Where is Kate Huether, who left her car at a Columbia Gorge trailhead Thursday and hasn’t been seen since?
With increasingly cold weather adding urgency, about 40 ground searchers and two helicopter crews spent Tuesday scouring a rugged, wooded 12-square-mile area north of Bonneville Dam for the missing hiker.
A similar search is planned for today in a case one searcher called a mystery.
“I’m hoping she’s not hurt too seriously and able to sustain herself during these past few nights, and we’re going to find her tomorrow,” Skamania County Undersheriff Dave Cox said Tuesday night.
“It’s mountainous terrain, a lot of cliffs, very steep and heavily wooded, so we’ve got our hands full,” he added.
Huether, 24 and a resident of Portland, is thought to have been in the woods since Thursday afternoon, when she text-messaged a friend saying she was going on a short hike.
She left her car at the Bonneville trailhead, about a mile east of North Bonneville, on a segment of the Pacific Crest Trail leading north from state Highway 14 toward Table Mountain.
With the area becoming cold during the past few nights, including a dusting of snow Tuesday morning, Cox said Huether is believed to have left with a backpack, but its contents aren’t known.
Searchers don’t know whether Huether took a warm jacket or coat.
“We’re hoping she still has that blue backpack, with the supplies necessary to sustain her out there,” Cox said.
One of the volunteer searchers who spent two days tracking Huether in this section of the Columbia River Gorge called the circumstances surrounding her disappearance a mystery.
John Polos, who sits on the board of directors of the Clark County Sheriff’s Office Citizen Search and Rescue team, was among the searchers who traversed hundreds of yards of trails looking for the missing Portland State University student, using nine tracking dogs.
“We don’t think it was an animal (that could have attacked her),” said Polos. “Did something happen and she’s still up there? This is a real mystery.”
Also Tuesday, sheriff’s dive team members searched small Gillette Lake.
Full-scale searches began Sunday.
Once officials learned Huether was missing Saturday night, full-scale searches began Sunday morning.
Besides coordinating the search, the sheriff’s office has detectives working on the possibility of foul play.
A report surfaced late Monday that a flasher had been reported in the area Thursday, a few hours before Huether hit the trails at about 3 p.m. That report has not been substantiated.
“I’m not saying that it is not a valid report, we just didn’t find him,” Cox said in an e-mail to The Columbian. “We do not feel the two incidents are connected, but we would be remiss if we did not follow up on that and all other leads that we receive.”
As of Tuesday night, detectives had not found any indication Huether’s financial accounts had been used, Cox said.
Given her late-afternoon start, it’s unlikely Huether was heading above the snow line, Polos said. He added, however, that the credit card receipt bearing her name that was recovered near Table Mountain Sunday was at an unexpectedly high elevation.
“It isn’t likely at that time of day she’d go up to the snow line,” Polos said. “But we did go up there.”
The search area ranges from state Highway 14 to just north of Table Mountain, Cox said.
A Skamania County deputy found her car at the trailhead about 1 a.m. Friday, checked its license plate in registration records and learned her name. But county officials then didn’t know she was missing.
Saturday night, the sheriff’s office received a computer hit on the license plate and learned that someone had reported to the Portland Police Bureau on Saturday that Huether was missing.
In that regard, “The system worked,” Cox said.
Skamania County is leading the search for Huether, aided by helicopters — one from U.S. Coast Guard Station Astoria, Ore., and the other from the Washington Army National Guard — and ground crews from citizen search and rescue units in Clark, Wahkiakum and Cowlitz counties.
The climb to the Table Mountain’s top is described as “a tough, 15-mile round trip,” mostly through trees and with a “spectacular” view of the Gorge at the summit, according to www.trails.com.
Groups that provided resources for the search include Silver Star Search and Rescue; the Volcano Rescue Team of North Country Emergency Medical Services, based in Yacolt; and Portland Mountain Rescue, Polos said.
Groups of five to seven searchers equipped with GPS devices and radios have spanned out across the area looking for Huether, using a map to cross off the coordinates of places that have been examined.
A 24-hour incident command center is near the Pacific Crest trailhead.
“It’s a three-step process,” Polos said. “Contain the area and do a hasty search. Systematically search all campgrounds, lakes and trails. The next day we go and really scour the area. (Tuesday) would be the day they’re really doing that.”
Temperatures late Monday and on Tuesday dipped below freezing and snow levels dropped to 800 feet.
Huether’s father, Robert Huether of New Jersey, traveled to the trailhead Tuesday afternoon to be caught up on the search. A prayer vigil for Huether was held in New Jersey.
“He’s thankful for all the search efforts, of course, and he’s asking that if anyone has any information at all about (her) whereabouts to please call the Skamania County Sheriff’s Office,” Cox said.
The sheriff’s office’s 24-hour emergency number is 509-427-9490.
