2pm update: Ryan Owens has been found! Click to read our follow-up story.
1:30pm update: This story has been edited to remove a quote from Mauer. Martha Frankel reports from Shokan that the search for Ryan Owens continues this afternoon.
Original story: A 22-year-old man is lost in the forbidding wilderness off Moon Haw Road in the town of Olive today after spending the night outdoors with only a dog, a long-sleeve T-shirt and a bottle of water, State Police say.
Ryan Owens set out on a hike at 2pm yesterday, heading up either Friday and Balsam Cap Mountains, according to Olivebridge resident Donna Mauer. Owens lives with Mauer and her son, Max Mauer.
"He was only wearing a long sleeve t-shirt and jeans," Mauer said. "He has nothing for survival: only a bottle of water and a dog."
Max Mauer was scheduled to meet Owens after the hike at 5pm yesterday, but Owens never appeared, Donna Mauer said.
"My son waited, and then drove all the side roads to see if maybe he had started walking," Mauer said. "He didn't find him. He came back to the house and called some of his other friends, and nobody had heard from him. My son went back, waited, and searched the roads again…nothing."
The Mauers called the New York City Department of Environmental Protection 7pm yesterday, and the State Police and the Department of Environmental Conservation forest rangers organized a search last night, according to Sgt. Edward McKenna of the New York State Police in Kingston.
McKenna said that the search was suspended in the early morning and was resumed this morning around 8am.
Donna Mauer said that the searchers found footprints and dog prints last night and tracked them before losing the trail and calling off the search until morning.
The Mauers ask that if anyone has information about Ryan Owens' whereabouts today, to please call 845-657-7556.
