Active field search in Great Smoky Mountains National Park for missing Florida man ended
Two weeks since he was last seen and 11 days into a search for a missing Florida man in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, officials have called off the active field search.
The National Park Service said in a May 6 news release that the extensive ground search for Gordon Kaye, 69, of Tampa, Florida, would transition from an "active search to a limited, but continuous search, which may include backcountry patrols, air searches when practical, and outreach to hikers heading into the area."
Kaye, described as a 5-foot, 10-inch tall white male with brown hair and blue eyes, and weighing about 200 pounds, was last seen April 23 near a backcountry campsite in the Deep Creek area of the park near Bryson City in Swain County.
His family reported him missing April 26. The NPS started the missing person investigation the same day and launched a search focused on areas near where Kaye was last seen. Ultimately, more than 300 people from 57 agencies and four states searched the ground on foot, on horseback and with canine teams looking for Kaye and clues to his location. Park rangers also used a drone in areas where vegetation cover allowed, according to the Park Service.
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“Although this is not the outcome we wanted, we gave our best efforts and completed very thorough ground searches,” Incident Commander James Latendresse said in the news release. “The size and scale of the search were only possible with the help of our partners and the dedicated volunteers who gave their time and expertise to look for Mr. Kaye.”
A missing person investigation is ongoing and the Park Service will continue to follow up on any new information.
The Smokies, which sprawls across a half-million acres of rugged, forested terrain in Western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee, is the most-visited national park, with some 12.9 million visitors in 2022. The search area is steep, slippery and covered in dense vegetation such as rhododendron, Smokies spokesperson Emily Davis previously told the Citizen Times.
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Earlier news releases from the Smokies said that Kaye "may be suffering from a mental health crisis," and that he is "an experienced hiker, camper, and hunter and had reserved a campsite at Deep Creek Campground for 14 days."
Davis said Kaye had been camping alone.
The National Park Service continues to ask the public to contact the park dispatch center at 865-436-1230 or Swain County Dispatch at 828-488-2196 if they were in the Deep Creek area between Wednesday, April 19 and Sunday, April 23 and believe they may have seen Kaye.
Smokies officials have not yet released an identity or provided indications as to the cause of death of another person who was reported missing and found dead April 16 near Low Gap Trail in the Cosby, Tennessee, area of the national park.
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Davis said the Smokies conducts about 100 search and rescue operations a year. There were 11 fatalities in 2022 in the Smokies, according to previous Citizen Times reporting. The most common cause of death last year ― three ― was suicide.
On Aug. 5, 2022, a Knoxville, Tennessee, man was found dead in a remote section of the park near Balsam Mountain in North Carolina. Bryce Evans, 23, had been reported missing by his family earlier that week.
Park rangers located his vehicle parked at the Balsam Mountain Trailhead near Pin Oak Gap on Heintooga Ridge Road Aug. 4. They closed the road and conducted a search of the immediate area.
The next day, they found Evans' body about 20 yards off the trail, about 1.5 miles from the Balsam Mountain Trailhead parking area.
Karen Chávez is Interim Executive Editor for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. Tips? Call 828-712-6316, email, KChavez@CitizenTimes.com or follow on Twitter @KarenChavezACT. Please help support this type of journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Great Smoky Mountains National Park missing man active search ended
