OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK — Searchers had no clues to the location of a missing hiker in Olympic National Park as the sun dropped low on the horizon Sunday evening.
Three dog teams spent Sunday searching Olympic National Park and Olympic National Forest trails, and a helicopter was also brought in for the search for Kelly Hall, a 64-year-old Bainbridge Island man who failed to return Thursday from a six-day hike.
A major portion of Sunday’s search was concentrated in Olympic National Forest near Slab Camp south of Sequim.
That’s an area in which Hall might have taken the wrong trail to exit the park, said Barb Maynes, Olympic National Park spokeswoman.
Olympic National Forest lands surround much of the territory immediately outside the national park’s boundaries, including the Slab Camp area in the Dungeness River watershed.
On Sunday, there were 16 searchers on the trails, including National Park Service employees and volunteers, plus volunteers from Olympic Mountain Rescue, Clallam County Search and Rescue and German Shepherd Search Dogs, Maynes said.
Each search team consists of a dog, the dog’s handler and support search and rescue members, she said.
Maynes said a helicopter joined the search Sunday afternoon, providing the capability for aerial searching as well as transporting searchers into remote areas.
Maynes could not say whether the copter was public or private.
Hall is described as being 6 feet 5 inches tall and weighing 220 pounds.
He carried a blue backpack with a fishing pole and orange flip-flops strapped to the outside. He is believed to be carrying a blue-gray tent.
Park officials asked that anyone who might have seen Hall in recent days to phone the park at 360-565-3120.
“Information from other hikers is often extremely valuable during searches,” Olympic National Park Superintendent Sarah Creachbaum said in a prepared statement.
A hiker who had encountered Hall on the trail came forward to report that he had seen the missing hiker, but the encounter was in Grand Valley only 4 miles from Hall’s starting point on the same day he departed, leaving the searchers with a lot of trail to search, Maynes said.
Hall had planned a 39-mile hike in the northeast corner of Olympic National Park, leaving from Obstruction Point Trailhead near Hurricane Ridge on Aug. 30.
Family members expected to meet him at the Slab Camp Trailhead on Thursday.
His planned itinerary was to hike through Grand Valley to Grand Pass, then continue over Cameron Pass, through Dose Meadows to Gray Wolf Pass and follow the Gray Wolf Trail through Olympic National Forest’s Buckhorn Wilderness to the Slab Camp Trailhead on Forest Road 2875.
When he did not arrive as planned, a family member reported to park officials that he was missing.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.