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As the sun sent long shadows across the parking lot
of Mount Bachelor ski area Thursday afternoon, volunteers
from Lane County search and rescue silently loaded snowshoes,
packs and other emergency gear into their van. The search
crews looking for Kate Svitek, a 22-year-old snowboarder
missing since Saturday, had dark shadows under their
eyes and showed the strain of slogging through the deep,
heavy snow, day after day. "It's really discouraging,"
said Lane County SAR volunteer John Mowat. He said he
was tired, but not as tired as the volunteers who came
two days ago when most crews were using skis to traverse
the mountain.
Search crews were back at it today, according to a resort
spokeswoman who said there was nothing new to report
this morning. Thursday they were using snowshoes and
last weekend's snowfall had compacted, making it easier
for searchers to travel. The Bachelor ski patrollers
who searched all night Saturday and have participated
in the search since, went back to patrolling the mountain
Thursday thanks to a massive influx of trained volunteers.
But they desperately needed a break, Ski Patrol Director
Mike Blume said. "They're emotionally and physically
spent," he said. "They've been on an emotional
roller coaster. They were the people who were on this
initially, so they're on it like hounds."
Despite their exhaustion, his patrollers were upset
when he took them off the search, Blume said.
According to Chris Nolte of the Deschutes County Sheriff's
Office, about 125 search and rescue workers combed the
mountain Thursday, including Svitek's younger brother,
Michael. The teams are doing a systematic grid search
and are using ski poles and avalanche probes to look
for holes beneath the snow.
They searched the south and southwest sides of the mountain,
traversing the now dangerously icy terrain, both horizontally
and vertically.
The UH-58 helicopter from the U.S. Army National Guard
spent Thursday scanning for tracks below the rescue
road, which runs around the base of the mountain. Wednesday,
the helicopter used a special type of radar called FLIR,
short for Forward Looking Infrared Radar. The FLIR technology
can scan not only for tracks and other signs, but also
picks up and images heat patterns. But as the winds
increased Thursday, gusting upwards of 35 mph, the helicopter
pilots had difficulty at the higher altitudes near the
summit where they have been scanning the bowls off of
the summit chairlift, and the backside of the mountain,
just in case Svitek hiked up to them.
So far, the weather had been optimal for searching and
survival. Arm temperatures with little wind have raised
rescuers' hopes for Svitek's survival. But with storms
forecast for the weekend, searchers are picking up their
already feverish pace. "Time is against us,"
Nolte said. "And the clock is ticking, decreasing
the survivability."
In the search and rescue command center at the base
of the mountain, pink lines cover a 4-foot by 3-foot
black and white map of the mountain showing one of the
sections that has been searched. In some sections the
words "fly over" have been stamped in big
black letters on top of the pink highlighting. On the
other side, four volunteers communicated with the 20
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search teams on radios. Outside, some searchers were
taking a lunch break, or warming up with coffee or hot
chocolate. Next door, Matt Janney, the Mount Bachelor
mountain manager, slumped into his chair. He said the
8 by 10 computer print-out of Svitek never leaves his
desk. "Every time I walk in here I look at it,"
he said, "It's just a reminder."
Not that he needs one. Janney, who has worked at the
mountain for 18 years, said this is the longest search
in the history of the mountain. "This has never
happened before," he said. "We get people
who ski out of bounds and have had quite a few overnight
searches. But we have never not found the person we're
looking for."
Blume, who took the initial report from Svitek's friends,
said he's mystified as well. He worked on the search
crew that went out Saturday night, putting in 27 hours
straight at the mountain. "We were sure we'd find
her," He said. "That she was just out there
somewhere with a broken leg or something." He even
had his own dog, T.G., a German shepherd trained for
avalanche rescue, up on the mountain Wednesday. "We
have covered that ground so thoroughly, it's just a
complete mystery to me," he said. "We know
that area like the back of our hands. We've used all
our intuition, all of our hunches in our search. And
it just hasn't worked. I'm completely baffled."
Still, Blume said he believes Svitek is somewhere on
the mountain, as does Nolte.
On Feb. 8, the day before Svitek disappeared, about
15 inches of snow fell on Mount Bachelor. So when search
crews looked for tracks, leading off the catchline trail
in the Northwest Territory and off the rescue road,
they were looking at mostly untracked snow. The reason
they still believe Svitek is within the boundaries of
the ski area is because they still haven't found any
tracks leading out of it. According to Nolte, the most
common theory is that she is under the snow somewhere
or that she fell into a deep tree well or a vent, deep
holes formed by hot air escaping from the mountain.
Svitek didn't know the Northwest Territory well.
Saturday was the first time she had ever ridden the
Northwest lift. Her last ride on the chairlift, recorded
on the electronic ticket checking system, was at 11:20
a.m. Her friends last saw her at noon. Svitek first
started snowboarding at the end of last season.
"For an intermediate rider, she totally rips,"
said Jenn Locke, a friend who works as a ticket checker
at the mountain, the same job Svitek has. She was also
certified wilderness first responder and had taken courses
with the National Outdoor Leadership School. And she
recently spent 75 days in the Patagonia region of Argentina
on a wilderness survival trip. And according to Carly
Hogan, spokeswoman for Mount Bachelor, it's that training
that still gives searchers and Svitek's family hope.
"She's an outdoorsy girl," said Locke. "She
knows what she's doing out there."
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