: Hammon was last seen the afternoon of August 6, and as of the sheriff's office's public alert three days later, she had not been located. The case remains open, and investigators are continuing to ask the public for any information that could help pinpoint her whereabouts.
Anyone with information about Joyce Hammon's possible location is asked to contact the Siskiyou County Sheriff's Office and reference Deputy Garrison or case number 26-2118. The sheriff's office, headquartered in Yreka, operates a 24-hour dispatch line at 530-841-2900 for public tips on missing person investigations.
