Officials call off search for missing man in national park

HOODSPORT, Wash. – The official search for a missing state pension official in Olympic National Park has been called off after 10 days of fruitless efforts by dozens of backwoods professionals and volunteers.

After failing to find any sign of Gilbert Gilman, 47, deputy director of state Department of Retirement Systems, “we’ve reached the limits of what we can do,” Ranger Michael J. Danisiewicz said in a park statement announcing an end to the effort Tuesday night.

Gilman, a former Army paratrooper and later a civilian contractor in Iraq, has not been seen since he went on what by all appearances he planned to be a day hike June 24 in the Staircase area west of the bend in Hood Canal.

After he failed to appear the next day for a meeting, his car was found at the Staircase ranger station parking lot.

National Park Service staff and volunteers spent more than 5,000 hours on the search, which included the use of dogs, helicopters and sophisticated underwater cameras in the rapids of the North Fork Skokomish River, a park spokeswoman said.

“We’ve explored both the logical and the more remote scenarios of what Mr. Gilman may have done, decisions he may have made and routes he may have chosen, but none of them produced results,” said Danisiewicz, who was in charge of the search.