Body may be missing hiker

STANLEY, Idaho – A body has been found in rugged terrain in the Sawtooth Mountains, the Custer County Sheriff’s Office said Wednesday. Family members of a Minnesota man who vanished in the area a year ago were hopeful it was him.

The body was discovered Tuesday on the Grand Mogul peak and a recovery team was being sent to retrieve the remains, the Sheriff’s Office said in a short news release.

But few other details were available: Sheriff Tim Eikens did not immediately return phone calls from the Associated Press and other sheriff’s officers would not comment.

The Sheriff’s Office would not say whether the body was believed to be that of Jon Francis, who disappeared July 16, 2006, while climbing in the area.

Francis, a Stillwater, Minn., resident who was serving as a counselor at a Bible camp in the area, made it to the top of the 9,733-foot Grand Mogul and signed the log book but never came down off the mountain.

Though a U.S. Air Force plane with infrared sensors, rescue teams, nearly 400 volunteers and as many as 50 cadaver dogs searched, they never found his body.

His family, however, never gave up hope of recovering his remains.

Jon’s parents, David and Linda Francis, hired the Sawtooth Mountain Guides this summer to help in the search and rented a nearby home to stay at while searching.

They also bought a boat to ferry searchers across the lake to the trailhead believed to be used by Jon Francis.

“We are hopeful that we’ve found him,” said Jocelyn Francis Plass, the missing man’s sister.

She said the remains were found by mountain guides hired by the Francis family who rappelled into crevices to search.

Since Francis disappeared, the family created the Jon Francis Foundation, aimed at instructing hikers and climbers with basic safety and survival information. Plass is the executive director of that foundation.