Firefighters search for hiker missing in Central Oahu forest

The mother of a missing 32-year-old Wahiawa man worried Thursday that time was running out as the Honolulu Fire Department would likely end its search for the hiker Friday.

HFD’s searches usually end after three days.

“Anybody who is an experienced hiker, or hunters who know the area, I would really appreciate their help,” said Shirley Seeger, whose son Justin Clark did not return from his planned 3-mile hike Tuesday morning.

Clark apparently got lost while looking for a path leading to a pool near Schofield-Waikane Trail.

Seeger said her son grew up in Wahiawa and knows the area’s trails but could have taken a “wrong turn and got himself into trouble,” perhaps following a pig’s or hunter’s trail.

HFD crews began searching for Clark on Wednesday and continued Thursday, conducting aerial searches and using crews on the ground, with a total of 18 personnel.

Battalion Chief Alan Carvalho said personnel have also searched the Wahiawa Heights Loop Trail. Crews searched four locations and focused their efforts on an area where a concentration of Clark’s cellphone pings came from Tuesday.

“There are offshoot trails you could get onto that would lead to rugged trails. If you get down to a ravine, it would make it difficult to get back up onto the main trail,” Carvalho said.

Seeger said her son was carrying a bottle of water but was not prepared for a long hike.

He was getting over a bad cold or flu, for which he was on antibiotics, and was feeling better, so he went on the short hike, she said.

While Clark hikes frequently, Seeger said, old leg and shoulder injuries sometimes bother him.

Clark sent his mother a text in which he said he had fallen a few times trying to get out of a narrow spot, then got up to a ridge.

“I’m hurt but not hospital serious,” he said in the text. He also said, “I’m in a lot of pain.”

Seeger said she last received a text from Clark at 4:08 p.m. Tuesday. Seeger and her husband hiked along the main trail to look for him that afternoon.

“We figured he would find his way out,” she said. The couple contacted HFD at 12:32 p.m. Wednesday.

Friends who grew up with the 2000 Leilehua High School graduate are trying to organize a search for him, Seeger said.

Mike Bowen, 33, who does not know Clark, but who got lost himself on a dayslong hike in the Koolaus a few years ago and had to drink his own sweat to survive, was out searching Thursday for Clark with Daniel Abraham, 11, whose cousin Daylen “Moke” Pua disappeared hiking.

Bowen, who also helped search for Pua, said he felt a responsibility to assist in the search for Clark because he is an experienced hiker and knows the area.