Katmai National Park

by Channel 2 News staff Monday, August 2, 2010 ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- The search for a missing hiker in Katmai National Park has entered its third day. The National Park Service says it received a call Saturday evening from an emergency radio at Three Forks Trailhead, reporting that a member of the caller's party had disappeared along the Lethe River after trying to recover his boots from the water. The remaining group spent several hours looking for their companion before calling in the incident.

The National Transportation Safety Board is now able to take a closer look at wreckage from a missing plane that turned up on a beach in Katmai National Park. An NTSB investigator was flown to the site along the park's northern coast Thursday afternoon. While on the ground, officials were able to identify some additional pieces of wreckage not seen previously. A commercial helicopter pilot found a section of the tail Tuesday, as well as small pieces of the fuselage. The NTSB says the flight controls and engine would yield important information, but those parts have not been found.

Tuesday was the fourth day of a massive search in Southwest Alaska for a missing plane with four men on board. The single-engine float plane, a DeHavilland Beaver, operated by Branch River Air Service, was reporting missing Saturday. The plane was carrying three National Park Service workers from Swikshak Bay to King Salmon, but never arrived. The three passengers are Mason McLeod, 26, and two brothers, Neal Spradlin, 28, and Seth Spradlin, 20. The pilot, 47-year-old Marco Alletto, is described by friends as a reliable, responsible and skilled pilot.

It is one of the least visited National Parks in the United States, but what it lacks in tourists -- it makes up for in wonders. Katmai National Park is home to the greatest concentration of protected Brown Bears anywhere in the world. An estimated 2500 of the animals roam the land here and in neighboring McNeilRiver State Park. That is more Brown Bears in this one area than in all of the Lower-48 combined. The park draws 10,000 visitors to Brooks Camp, where 100 of those bears enjoy feasting on the July Salmon Runs.

Each year thousands of people from all over the world venture to Katmai National Park and Preserve, a wildlife sanctuary in Alaska's own back yard. During the summer, air taxis take off daily from King Salmon to visit the most remote national park in the U.S. Bob Gay and Ken Edlund came to Alaska from Colorado. "I've heard about it for years and wanted to do it," Gay said. Katmai is home to one of the nation's greatest wildlife gatherings. Here you'll find the world's highest concentration of brown bears feeding on sockeye salmon, which swim upriver to spawn.

by The Associated Press Tuesday, August 3, 2010 ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- The National Park Service is calling off its search for a German hiker missing in Katmai National Park. Uwe Schauer of Jena, Germany, went missing Saturday when he disappeared while trying to retrieve his boots, which had fallen into the Lethe River. He was with a group of experienced hikers. They called authorities Saturday night after failing to find their 48-year-old companion. Air and ground searches were conducted through Tuesday with no signs found of the hiker.

The National Park Service announced Friday that beginning Saturday, it will significantly scale back the search for a missing floatplane that disappeared last month. The plane, carrying pilot Marco Alletto and Park Service employees Mason McLeod, brothers Neal and Seth Spradlin, disappeared Aug. 21 after taking off from Swikshak Bay in Katmai National Park. No sign of the floatplane or missing men has been reported since. “We have logged almost 60,000 flight miles over the past two weeks.

The Coast Guard is searching for a missing plane in Southwest Alaska. A DeHavilland Beaver with four people on board, including three Katmai National Park maintenance employees, was on its way to King Salmon, but it never arrived. Park superintendent Ralph Moore says the plane left Swikshak Bay at 2:45 Saturday afternoon for a flight that takes less than an hour. Three maintenance workers, identified by the National Park Service as Mason McLeod, 26, and two brothers, Neal Spradlin, 28; and Seth Spradlin, 20; and the pilot were aboard.

A massive aerial search-and-rescue effort in Southwest Alaska is continuing after a float plane and four men on board were reported missing Saturday. The three passengers work for Katmai National Park, and family members as well as National Park Sservice officials remain optimistic. Search crews were delayed leaving King Salmon Monday morning, but the weather over the search site has since cleared up. Five agencies are working together, using 10 aircraft in a full-scale search to locate the plane, the pilot and passengers.

It is one of the least visited National Parks in the United States, but what it lacks in tourists -- it makes up for in wonders. Katmai National Park is home to the greatest concentration of protected Brown Bears anywhere in the world. An estimated 2500 of the animals roam the land here and in neighboring McNeilRiver State Park. That is more Brown Bears in this one area than in all of the Lower-48 combined. The park draws 10,000 visitors to Brooks Camp, where 100 of those bears enjoy feasting on the July Salmon Runs.

