Leo DuFour, 22, was reported missing late Saturday evening, after he failed to return from a hike on Allen Mountain.
New York State Forest Rangers are continuing the search for a Vaudreuil man who disappeared during a hiking trip in northern New York.
The state’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) said Friday that nine rangers will spend up to three nights on Allen Mountain, searching for Leo Dufour during the day and sleeping at a mountain base camp.
“Allen Mountain is the most remote high peak in the Adirondacks. It is extremely time- and effort-consuming to get crews into the actual viable search area,” ranger Scott Sabo, the field operations section chief, said in a video released by the DEC earlier this week.
DuFour, 22, was reported missing late Saturday evening after he failed to return from a hike on the mountain. New York State Police said earlier this week his car was found parked at a trailhead and covered in snow.
The DEC has said that rangers are using a set of tracks leading from the car as well as information from DuFour’s cellphone to aid in the search but that the search has been complicated by snowfall.
“On Sunday, with the assistance of the FBI and New York State Police, Forest Rangers accessed information from the subject’s cellphone from Friday. That information, in addition to the tracks found, and rangers’ knowledge of the mountain helped guide the direction of the search efforts,” the DEC said in a statement.
Rangers are starting their search high on the mountain, Sabo said, and then working their way down, but the conditions are difficult.
“The conditions have been full-on mountain winter, there’s approximately four feet of snow above 3,000 feet of elevation and we’ve had several wind events, approximately 20- to 30-mile-an-hour wind events, which create whiteout conditions and extremely slow movements as search crews have to navigate to ensure they’re in a correct drainage or a correct elevation,” he said.
Police said DuFour was wearing a black Arc Teryx Coat, black shell pants, a tan winter hat, a black backpack and reflective sunglasses when he disappeared. He stands about 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighs about 150 pounds. He has brown hair.