SEQUIM — It will be 17 days on Friday since Berwyn Mason has seen her husband, Stephen “Mike” Mason, 52.
It was June 20, to be exact, when the Sequim couple parted ways on a trail near the Dungeness campground off Palo Alto Road.
Berwyn returned home to Sequim.
Mike stayed, and hasn’t been heard from since.
A search last Thursday came up empty, and Clallam County Sheriff’s Department Undersheriff Rich Sill said Mike is being reclassified from an overdue hiker to a missing person.
The change in focus may result in detectives taking another look at the area where Mike was last seen, Sill said.
However, it won’t likely result in another scouring of the area and nearby trails.
Mike is an experienced outdoorsman, and went into the woods prepared.
He’s also been known to stay in the woods for extended periods of time.
But not this long.
“This is way over what he would do,” Berwyn said.
“It’s not looking very good at this point.”
The river near where he was last seen is raging, she said, and has turned a milky green.
She’s afraid that he may have fallen in.
“They told me basically they’ve done what they can do, it’s a waiting game from here,” she said.