By KERI BRENNER
OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK — Searchers and family members shared anguish and frustration Tuesday as an eighth day of a massive search for missing hiker Gilbert Gilman failed to turn up any clues to his whereabouts.
“It’s been going on 10 days since he was last seen,” said Donovan Slack, Gilman’s girlfriend.
“Each day gets a little bit harder.”
Slack said Tuesday that all still have hope of a positive outcome in the search for Gillman, 47, of Olympia.
“But I’d be lying if I told you that the hope isn’t less than it was last week,” she said.
Gilman, who is the deputy director of the state Department of Retirement Systems, was last seen leaving the ranger station parking lot for a day hike on June 24.
On Tuesday, Mike Gurling, park ranger, said, “The most difficult aspect is that we haven’t found a single clue.
“Our operations team is evaluating how much longer to do this.”
Slack, 38, a reporter for The Boston Globe, stood watch Tuesday at the Olympic National Park ranger’s station along with Gilman’s mother, Doris Gilman, her partner, Burt Persky, and Gilman’s sister, Lori Mattiasen.
The somber family group waited anxiously as a six-person Thurston County Sheriff’s Swiftwater Rescue Team took photos under the whitewater in the North Fork Skokomish River.
The team members were among the 65 people who combed the park, some on foot, some with dogs, some by by helicopter.
The dive team used a camera strapped to a 16-foot pole and attached to a video cable and monitor.
The high-tech process is used to see areas that can’t be viewed during snorkeling or kayaking.
