Athletes, Mountaineers Comprise 10-Member Private Team

A privately-funded team intent on finding multimillionaire adventurer Steve Fossett plans to set out Monday, in a weeklong search of a rugged mountainous area straddling the California-Nevada state line.

The Canadian Press reports the 10-member team of athletes and mountain climbers -- hand-picked for their specific talents on this quest -- is led by Canadian geologist Simon Donato, who is also an adventurer with experience racing through wilderness areas around the world.

Donato says his team will be able to find any wreckage obscured from the air during the massive search effort undertaken last September, in the days following Fossett's disappearance.

The adventurer chose the region -- between the Bodie Hills and Sweetwater Mountain range, with peaks over 11,000 feet high - because of its proximity to Fossett's last known location. The region is due east from Barron Hilton's Flying M Ranch, from where Fossett took off September 3, 2007 to scout locations for a possible land speed record attempt.

As ANN reported, weeks of searching a roughly 20,000 square-mile area uncovered no signs of Fossett, or the wreckage of the Bellanca Decathlon he was flying. The adventurer was declared legally dead earlier this year.

"We're here on the premise that he did crash, unfortunately," said Donato. "I really respect him. He has done so much."

Donato expects his team to cover between 10-20 square miles of terrain each day of the weeklong effort. Even if the search fails to locate the missing adventurer, Donato says he takes comfort knowing his efforts might help future efforts -- including a second expedition, headed by Washington DC investor Robert Hyman, planned for late August.

"Whether we luck out and find the wreckage or not, at least our tracks will be preserved so that in the future if someone wants to give this a try they'll know where we already were and they can go to the next mountain range over," he said.

FMI: www.adventurescience.ca, www.stevefossett.com