Jun 24, 2008

Hunt on for missing Millbrae hiker

Local, friend left Friday morning to climb Mt. Shasta

From staff and wire reports

Rescuers were searching Mount Shasta on Monday for two hikers, one of them a 37-year-old trainer from Millbrae, who were reported missing over the weekend.

Salvador Frias and his friend, Patricia Giamoni, of Apex, N.C., departed Millbrae early Friday morning on a trek north to the Shasta region, according to Frias' mother. She learned Saturday afternoon that they were missing.

"I haven't gotten any news," Andrea Frias said Monday. "The hope is always there."

One of the hikers called 911 Saturday night to say he was on top of Mount Shasta and needed help, a Siskiyou County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman said.

The call was lost before it could be transferred to the sheriff's department, and authorities couldn't get through when they tried redialing the number.

About 30 minutes later, a North Carolina man contacted the sheriff's department to say his mother, Patricia Giamoni, had called him from the mountain. The man, Frank Machado, said his mother was caught in high winds and needed help.

Giamoni gave a description of the area and partial coordinates, but that was not enough to help rescuers.

Frias and Giamoni, 37, had applied for a day permit to hike the 14,162-foot mountain in far Northern California.

Andrea Frias said her son, whom she described as outgoing and athletic, does not have much climbing experience.

Searchers from Siskiyou County, the U.S. Forest Service, the California Highway Patrol and the California Air National Guard scoured the mountain on Sunday but found no sign of the pair. Smoke from hundreds of wildfires burning throughout Northern California formed a thick haze that hampered the aerial search.

On Monday, two Blackhawk helicopters dropped eight rescuers onto the mountain. A search-and-rescue team from Oregon also planned to join the search.

"The bird's-eye view isn't working for us right now, and we need to get boots on the ground to see what we can find," Forest Service spokesman Michael Odle said.

He said rangers believe the couple took the popular Avalanche Gulch route on the south side of the mountain.

Temperatures on Mount Shasta have dipped to freezing the past few nights and have ranged from near freezing to the low 70s during the day depending on the elevation, said Mike O'Brien, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Medford, Ore.

Authorities also have asked the roughly 120 recreational climbers on the mountain to be alert for any signs of the missing hikers.