Alaskan mountaineer missing without a trace
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Jason Harper, 28, set out May 4 to climb the 16,237-foot peak in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, National Park Service spokesman Smitty Parratt said.
For the past two days, searchers in airplanes and an infrared radar-equipped Air National Guard helicopter have traced the route Harper was supposed to take and an alternate route, but have not located Harper.
Pilots today focused their search on an area at about 8,000 feet where recent climbers said several potentially hazardous crevasses existed.
"The crevasses are opening up more," Parratt said. "People usually climb a little earlier in the season."
A group of four climbers was being dropped on the mountain at 9,000 feet to conduct a ground search. The Park Service has requested a high-elevation rescue helicopter and technical climbers from Denali National Park.
Harper was carrying about 40 pounds of food, skis and climbing gear, but no tent, Parratt said. He was dropped off at 3,000 feet on the mountain, 20 miles northwest of the summit, at an area known as Windy Ridge.
Harper planned to climb Sheep Glacier to the summit and return in five days. Parratt said most climbers start earlier in the year and take seven to 11 days on the same route.
Pilot Harley McMahan, of the Gakona-based McMahan Guide and Flying Service, told Park Service officials that he was to pick up Harper last Sunday.
Harper did not appear at the rendezvous, McMahan said. After searching the area, both on foot and then in his airplane, and seeing no sign of the climber, McMahan thought Harper might have misunderstood the rendezvous date.
But by Wednesday, recalling how little food and gear Harper carried, McMahan notified the Park Service that the climber was overdue, said his daughter, Rebecca McMahan.
"He's been out every day since then, looking for tracks," she said.
A search of Harper's vehicle turned up a plane ticket to Salt Lake City for May 12, which confirmed that he planned to be picked up the previous weekend, Parratt said.
National Park Service pilots searched the mountain Wednesday, looking at Harper's expected route as well as a potential alternative route down. The airplanes were joined yesterday by an Air National Guard Blackhawk H-60 search helicopter equipped with forward-looking infrared radar.
Harper grew up in Boise, Idaho, and has climbed frequently in Alaska since 1998, including five weeks in the Wrangell Mountains in 2000, Parratt said. His family lives in Salt Lake City. Harper has spent the past few winters in Valdez, although it was not clear whether he is a full-time resident of Alaska.