Following 11 days of intensive searching for missing hiker Austin King, Yellowstone National Park on Wednesday downshifted the effort from a rescue to a recovery.
Since the search launched on Sept. 21, more than 100 people have taken part in the effort with helicopters, search dogs, spotting scopes, trackers and a drone. The effort has logged more than 3,225 air and ground miles in the remote and mountainous area near Eagle Peak.
King summited the mountain in inclement weather on Sept. 17, but failed to show up at his pickup point days later. Though searchers discovered King’s camp, they have not located the 22-year-old park concession worker.
“Although we will continue to hope for the best, I want to extend my deepest sympathies to Austin’s family, friends and colleagues,” Superintendent Cam Sholly said in a Wednesday statement. Sholly also thanked the search teams from Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks and Park and Teton counties, “who have all worked tirelessly to find Austin in some of the most difficult and remote terrain in Yellowstone.”
At 11,372 feet, Eagle Peak is the park’s tallest point. It sits east of Yellowstone Lake in a roadless area of mountain ridges, dense woods and steep topography.
A solo summit
King had set off Sept. 14 on a seven-day solo backpacking trip. On Sept. 17, he called friends and family to report he had summited Eagle Peak. A storm moved over the park that day, bringing rain, fog and precipitation that fell as snow in higher elevations. On the phone call, King described sleet, hail and windy conditions, according to the National Park Service.
When he didn’t show up the afternoon of Sept. 20 on the shore of Yellowstone Lake’s Southeast Arm to catch a boat ride back across the 136-square-mile body of water, he was reported overdue to the Yellowstone Interagency Communications Center. The search began the next morning.
Helicopters and drones zigzagged over the mountain scanning the terrain. Ground crews climbed the shoulders of the mountain and combed an area ranging in elevation from its peak down to 8,000 feet, looking in drainages and examining ridges. Park staff also “followed up on cellular activity by King” from the evening he summited the peak, according to the NPS. The weather has been favorable for searching in the days since King went missing.
Limited search efforts will continue into the foreseeable future as conditions warrant, according to the park.
King is 6 feet tall and slim with hazel eyes. He wears glasses and had on gray pants and a black sweatshirt when he set out. A provided photo shows him with brown shoulder-length hair, a stubble of facial hair and a bandana around his head.
Austin’s father, Brian King-Henke, is holding out hope, he wrote in an update to the GoFundMe page he set up for the search effort.
“I haven’t given up on the impossible,” King-Henke wrote. “Please stay strong for him and keep him in your prayers.”
