GOLD BEACH, Ore. (AP) — Tracking dogs, airplane crews and people on foot searched southwestern Oregon's rugged forests Thursday for three missing mushroom pickers who disappeared almost five days ago.
Belinda and Daniel Conne, both 47, and their 25-year-old son, Michael, were last seen Sunday at a campground, where they had left behind their camp trailer and two dogs, Curry County sheriff's office said.
Deputies found their SUV off a logging road on the western edge of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest on Wednesday, and clothing and mushroom-picking gear were found some distance away.
Search-and-rescue teams were concentrating on an area less than two miles from the Huntley Park campground, which is on the Rogue River about eight miles northeast of the coastal town of Gold Beach. The area is in rugged country riddled with a maze of logging roads in the Klamath Mountains where people frequently get lost or stranded. The weather was partly cloudy, with temperatures between 49 and 38 degrees.
Four Civil Air Patrol planes with three-person crews were flying search grids out of the airport in Medford, and three tracking dog teams from neighboring Josephine County joined the people on the ground.
In 2006, a San Francisco family was stranded in a snowstorm on a logging road about 35 miles northeast of the search area for the Connes. James Kim died of hypothermia trying to hike out, but his wife and children were rescued by a helicopter pilot.
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