WY WY - Austin King, 22, Yellowstone National Park, Eagle Peak, 17 Sept 2024

[LucyOso]

"Rescuers discovered King’s camp Saturday evening in the upper Howell Creek area".

Sounds like a misadventure. A fall going to the bathroom at night or wildlife encounter. An abandoned camp means he was not prepared when he went to do whatever he was doing. So sad.

Search for missing hiker in Yellowstone continues

22-year-old Austin King was last heard from on September 17.

www.wyomingnewsnow.tv

 

[arielilane]

SEP 27, 2024

Missing Yellowstone hiker still not found

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

www.jhnewsandguide.com

How long Search and Rescue teams keep looking depends on a number of factors, including how prepared and healthy the missing person is, how much information rescuers can find about their potential whereabouts, and how efficient the search is, said Greg Jackson, a former National Park Service ranger who retired in 2013 as deputy chief of national law enforcement.

From the article:

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.



Hiker Austin King
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK/COURTESY PHOTO

 

[RedHaus]

FWIW, at ~14:35, one of the 2 hikers from @Snoopster's video said "we have cell service" while at the summit of Eagle Peak. And from their video description: "The journey to Eagle Peak isn't straight forward. Use caution and watch the weather if attempting this climb."

I wonder if AK saw those words of caution.

 

[RedHaus]

Great job!
In your opinion, which pictures (between 32 in album SAR flickr) should we zoom first?

Thanks for the challenge @Happypetitvieux01. I certainly am not an expert at this, but I tried for AK's sake!

So far I matched up one aspect of the new blog ascent route map and image #22 from the SAR Album - a close up of image #20 we started with, when @truthfinder2019 first found something interesting. The title of #22 is "Eagle Peak Search & Rescue: ground teams descend Eagle Peak route (2)". It matches to a switchback section of the ascent route.

I mocked up an excerpt of #22 (with lower resolution than the original). And also, I mocked up the ascent route map to tie to #22. So to answer your question, I'd suggest looking down slope from the purple lines using the original high res. SAR image.

Key: Yellow box is three searchers (keep in mind how SMALL humans are in this scale); Red shape is what I think is the "lava flow" the two hikers referenced (around ~11:00) when trying to find the 'key hole'; Green could be the 'key hole'. The purple lines are what I think match between the two images - possibly part of AK's descent route.

 

[acutename]

I finally had time tonight to sit at my desktop and study the two North Face images on the SAR Flickr Album.

The image labeled Eagle Peak Search & Rescue: north face of Eagle Peak (2) is the source, I believe of the images of marks on a snowy slope and the cave directly above those marks, submitted by @Happypetitvieux01 and @carson3483 to the NPS/SAR.

On the image labeled Eagle Peak Search & Rescue: north face of Eagle Peak I found more of the same kind of marks above the cave. It almost appears something (a chunk of snow?) fell from above. I sure hope it was not AK.

Then I started wondering if those marks had anything realistically to do with AK: How could he have ended above that area and possibly fallen down or climbed down to the cave and continued a descent?

So I found a blog site by other hikers who summited Eagle Peak 10 years ago (I'll submit it to NPS/SAR). There are lots of pics, including foggy and snowy conditions as they descended (in daylight in August). There was also this great image, below, of their trail up and down from the summit, including the Key Hole they went through back then.

I can't match up the north face SAR images to this image, especially since I believe the SAR images are mostly of the top third of this image. So I guess I am sharing this in case anyone else finds this useful for further sleuthing.

View attachment 533981

It seems like it would have been really easy to go too far on the third switchback- it is flat and seems like a nice trail curving over the right (right hand in the picture, left side to someone descending) side of the mtn but the searchers must have looked there- on the flight diagrams, they looked everywhere.

 

[acutename]

Well, this bit is disconcerting: "The area is densely populated with grizzly bears..."

earlier in the thread, one of the experts said that they cannot always find remains because the wildlife scavenges

 

[RedHaus]

earlier in the thread, one of the experts said that they cannot always find remains because the wildlife scavenges

Yes, @acutename... I posted both bits. It is less about Bears being a threat to AK while he is alive, and more about the fact that to find his remains, if he has tragically died, may become more difficult as time passes for this reason. Here is that article I found about the realities of not finding missing people in the wilds of Yellowstone due to scavengers.