A wet, cold, snowy night left searchers on Wednesday clinging to faint hope of finding a 35-year-old Lakewood mother of four who has been missing since Saturday in the Holy Cross Wilderness Area.
Michelle Vanek last was seen near timberline on the trail to the summit of Mount of the Holy Cross in Eagle County when she sent her hiking companion ahead while she rested.
A massive four-day search effort has yielded no clues, and almost 100 searchers, three helicopters, four dog teams and four horse teams failed to come across any tracks in the fresh snow on Wednesday, said Kim Andree, spokeswoman for the Eagle County Sheriff’s Department.
“I would say that there is continued hope, but I think that people are tiring,” Andree said.
Overnight Tuesday and into Wednesday morning, a “heck of a storm” dropped torrential rain and snow that blanketed the upper part of the mountain, Andree said, and Vanek was dressed very lightly and did not carry a pack with extra food or clothing.
“If she holed up in a cave, she probably would have been fine. And there’s lots of little places where she could have gotten out of the weather, lots of little alcoves,” she said. “It just depends on your level of common sense and level of backcountry experience.”
A wristwatch found hanging on a tree branch on Tuesday provided a brief spark of hopefulness, but it turned out not to have been Vanek’s.
Her husband, Ben, and extended family all have been assisting and encouraging searchers at the command center, said family friend Usher Lieberman.
“We’re all very optimistic,” he said. “She’s very strong. This is her first fourteener, but she’s obviously got a very strong will.”
Staff writer Steve Lipsher can be reached at 970-513-9495 or slipsher@denverpost.com.
