Teen Skier Lost On Silver Mountain Pullman Boy Missing Since Thursday; Searchers Losing Hope

About 50 search and rescue workers battled thick fog and deep snow Friday as they combed Silver Mountain for a missing 17-year-old boy.

Andy Zeller of Pullman was last seen at 1:30 p.m. Thursday near a chairlift at Silver Mountain Ski Resort.

It was only his second time skiing, officials said.

While friends of the Pullman High School junior tried to keep a positive attitude Friday, searchers became increasingly concerned as time passed with no sign of the youth.

“I hope the kid’s got winter survival skills because if he doesn’t, it will be tough,” said one ski patrol member.

“The chances get slimmer every hour he’s missing,” said J. Eischen, Lookout Pass Ski Area mountain manager, who planned to search for the boy after work.

Lookout Ski Patrol assisted Silver Mountain Ski Patrol, Shoshone County Search and Rescue and the U.S. Forest Service in hunting for the youth.

Three dogs were also brought in to sniff out the teen.

By early evening, the rescue effort was called off for the night. The search will continue again this morning.

Zeller belongs to two Pullman High School choir groups and is active in the school’s theater. He works at a day care and teaches music to an autistic child.

“In a really good way he’s just a different kind of kid,” said Dan Bruce, the high school’s choral director who taught Zeller for six years. “He’s really bright. He’s a very important part of our musical community here. There’s only one Andy - no stereotypes apply.”

Bad weather canceled the choir group’s trip to a jazz festival Wednesday and shut down Pullman schools on Thursday.

So Zeller and two of his choir friends decided to go skiing at Silver Mountain. The trio was last together at the top of Chair 2 on Thursday.

Zeller’s friends, both seniors and more experienced skiers, wanted to take a more difficult route down the mountain, said Dan Schierman, Shoshone County Sheriff.

They told Zeller which route to take to the bottom of the hill and planned to meet near Chair 4, Schierman said. But Zeller never arrived.

The ski hill called out rescue workers at 4:30 p.m.

About 15 rescue workers spent Thursday night searching for the youth, said Nick Muzik, Silver Mountain patrol director. Muzik scoured the mountain side until 2 a.m., stopping only to get three hours sleep.

By Friday a command center had been set up in Silver Mountain resort’s first aid room where tense rescue workers plotted their strategy.

“Don’t wear yourself out,” Muzik warned one tired patroller.

Searchers headed out on foot, snowboard, skis and snowmobiles. They scoured tree wells and out-of-the-way locations looking for the boy. One of the dogs had the youth’s scent for a short time but then lost it.

Searchers on skis started at the top of mountain, then skied down to the bottom just to take the resort’s gondola back up to the top and start again.

“With conditions like this you look for tracks,” said John Davis, a ski patrol volunteer. However, fog and fresh snowfall throughout the morning hampered tracking efforts and prevented a search by aircraft.

Rescue workers believe Zeller is somewhere outside of the resort’s boundaries, Muzik said.

The missing youth is the second incident at Silver Mountain recently. On Jan. 20, a 24-year-old former ski patroller died while skiing at Silver Mountain. He apparently died from heart problems.

“It’s been a tragic couple of weeks,” said one ski patrol volunteer who had just attended the funeral.

Other ski hills also have had problems. Two skiers reported missing earlier this month at Schweitzer Mountain Resort and Lookout Pass, but all were found. At 49 Degrees North near Chewelah, Wash., a 19-year-old skier died after she was struck by another skier.

Tim Newhart, Silver Mountain’s marketing director, said ski hill boundaries are clearly marked. To go outside the boundaries a skier would most likely have to cross a rope, he said.

Last season, three skiers were lost overnight at Silver Mountain after they skied out of bounds to a place called “South of the Border.” They were rescued the next day.

If skiers go out of bounds on the south side of the mountain they can get below the chair lifts and end up in steep and treacherous terrain, Newhart said.

Eischen of Lookout Pass said one or two skiers a year typically get lost at any given ski area.

He urged skiers not to go out of bounds, no matter how tempting the untracked snow might seem.

If skiers do get lost, they should try to retrace their tracks back to safety. If they can’t, he urged them to stay put until rescue workers find them.

Lost skiers can build a snow cave to keep warm. Eischen said they should poke holes in the ceiling for ventilation and place a piece of bright clothing on the outside of the cave so rescuers can find them.

Bruce said Zeller did have some survival training from years spent in the Boy Scouts. It has give the youth’s friends hope that he will be found alive.

“There’s still a feeling that they’re going to call and he’ll be all right,” Bruce said.

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