SEATTLE - A park spokesman says a climber missing after a weekend avalanche on Mount Rainier's Ingraham Glacier is presumed dead.
Mount Rainier National Park spokesman Kevin Bacher says the park believes the climber is a 29-year-old man from Olympia, but did not release his name.
The missing person is believed to be Mark Wedeven, based on a missing person report filed by the family, description by other climbers, other circumstantial evidence, and his car found in the Paradise parking lot.
Also other climbers at Camp Muir provided a description of a person that matches that of Mark Wedeven and the description given also puts him climbing at a time and pace that would have put him in direct threat of the avalanche.
Park rangers remain reluctant to confirm that Mark as the missing climber because he did not fill out a climbers registration card.
The parents of a man presumed dead after an avalanche on Mount Rainier are coming to grips with what happened. Their son was one of 11 people caught in Saturday's slide on the mountain.
"When Mark feels he needs to go to the mountains, he goes to the mountains," said his mother, Carol Wedeven.
David and Carol Wedeven say their 29-year-old son Mark told friends he was going on a solo climb of Mount Rainier.
Mark is still missing. He hasn't checked in with his friends or his 5-year-old son Obi.
His parents describe him as a worldly free spirit and an explorer of sorts.
Seven years ago, when he was on assignment for National Geographic Magazine, he was held for 10 days by a Columbian paramilitary group. He was released and he returned to the Puget Sound.
It is highly unlikely that anyone caught in the avalanche is still alive.
A search was called off Saturday afternoon because of high avalanche conditions. Bacher says climbing rangers are still waiting for avalanche conditions to improve to begin a ground search to recover the body.
According to Colorado Avalanche Information Center, there have been 34 avalanche fatalities nationwide in the 2009-2010 season.
About 5 percent of the more than 10,000 who climbed the 14,411-foot Mount Rainier last year used the Ingraham Direct, according to a park report.
