Dad Says He Has to Wait Until Spring to Resume Search for Missing Son: 'Yellowstone Is Unforgiving in the Winter'
Brian King-Henke is staging a renewed search effort in July 2025 to look for his son Austin, who has been missing since September
Yellowstone National Park/Facebook
The father of Austin King, a Yellowstone National Park worker who has been missing since September, isn't giving up hope that his son will be found
”Like I’ve been saying all along, you know, I believe in the impossible," Brian King-Henke told The Independent
The father of Austin King, a Yellowstone National Park worker who has been missing since September, isn't giving up hope that his son will be found
The father of missing Yellowstone employee Austin King is not giving up hope that his son will be found even after park officials scaled back their search last month.
King, 22, a concession worker at the park, has been missing since September when he failed to show up to his boat pickup following a seven-day backcountry trip to summit Eagle Peak, Yellowstone National Park stated in a previous news release on Facebook.
"[King] was reported overdue to the Yellowstone Interagency Communications Center when he failed to arrive for his boat pickup near Yellowstone Lake’s Southeast Arm on Friday afternoon, Sept. 20," officials said.
He was last heard from on Sept. 17, "when he called friends and family from the summit of Eagle Peak in the park’s remote southeast corner.”
In October, officials announced they were scaling back efforts to find Austin and "transition from a rescue to recovery" mission. PEOPLE reached out to the park officials on Friday, Nov. 22.
Now in an interview with The Independent, Austin's father Brian King-Henke spoke out about having to wait until spring to keep looking.
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“Yellowstone is unforgiving in the winter, if you’re not prepared for it,” King-Henke said. “I know it’s more of a recovery than anything but it’s just knowing that he’s out there.”
But he hasn't lost hope that his 22-year-old has somehow managed to survive.
“I’m hearing that all these hunters that go out there, there are quite a few cabins spread out in those mountain ranges and those basins,” he told the newspaper. “So, if [Austin] was able to get out there and find them then he’d have supplies. They all have blankets, firewood, food, you’re out of the weather – so there’s always the possibility.”
King-Henke continued, ”Like I’ve been saying all along, you know, I believe in the impossible.”
In King’s last known communication, a hand-written note left in a registry diary at the top of Eagle Peak, he described the intense weather conditions that he was facing.
“I can’t feel my fingers and my glasses are so fogged from the ruthless weather of the mountains. I truly cannot believe I am here after what it took to be here. I endured rain, sleet, hail and the most wind I have ever felt,” King’s letter read. “I could not see Eagle for most of the day due to the most fog I have ever seen in my life."
King-Henke is now working to fund a search effort that will take place in July 2025, when the snow and harsh weather conditions subside.
“I don’t want somebody to come across him and find him torn to pieces or anything like that,” he said. “I couldn’t, I couldn’t. I don’t think I could live with that and hear someone say ‘Hey, we found his hand’ or something like that.”
King-Henke planned to travel to Cody, Wyo. from Nov. 17 to 21 to “touch base” with others who will aid in the rescue effort, he wrote in an update on his son's GoFundMe page.
“I’ve been through a journey of anger, sadness,” he told The Independent. “I’ve been going through a roller coaster of emotions. But I have to keep reminding myself that I’ve made it through things in the past which have given me the foundation ground to keep level-headed and do what I need to do as Dad.
He added, “It’s going to be a daunting task to bring this army [of helpers] together and be ready in July.”
