Yellowstone Scaling Back Search For Missing Man

     The National Park Service has scaled back the search for a conservationist from Utah missing on a 4-night Yellowstone backcountry camping trip with his brother in September.

     There’s been no sign of Kim Crumbo while the body of his 67-year old brother, Mark O’Neill of Washington state was found dead of hypothermia on the shore of Shoshone Lake the day after they’d failed to report in as scheduled.

     A Yellowstone spokesman says the search is being scaled back because the national park covering parts of Wyoming, Idaho and Montana has gotten a blanket of snow and temperatures have dipped into the 20s.

      Crumbo served 2 tours in VIetnam as a Navy SEAL, worked as a National Park Service river ranger for decades, and co-founded the conservation group Grand Canyon Wildlands Council after retiring in 1996. 

      Former colleague Kelly Burke, who considers Crumbo family, says people who know him have been reconnecting over his disappearance “to hold each other up and put that energy in leaving the door open for him to walk back in. 

      Burke calls Crumbo “a monumental hero and legend of a man,” adding that all of his friends and admirers can’t bring themselves to believe he hasn’t survived.