Rainier rangers still looking for skier, but terrain unsafe for extensive search

Due to safety concerns, the search for a missing hiker is being done from a distance by Mount Rainier climbing rangers during their normal patrols.

A 30-year-old man went missing Monday after falling through a snowbridge and into Pebble Creek while attempting to ski from Camp Muir to Paradise. His partner tried to locate him for two hours using an avalanche probe. The skier's name has not been released.

A ground search launched Monday night and an aerial search took place Tuesday morning.

Soft and unstable snow make it unsafe for searchers to continue looking for signs of the missing skier on ground, said Mount Rainier National Park spokeswoman Patti Wold.

While this approach, which the park sometimes calls a “limited continuous search,” is most frequently used when a climber is presumed dead, Wold said Wednesday afternoon that the park did not yet have an “official presumed status” for the missing hiker.

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