Winona native missing in remote part of Yellowstone National Park

National Park Rescue teams and others are searching for a former Winona, Minn., man who was last heard from Sept. 17 during a backcountry trip to a remote corner of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.

Austin King, 22, a Yellowstone campground concession employee, was visiting the Eagle Peak area in the park’s remote southeast during his seven-day solo outing. He called friends and family from the summit of the peak at about 7 p.m. Sept. 17, according to a National Park Service news release. At the time, he described fog, rain, sleet, hail and windy conditions.

King was reported as overdue after he didn’t arrive for a boat pickup near Yellowstone Lake’s southeast arm on Sept. 20, the news release said.

King’s family set up an online fundraiser that as of Monday evening had raised nearly $1,500. King’s father, Brian King-Henke, said the family is “keeping an open mind for him to come home.”

Rescuers from Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks and Teton and Park counties began searching by air and on the ground Sept. 21 in the mountainous areas around Eagle Peak, west of Cody, Wyo. They found King’s camp and personal effects that night in the upper Howell Creek area, the news release said.

Now, more than 20 ground searchers, two helicopters and “unmanned air systems,” and a K9 team are focused near Eagle Peak.

Authorities have asked the public to call the Yellowstone Interagency Communications Center at 307-344-2643 with any information about King. The National Park Service issued a missing person flier. One of the photos on it showed King on Sept. 14, the day he was dropped off by boat at Terrace Point on Yellowstone Lake as part of his trek to the Eagle Peak area.

Eagle Peak is the highest point in the park at 11,372 feet. The area traveled by King is known as the Thorofare, which backcountry websites describe as one of the most remote areas of wilderness in the Lower 48 states.

King lists himself as a West Yellowstone, Mont., resident in his Facebook page profile, and that he worked at the Yellowstone since early June. He is a former student at Cotter High School in Winona.