The National Park Service’s Western Incident Management Team that organized the search for four missing people on Mount Rainier has departed, park spokesman Kevin Bacher said Friday.
While as many as eight park employees will search the Muir Snowfield on Saturday, this is no longer considered an active search, Bacher said.
“We will continue to search as opportunity and resources permit,” he said. “The chances of this having a positive outcome are pretty small.”
The departing incident team, led by Denny Ziemann of Arches and Canyonlands national parks, was the same team sent in response to the Jan. 1 shooting death of ranger Margaret Anderson.
It’s been two weeks since the missing parties started up the mountain only to find themselves trapped by the weather.
Mark Vucich, 37, of San Diego and Michelle Trojanowksi, 30 of Atlanta, planned to conclude their camping trip on the Muir Snowfield on Jan. 15. Sork Yang of Springfield, Ore., and Seal Hee Jin of South Korea, planned to finish their climb Jan. 16. Both climbers are 52.
The incident command role was turned over to Steve Winslow, a district ranger from Black Canyon National Park. Winslow is a former Rainier ranger and is at the park to head the board of review examining Anderson’s death.
Rainier’s climbing rangers are nationally renowned and Bacher said the need to bring in an outside team to command a search and rescue effort is, if not unprecedented, at least “certainly unusual.”
Bacher said the outside team was needed because the staff was “maxed out” after a three-day search for missing snowshoers that started Jan. 14, four days after Anderson’s memorial. Rainier’s staff also is considerably smaller in the winter than it is in the summer.
With good weather expected Saturday, visitors are expected to be at Paradise and the snowplay area for the first time since the search began. Bacher prepared a flier for Saturday’s visitors with directions on what to do if they find potential evidence of the missing people.
Craig Hill: 253-597-8497
craig.hill@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com/adventure
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