Support pours in for skiers

One was born and raised in the Flathead Valley, the other recently had moved to the area.

Now, the search for 28-year-old Walker Kuhl and 31-year-old Gregory Seftick in the Grand Tetons of Wyoming appears to have become a recovery mission.

Bad weather forced an early suspension of search efforts Thursday. Similar weather that could limit searchers is expected today.

The two men have been missing since Saturday.

Kuhl’s family, some of whom live in Kalispell, released a message Thursday on a website designed to keep supporters informed.

“Our hearts are breaking, but we take solace in the knowledge that Walker was where he most loved, in the mountains,” the message reads. “He was a tremendous person, and we are honored to have had the privilege to know and love him.”

Kuhl is the son of Kalispell residents Richard Kuhl and Marylane Pannell.

The Flathead High School

graduate had moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, where he works for the U.S. Treasury Department.

Friends and family posted

almost 200 messages to the website designed in his name: www.walkerkuhl.com.

“I had the great pleasure of working alongside Walker for eight months and knowing him these past two years,” Kapesh Patel wrote. “Walker was a kind-hearted, honest man, who was always willing to lend a hand. He always loved the outdoors and I will forever remember him for this.”

Seftick, a doctor specializing in emergency medicine, apparently had only recently moved to Columbia Falls.

His photograph still remains on the website for West Virginia University’s Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center School of Medicine.

University spokeswoman Amy Johns said Thursday that Seftick had been a resident physician until May  2010. He was hired as an assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine shortly thereafter.

He worked as doctor in the university’s affiliate hospitals until about a month ago, Johns said. It’s unclear what brought him to Columbia Falls.

According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, he was a 1998 graduate of Stillwater Area High School.

Johns said the medical community of West Virginia University has closely followed the search for Seftick and Kuhn through media reports.

“You hope that if anyone is prepared to handle a situation like this, it’s an emergency physician,” she said.

Family members of Kuhl and Seftick have gone to Wyoming as the search continues, according to the National Park Service.