Woman goes missing on hike with her dog in Montana

CHICAGO -- The search continued Tuesday morning for a woman from River Forest, Illinois, who disappeared while hiking in Montana, CBS Chicago reports.

Madeline Connelly, 25, hasn't been seen since Thursday, when she left for a seven-mile hike with her dog, Mogie, in the Great Bear Wilderness area near Glacier National Park.

Her car was found near the trailhead in Montana, and investigators have found her tracks.

Teams have been searching by air and on foot, and spotted an adult black bear and two cubs in the area where her tracks were picked up. But there were no signs of a struggle.

Experts were being careful not to jump to any conclusions about what might have happened to Connelly.

"This is the wilderness that she went into, so it's not fair for me to speculate at this point what may have happened to her," Flathead County Sheriff Chuck Curry said. "There's lots of different things on the menu, and of course our searchers are continuing to explore every possibility."

Searchers have been working day and night to find Connelly, a graduate of Oak Park-River Forest High School in Oak Park, Illinois.

Connelly had been en route to Alaska, where she was expected to start a new job. She stopped in Montana to visit her uncle, who lives near Glacier National Park.

Her parents were on their way to Montana from River Forest to assist in the search.

Her family is confident she will be found, a relative told CBS Chicago, because of Connelly's extensive experience in the woods.