National Park Service Reduces Search for Kim Crumbo, Ogden Conservationist | News, sports, jobs

Kim Crumbo is shown in this undated photo.

Amid deteriorating weather conditions, National Park Service officials have scaled back searches for Kim Crumbo, the Ogden man who went missing late last month while visiting Yellowstone National Park with his brother.

“The park got quite a bit of snow over the weekend and at this point it is still under a blanket of snow. Temperatures are around 20s in most of the park, ”said an NPS representative on Wednesday.

However, the effort is not over yet. “The park will conduct limited searches this year as long as conditions permit,” the NPS said in a press release.

Crumbo – a nationally respected conservationist, NPS retiree and former U.S. Navy Seal – was visiting the Shoshone Lake hinterland with his brother Mark O’Neill last month when the family reported they were overdue from an alleged four-day trip. On September 20, the crews found O’Neill’s body on the bank of the lake, but efforts to search for Crumbo yielded no results.

The three-week search for Crumbo, 74, included the use of helicopters, boats, sonar technology, and ground personnel, according to the NPS.

“All of us at Yellowstone express our deepest condolences to the families, friends and colleagues of Mark and Kim,” said Cam Sholly, Yellowstone superintendent. O’Neill, 67, who lived in Chimacum, Washington, died of hypothermia, according to valet parking.

The NPS’s latest press release on Friday said the incident is being investigated and did not provide additional details on what may have happened.

The disappearance of Crumbo, a board member of the Rewilding Institute and Wild Arizona, conservation organizations, has shaken friends, family and colleagues. Nobody knows exactly what happened, but some suspected weather factors.

“In general, suspect some dramatic weather has happened,” said Kelly Burke, executive director of Wild Arizona. Crumbo and O’Neill, who had also worked for the National Park Service, were both familiar with and dealing with nature.

Karin Lowrie, O’Neill’s wife, told The Port Townsend Leader in Washington that she suspected she must have been surprised by something extraordinary.

“She has heard many different theories about the accident, but her gut feeling is that the brothers were ‘caught in something very ugly’ or ‘taken by surprise’,” the newspaper reported. O’Neill was found in a life jacket.

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