California crews search rugged Lake Tahoe wilderness for hiker missing since Memorial Day
A massive search effort is ongoing for a man missing since Memorial Day weekend in the Desolation Wilderness near Lake Tahoe.
The El Dorado County Sheriff's Office said Jason Coughran, 60, was last heard from around 4 p.m. on May 25. He had set out from Fallen Leaf Lake, a smaller lake near the southern shore of Lake Tahoe, that morning and was last believed to be hiking near Angora Peak.
Coughran was later reported overdue, prompting a search complicated by the remote terrain and poor weather.
Search crews have been looking for Coughran since May 26, but the region was hit by a late-season cold snap later that week.
By May 30, nearly 200 search and rescue crews and volunteers from 20 counties had assembled to look for Coughran. As of Tuesday, he had not been found.
"We have kind of a big area that this gentleman was hiking in," said Sgt. Bryan Souza with California Highway Patrol in a video release about the search.
More than two dozen agencies have been helping in the search, including the National Guard, which deployed a CH-47 Chinook helicopter to the area. Officials said drones have also been deployed, and investigators have been using cellphone forensics.
California's Office of Emergency Services has been coordinating the search effort.
The Desolation Wilderness is a 63,960-acre, sparsely populated section of the Eldorado National Forest west of South Lake Tahoe. It is dotted with dense foliage, granite peaks, glacially formed valleys and lakes.
