News

A Canadian group of self-described "elite adventure athletes" set out on foot at 7 a.m. yesterday under the California sun to scour a remote mountain range for professional thrill-seeker Steve Fossett, whose plane vanished without a trace last year.

Thousands of kilometres of terrain has already been surveyed from planes and helicopters, as well as remotely by satellite imagery. But so far there has been no sign of the wreckage or remains of the millionaire adventurer, who left behind no flight plan when he took off in a single-engine aircraft from a private Nevada ranch on Sept. 3, 2007.

Simon Donato, a Calgary geologist who is leading the 12-member search team, hopes his group can do what a massive $1.8-million search-and-rescue mission could not.

"Weather is hot and dry," he e-mailed yesterday through a Canadian filmmaker who is documenting the expedition. "We're at 7,000-9,000-feet [2,100-2,700-metre] elevation. Terrain is very rugged. We're in the most dense forests we can find in the area and searching about 50 kilometres southwest of the ranch."

Mr. Donato said he has long been inspired by Mr. Fossett, who made his fortune in financial services, then used it to finance his record-setting aviation and sailing exploits.

"We're doing this out of respect for Steve Fossett and his contributions to adventure and exploration. He's inspired an entire generation of adventurers and explorers just like me," Mr. Donato said before setting out on the week-long search.

Mr. Fossett, whose accomplishments include becoming the first person to fly a balloon solo around the world, failed to return in his borrowed two-seater aircraft from what was supposed to be a short jaunt from the Flying M Ranch, owned by hotel magnate Barron Hilton.

A missing-persons criminal investigation is still open, but the search has officially been suspended and a judge in Illinois, where Mr. Fossett had a home, declared the 63-year-old legally dead in February.

Mr. Donato believes his group has something "unique to offer" to the search.

While waiting for the snow to melt, the team spent months picking the brains of those involved in the original search-and-rescue operation. Members have pored over maps and photographs of the region to narrow their focus to a 100-square-kilometre band around the Nevada-California boundary where Mr. Fossett may have crashed.

They have been warned that the landscape is incredibly rough and dangerous. It's a region filled with valleys, crevasses and lava fields. But the area is also covered by trees and shaded by cliffs and canyons - terrain that is obstructed from the air and impossible to access even by all-terrain vehicle, which could have stymied searchers to date.

Even the past elk- and deer-hunting season in the mountains turned up no hint of Mr. Fossett.

Operating on a shoestring budget of about $20,000, Mr. Donato's group will hike and run up to 40 kilometres a day, guided in some measure by instincts and guts.

"All searchers in good shape and continuing to search their assigned area," Mr. Donato said yesterday in an update.

Gary Derks, the operations manager with the Nevada Department of Public Safety who was part of the initial search, offered them some advice before they set out.

"I hope they have a lot of luck. I really hope they find this gentleman. The ground I think is the only way to go," he said yesterday.

"We have combed the airspace. Every inch of that has been combed by air. So the only way you're going to find him is by foot on the ground. You've got some very thick brush. You've got canyons, the sheer, steep canyons, the ravines. That plane could be anywhere."

Ten members of Mr. Donato's team set out northeast of Bridgeport, Calif., yesterday carrying SPOT devices - tiny satellite communication links. The gadgets allow computer users to check the team's progress on the Web (http://www.adventurescience.ca) and gives searchers an outside link in case of emergency.

If the Canadian team is unsuccessful, U.S. investor and mountaineer Robert Hyman is prepared to bring in his own group to take a crack at finding Mr. Fossett.

There are almost as many rumours flying around as there have been planes looking for Mr. Fossett, including speculation that he is alive and doesn't want to be found.

Mr. Derks isn't willing to say what his gut is telling him about what happened to Mr. Fossett, or whether he will ever be found.

"You and I are going to read this in the history books," Mr. Derks said. "I would have liked to have found him. It would have been better to have headed up a search that I found him versus one that I didn't, but so be it."

On the trail

Where search planes and satellites have failed, Canadian adventurers hope to find the remains of millionaire thrill-seeker Steve Fossett.

Steve Fossett went missing on the morning of Sept. 3, 2007, while flying a Citabria Super Decathlon plane.

Fossett took off from Flying M Ranch but failed to return a few hours later.

NEW SEARCH

Canadian adventurers began looking just over the Nevada border in California yesterday.

They are conducting their search amongst dense forests in an area previously not searched on foot.

NINIAN CARTER, TONIA COWAN/THE GLOBE AND MAIL