Search for missing hiker continues

A Glacier National Park map looks like a child has been scribbling on it for hours, but those curling and zigzagging lines aren't random scribbles.

They depict carefully choreographed routes in the ongoing Yi-Jien Hwa Search and Rescue mission in Glacier National Park.

Hwa, a 27-year-old from Kentucky and Malaysia, was last seen Aug. 11 and the search for him has been under way since Aug. 19.

The map shows helicopter flight routes in purple, ground-search team routes in red, all based on GPS tracking. It shows yellow polygons of areas that have been carefully "scoped" from vantage points along search routes. It does not represent the initial search areas before GPS devices were put to use, nor does it show all of the areas that have been glassed with binoculars and spotting scopes.

"We think the map represents 70 percent of the searching we've done," said Dennis Divoky, one of the search team leaders.

"It's a good visual, but it really doesn't show the thoroughness" of the effort, said incident commander Pat Suddath, who also is Glacier's West Lakes district ranger. "We think a low-end estimate is 2,500 man hours that we've put into this."

But the search for Yi-Jien Hwa has been as frustrating as it has been exhaustive.

"You go to sleep thinking about this, and you wake up thinking about it," Divoky said.

"This has been an incredibly frustrating search," Suddath added.

That's partly because of the confidence Suddath has in the efforts made in the high-probability search areas, and the advantages that were perceived when the search got under way.

While Hwa planned a trek that would span a total of roughly 90 miles, starting at Logan Pass and ending at Kintla Lake, the search has concentrated on only a fraction of that area, a looping route south of Going-to-the-Sun Road involving the trail from Sun Road up to Gunsight Lake and over Gunsight Pass, to Sperry Glacier and over Comeau Pass into Floral Park, and on to Hidden Lake and back to Logan Pass.

Logan Pass is where Hwa's car was found with food, supplies and maps with outlined routes for the second leg of his trip to Kintla Lake.

"We are fairly confident he never made his resupply," Suddath said, and that allowed for searchers to concentrate on the first leg of Hwa's planned hike.

A huge part of any search is the initial investigation into the missing person, which includes developing a detailed profile. In this case, Hwa had submitted equipment reviews to an online hiking gear publication with considerable biographical information.

"We were actually able to bring quite a bit of information up him right away," Suddath said of Hwa, who has been attending a seminary in Wilmore, Ky. "We have pictures of the trekking poles he was probably carrying."

Hwa's wife and mother have met with Suddath and other park officials every day for the last week, and greatly assisted in refining his profile.

"He and his wife very carefully planned this trip out," Suddath said, adding that his wife originally planned to go along but could not because of a family emergency.

Adding to the search team's confidence in his likely route were interviews with a campground host who had an extensive conversation with Hwa about his planned trip the night before he left, and an interview with a park staffer who also spoke at length with Hwa while issuing his backcountry permit.

With all of the initial advantages, confidence was high that Hwa could be found.

"Our probabilities for detection were really high," Suddath said.

But starting last Tuesday, the search was scaled back from a peak of about 40 searchers, two helicopters and search dogs to two or three teams going out daily.

"At this point we need to be clue-driven, rather than just throwing resources out there," Suddath said, adding that the rugged terrain involved in this case is "inherently dangerous" for searchers.

Suddath is highly confident in thoroughness of efforts in areas that have been searched. Search teams have been finding things left behind by hikers, but nothing left by Hwa.

They've picked up an old sandal, a baseball hat and a safety clip for a can of bear spray.

As the search has progressed, new areas have been added to account for the possibility that Hwa may have strayed off-route into areas such as the Snyder Lakes or Avalanche Lake basins.

Going into those areas could have exposed Hwa to serious hazards: the towering cliffs above the lakes.

"It's frightening to think that someone would try downclimbing" those kinds of cliffs, Divoky said.

Downclimbing, added Suddath, can start out easy but it can eventually "suck you in" to places where a person has to take bigger risks to keep moving.

Searching the cliff areas has been limited to scoping from a distance by ground searchers and from helicopters.

Suddath said it has not been hard to mobilize two or three teams every day, because park staffers and others are "highly motivated" to find Hwa. Those efforts will continue into this week.

"Tuesday, we'll get all of the search managers back together and at that point we'll choose the appropriate action," Suddath said.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com