Rangers and Search and Rescue crews still have not found Austin King, the hiker who last made contact with the outside world a week and a half ago on a remote peak in Yellowstone National Park.
As of Friday afternoon, efforts to locate the 22-year-old were continuing, seven days after they began.
When asked Thursday how long the search would go on, spokesperson Linda Veress didn’t indicate it would stop. “The search is ongoing,” she said via email.
On Friday, Veress didn’t change that assessment.
On Thursday, the park used two helicopters — one belonging to Yellowstone, and the other belonging to Teton County Search and Rescue — to continue searching the Eagle Peak area. Officials said they will continue searching drainages and ridgetops near the 11,372-foot peak, the highest in the park.
Park rangers were also working with cellular forensics experts to learn from King’s cellular activity the evening of Sept. 17 on Eagle Peak. King called his friends and family from the peak the same day.
To date, 96 people have been involved in the search, Yellowstone officials said. They’ve used two helicopters, a search dog team, ground crews with spotting scopes and a drone to look for the hiker.
King is from Winona, Minnesota. This summer, he was employed by Xanterra Parks and Resorts, the private business that operates hotels and restaurants in Yellowstone. Throughout August, he posted photos of his time in Yellowstone: peaks shrouded by clouds, bridges in the northern part of the park, waterfalls on the Yellowstone River and sunsets over Yellowstone Lake and the South Entrance Road.
“Life on the road > life at home,” King wrote in one post.
Search and Rescue missions can go on for weeks, and have this summer, though missing people’s odds of survival drop over time, particularly in remote, cold areas like southeastern Yellowstone.
When King called friends and family from the top of Eagle Peak on Sept. 17, he reported fog, rain, sleet, hail and windy conditions. Pictures of the Eagle Peak area that Yellowstone photographers uploaded a week later showed the peak covered in snow — and patches of snow in lower country.
The area is densely populated with grizzly bears, mountainous and far from any development.
In July, after a kayaker went missing during a storm on Jackson Lake, Grand Teton National Park crews actively searched for him for at least two weeks. Two months later, the search was continuing, albeit in a more passive form — as part of daily operations. But Jackson Lake is a vastly different geography than Eagle Peak. For one, it’s at the busy heart of Teton Park. Continuing to search in southeastern Yellowstone, one of the most remote areas in the Lower 48, will require continued, active effort.
How long active search efforts will continue is unclear. Yellowstone officials haven’t said, and Teton County Search and Rescue isn’t able to comment on specifics, since Yellowstone is running the search and PR.
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