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Search for missing Colorado hunter enters fifth day

By
Logan Smith
Assignment Desk Editor
Logan Smith is an assignment desk editor at CBS Colorado in Denver with more than 30 years of journalism experience in digital, television and print media.
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Logan Smith

/ CBS Colorado

Authorities continue to comb the area around a Colorado mountain for a 27-year-old Salida man they've been searching for since Wednesday.  

Kaden Sites went turkey hunting on Mount Shavano and failed to show up for a doctors appointment Wednesday afternoon, according to the Chaffee County Sheriff's Office. Family members found Sites's pickup truck at the Blanks Cabin Trailhead parking lot. His cell phone was inside the truck and the device's battery was dead. 

Family members called the sheriff's office at 7 p.m. to report Sites missing. 

missing-turkey-hunter-4-chaffee-county-sheriffs-office.jpg
Kaden Stiles, 27, has not been heard from since he went hunting turkeys west of Salida.  Chaffee County Sheriff's Office/ Facebook

Search crews began looking for Sites that night and have been every day since. Ground teams were joined by search dogs while drones, helicopters, and planes have flown overhead. 

Friday, the number of searchers numbered 130. Approximately 1,500 man/woman hours were spent that day alone, per the sheriff's office. 

"Please continue to keep the searchers and family members in your positive thoughts," Chaffee Sheriff Andy Rohrich stated on a Facebook post. "Our team is determined as ever and staying strong. Please continue to stay out of the area. Yesterday we did have a few citizens go up to the area to search on their own and our teams had to be diverted to them because they were not on our list. We appreciate all the community's support and willingness to jump in and help but we do not want our team's attention on anything other than finding Kaden."

missing-turkey-hunter-combo-for-web.jpg
Chaffee County Sheriff's Office/ Facebook

Sites was initially thought to be wearing a green hoodie, ripped khaki pants and hiking boots - and also carrying a shotgun and binocular pack - when the search began. Thursday, the sheriff's office indicated it had received information that Sites may have put on a ghillie suit when he went into the forest. A ghillie suit is an advanced camouflage outfit used by hunters and snipers. It notably features a covering of what is supposed to resemble thick foliage. 

However, Sheriff Andy Rohrich spoke with KKTV, a CBS affiliate in Colorado Springs, on Saturday and clarified that searchers no longer believe Sites was wearing such gear.

Sheriff Rohrich added that searchers are now doubling back and searching certain portions of the mountain a second time. He asked that people to stay clear of the area while the operation continues.  

The agencies involved in the search effort:

  • Chaffee County Sheriff's Office
  • Chaffee County Office of Emergency Management
  • Chaffee County Search and Rescue (North and South)
  • Colorado Search and Rescue
  • Colorado Department of Corrections
  • Colorado Parks and Wildlife
  • Mesa County Search and Rescue
  • Park County Search and Rescue
  • Western Mountain Rescue (Gunnison County)
  • Pueblo Search and Rescue
  • Teller County Search and Rescue
  • Lake County Search and Rescue
  • Custer County Search and Rescue
  • Summit County Search and Rescue
  • Boulder Emergency Squad 

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