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Search ongoing for Mount Shasta hikers
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Salvador Frias and Patricia Giamoni have been missing on Mount Shasta since Saturday night.
MILLBRAE (Map, News) - A 37-year-old personal trainer from Millbrae and his longtime friend from North Carolina, who have been missing since this weekend after an excursion to Mount Shasta, were on their first date at the 14,162-foot mountain in Northern California, the man’s sister said Monday.
Salvador Frias and 37-year-old Patricia Giamoni, of North Carolina, have been close friends for two decades, but recently decided to try a romance, Frias’ sister Luz David said.
“This was pretty much their first ‘date’,” David said.
Frias’ mother Andrea Frias, reached Monday at her home in Millbrae, said Frias had climbed Shasta multiple times. She said even as a young boy he was athletic and loved the outdoors, even though neither she nor his father took him hiking.
“I’ve never worried about him because he’s very athletic and he knows his way around,” she said. “But now I don’t know what will happen. I’m just holding on, hanging in there, hoping for the best.”
The first report that the pair were possibly in trouble came at 9:25 p.m. Saturday, when a man, believed to be Frias, called the California Highway Patrol and said he was on top of Mount Shasta and was in need of help, Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Susan Gravenkamp said.
However, before further information could be relayed, the call was lost and dispatchers were not able to reach him again.
Half an hour later, the Sheriff’s Department received a call from Giamoni’s son, Frank Machado, of North Carolina. He said Giamoni had called him and said she and Frias had climbed the mountain and were battling high winds. Rescue workers conducted a ground search through the night and found the pair’s car at a trailhead immediately; helicopters joined in the search Sunday morning. On Monday, two teams of rescue workers were taken to the top of the mountain and began searching from the summit. The hikers remained missing as of 6 p.m. Monday.
David said she knew her brother had taken “all the proper equipment,” and had a “strong feeling he’s OK.”
