Residents and businesses have been contributing to the search for 28-year-old Ian O’Brien, who went missing Saturday while hiking in the La Plata Mountains.
O’Brien was camping with partner Beth Henshaw near the upper end of Echo Basin along Forest Service Road 566. He went hiking about 2 p.m. Saturday to Hesperus Peak and never returned.
Henshaw said about 75 people were camping at Lucy Halls Park to help find O’Brien. That included 15 mountaineer guides from Prescott College, where O’Brien attended school. She said there has been 30 to 55 volunteers who have been searching on foot since Saturday.
Businesses such as Farm to Summit and Deer Hill Expeditions have been donating truck loads of food to the campers who have been at the location since O’Brien went missing on Saturday.
She said members of the ultra running community, who don’t know him, have been searching, while other community members have come to their campsite to help pick up trash and deliver supplies.
O’Brien is an experienced hiker who has led multiple backpacking expeditions while working with Open Sky Wilderness Therapy, Henshaw said.
He had lived in Southwest Colorado for about five years before recently moving to Page, Arizona, and has summited Hesperus Peak on multiple occasions.
“When he graduated Prescott College, he sold everything that he owned and rode his bike to Mancos and lived in La Plata Canyon off of his bike,” Henshaw said.
O’Brien is no stranger to the Echo Basin area and frequently navigated the mountainous area on his mountain bike.
Henshaw’s main concern is that he may have had a seizure and become unaware of his whereabouts. O’Brien has epilepsy and will have seizures on a consistent basis. She said the seizures can be brought on by overexertion, mental stress or lack of food or sleep.
“I feel pretty confident that he had a seizure on his way down from the mountain because he takes his medication at eight o'clock,” Henshaw said.
She said he likely missed that time and that he has had seizures within 30 minutes of missing his medicine. He was also summiting a mountain with an elevation of over 13,000 feet after living at around 4,000 feet in Page, which could have caused fatigue.
“The fact that he's doing all these strenuous activities close to the medication window time, it's very likely that he had a seizure and lost contact with his communication devices,” she said.
In previous experiences with O’Brien’s seizures, Henshaw said he will enter a postictal state that will last anywhere from 15 to 90 minutes, during which time he may lose memory of what happened.
As of noon Wednesday, there were 25 of O’Brien’s friends on the mountain searching for him in addition to search and rescue teams from Montezuma and La Plata counties.
Montezuma County Sheriff Steven Nowlin said search and rescue teams had not found any leads as of 2 p.m. Wednesday. He said teams will continue to search throughout the night.
O’Brien was reportedly wearing a gray tank top, black shorts, tennis shoes and possibly had a long-sleeve hiking shirt.
Henshaw said family, friends, and search and rescue members looked all night Saturday. They found shoe tracks that resembled O’Brien’s sneakers on Owens Basin Trail and West Mancos Trail and lost the prints at a river crossing on the West Mancos Trail at 7 a.m. Sunday.
Both Henshaw and O’Brien’s sister, Molly O’Brien, were told by La Plata County Search and Rescue that hikers thought they had spotted O’Brien on Sunday based on what the hiker was wearing, but it was later confirmed the hiker did not match O’Brien’s stature and did not have the same tattoos.
Molly O’Brien said La Plata County Search and Rescue told her that her brother was likely no longer in La Plata Canyon and the search was shifting toward the Hesperus Peak area Wednesday.
“We just want to share that as of today, we want to keep searching. And we want to keep this momentum going,” Molly O’Brien said.
Molly expressed that her brother had extensive outdoor experience and that if there wasn’t a medical concern he likely would have made his way back to the campsite.
“He is always outside and has spent more nights outside than in a bed in his life. And that's how he likes it,” she said.
Anyone interested in donating to the search effort can do so by searching “Find Ian O’Brien” on GoFundMe. For updates about the search, visit bit.ly/44paiP0.
tbrown@durangherald.com
