PORT ANGELES – Olympic National Park rangers are searching for a 53-year-old Port Townsend man who became lost Saturday afternoon while backcountry skiing in the cold, snowy Hurricane Ridge area.
“We haven’t found him yet. We’re still looking for him,” said Larry Nickey, emergency operations coordinator for Olympic National Park, at about 6 p.m. Saturday.
Randy Kraxberger, who had headed toward Hurricane Hill on cross-country skis, called his wife, Lisa Enarson, on his cell phone at about 3:15 p.m., wanting the phone number for the Hurricane Ridge Visitor Center.
“He said he was in a bit of a bind because the clouds had come in and he was a little disoriented,” she said.
Enarson called Olympic National Park headquarters, and rangers began the search.
“I’m doing everything I can from here,” Enarson, Kraxberger’s wife for 30 years, said Saturday evening from their Port Townsend home.
“He’s a very experienced backcountry guy. He’s taken avalanche courses. He’s in excellent physical condition.
“I still have hope he will come out tonight, but surely in the morning.”
Kraxberger was on Hurricane Hill Road past the Hurricane Ridge Visitor Center, and probably was somewhere on the east side of Hurricane Hill, Nickey said.
Nickey said searchers had intermittent cell phone contact with him – although none since 5 p.m. Saturday – but it’s “very sporadic.”
“It’s like one or two words, and then the call drops out,” he said.
Some cell phones have GPS locators but his doesn’t, Nickey said.
“It sounds like he is fairly prepared,” he said.
“He had all the basic backcountry gear, good fleece and good snow gear.”
A winter storm warning lasting until noon today was issued for the mountains at noon Saturday, with avalanche danger “considerable” below 7,000 feet.
The Ridge has about 70 inches of snow.
The National Weather Service predicted new snowfall of three to seven inches and a low temperature of 19 degrees Saturday night.