A Katmai National Park's eruption happened a century ago Wednesday -- but it is still the largest volcanic blast in nearly 200 years, easily loud enough to have been audible 290 miles away where Anchorage now stands. On June 6, 1912, the Novarupta stratovolcano produced the biggest volcanic eruption of the 20th century: bigger than the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa (more properly called Krakatau) in Indonesia, as well as Mount Pinatubo's 1991 blast in the Phillipines. It was 30 times larger than the spring 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, which killed more than 50 people in Washington State in the spring of 1980.

I once visited the valley as one of a dozen people on a 10-day field trip with John Eichelberger, who then worked at the Alaska Volcano Observatory. As we approached the valley the first day on a bus ride from Brooks Camp in Katmai National Park, the story of the 1912 Katmai eruption began to unfold. A few miles before we reached the valley, we saw the skeletons of spruce trees, bone white and surrounded by green bushes. The trees have been standing dead since early June 1912, when falling ash killed them.

When the State Department polled foreign diplomats on where they’d most like to visit in the U.S., the answer was Alaska. This week 70 ambassadors and spouses from places like Chile, Uganda, Ireland and Denmark are in the state, as part of an “Experience America” tour sponsored by the State Department. Their itinerary includes a visit to the Alaska Native Heritage Center, dinners in private homes with community leaders and talks with tourism and climate change experts on a Kenai Fjords tour of Resurrection Bay. They will also head to the North Slope to visit the pipeline and to a Barrow Inupiaq cultural center.

A search team is expected to leave Kodiak this week to look for more wreckage from the plane that crashed in Katmai National Park in August. The DeHavilland Beaver had four people on board: pilot Marco Alletto, as well as National Park Service employees Mason McLeod and brothers Neal and Seth Spradlin. Last month a private pilot spotted pieces of the crashed plane northwest of Cape Douglas. The National Transportation Safety Board says a search team will make the boat trip from Kodiak to the crash site, weather permitting.

The National Transportation Safety Board is now able to take a closer look at wreckage from a missing plane that turned up on a beach in Katmai National Park. An NTSB investigator was flown to the site along the park's northern coast Thursday afternoon. While on the ground, officials were able to identify some additional pieces of wreckage not seen previously. A commercial helicopter pilot found a section of the tail Tuesday, as well as small pieces of the fuselage. The NTSB says the flight controls and engine would yield important information, but those parts have not been found.

The National Park Service scaled back its ongoing search Saturday for a plane carrying three Park Service employees and a pilot that went missing near Katmai National Park over two weeks ago.   Searchers have logged over 50,000 flight miles, but haven't turned up any sign of the missing floatplane.                 Gloria Maschmeyer holds out hope that her friend, pilot Marco Alletto, will make it home safely. “I think that they could still be out there -- I don't have a clue why we can't see some trace of it,” Maschmeyer said.

The National Park Service announced Friday that beginning Saturday, it will significantly scale back the search for a missing floatplane that disappeared last month. The plane, carrying pilot Marco Alletto and Park Service employees Mason McLeod, brothers Neal and Seth Spradlin, disappeared Aug. 21 after taking off from Swikshak Bay in Katmai National Park. No sign of the floatplane or missing men has been reported since. “We have logged almost 60,000 flight miles over the past two weeks.

Tuesday was the fourth day of a massive search in Southwest Alaska for a missing plane with four men on board. The single-engine float plane, a DeHavilland Beaver, operated by Branch River Air Service, was reporting missing Saturday. The plane was carrying three National Park Service workers from Swikshak Bay to King Salmon, but never arrived. The three passengers are Mason McLeod, 26, and two brothers, Neal Spradlin, 28, and Seth Spradlin, 20. The pilot, 47-year-old Marco Alletto, is described by friends as a reliable, responsible and skilled pilot.

A massive aerial search-and-rescue effort in Southwest Alaska is continuing after a float plane and four men on board were reported missing Saturday. The three passengers work for Katmai National Park, and family members as well as National Park Sservice officials remain optimistic. Search crews were delayed leaving King Salmon Monday morning, but the weather over the search site has since cleared up. Five agencies are working together, using 10 aircraft in a full-scale search to locate the plane, the pilot and passengers.