Obituaries

Recent Obituaries
In Memoriam Archive

Student. Musician. Adventurer.

Steve Knutson ’63

April 7, 2024, in Corbett, Oregon.

Student. Musician. Adventurer. These roles defined Richard Stephen “Steve” Knutson, who graduated from Beaverton High School and entered Reed in the fall of 1959. When not busy writing his thesis, “The Preparation of a Catalyst for Peptide Bond Synthesis,” under Prof. Marshall W. Cronyn [chemistry 1987–90], he played in the string band the Molalla Mudfeet with other Reed students and enjoyed excursions as a member of the Outing Club, including first ascents in the Santiam region of the Cascades and rock climbing routes in the Columbia Gorge. 

Steve completed a master’s thesis and the coursework for a PhD in chemistry at Oregon State University, but left to pursue cave exploration and mapping. A five-decade-plus career as a highly respected and admired caver throughout the Western Hemisphere followed. Steve led many trips into the Oregon Caves at the national monument, which resulted in a detailed map for the National Park Service, and wrote the book Oregon Caves - The Pioneer Exploration and the New Discoveries, which is considered a definitive text.

Steve also worked for the National Park Service to explore caves and study the hydrology of the Green River area of Kentucky (1976–78) and led expeditions to explore and map caves in Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and Peru. He became so prominent as a caver that his discovery of cave burials of the Chachapoya culture of the Northern Andes was documented as the first proof of such pre-Columbian burial rites in “Mummies of the Clouds,” an episode of the History Channel series Digging for the Truth.

In 1962, Steve miraculously survived a 1,000-foot fall down Mt. Hood, an experience that influenced a lifelong interest in the analysis and prevention of accidents and in climbing and caving technology. He edited the American Caving Accidents series for the National Speleological Society (NSS) from 1976 to 1993, was elected a fellow of the NSS in 1977, and was given the prestigious Lew Bicking Award by the NSS (for “a dedication to the thorough exploration and mapping of a cave or group of caves”) in 1989. 

Steve’s graphic account of the traversal and mapping of an underground river cave, the Sumidero of the Rio San Jose de Atima in Honduras, from the August 1988 NSS News, displays the clarity and wit of his vivid writing. From the 1970s until almost the present day, Steve led discovery expeditions to the Marble Mountains Wilderness Area of Northern California. He also co-organized the Klamath Mountains Conservation Task Force in 1973 to work for the preservation of wilderness caves.

Steve participated in Pickathon, the annual bluegrass and old-time music festival near Portland, and played in several string bands over in the Portland area, including Worn Out Shoes, the Good Ol’ Days String Band, and the Back Alley String Band. He is survived by two nephews, Zachary and Garth Choteau. The latter wrote, “While strolling the grounds of Reed College (in the 1980s), Steve pointed to a shiny metal object halfway up the tallest building on campus and said, ‘That’s a piton I left when I scaled that building 20 years ago.’” The piton is still there. —Contributed by Harvey Blau and Joel Davis

Appeared in Reed magazine: Winter 2024

comments powered by Disqus