A hiker is missing in Canyon Lands National Park.
Jerry O. Wolff, 65, had a permit to stay in the park until Friday, and nobody has heard from him or seen him since then, said Denny Ziemann, chief park ranger for Canyonlands and Arches National Parks.
Ziemann characterized the search for Wolff as “fairly significant.”
“Unfortunately, (the terrain is) very remote and isolated,” Ziemann said.
Air and ground searches have been used, as have search dogs, he said.
“We’re actually starting to scale it back,” Ziemann said of the searches for Wolff.
Weather is the biggest threat to Wolff’s well-being, Ziemann said. Tuesday’s high temperature was predicted to be 99, Ziemann said.
Wolff, who was in the park alone, had a backcountry permit to stay four days and five nights in the remote Needles area of the Canyonlands National Park.
It is a very remote part of the world.
The Needles section of the park is particularly rugged and typical of the “southern Utah red-rock country,” Ziemann said.
It’s difficult to see things from the air because of the drastic changes in elevation of the terrain.
The Park Service called St. Cloud State to gather information about a faculty member, spokeswoman Marge Proell said Tuesday. Privacy laws prevented her from identifying the faculty member, she said.
“We try to develop a profile that puts him in the search area and one that gives us a clue of how and where to look,” Ziemann said. “As is the case oftentimes, especially in a remote area, it gets to a point where there is nowhere else to look. We’re not at that point yet.”
But, he said, efforts are reaching a point where searchers could face too much danger if they continue searching some areas, he said.
Wolff was alone, Ziemann said, and in an area so remote that he hired a service to drop him off.
The area is accessible only by certain all-terrain vehicles.
“It’s a very remote, very isolated” area, Ziemann said. “Just by its nature, it’s out there.”
Lets hope for the best. A prayer or two would not hurt.
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