Woman, 53, reported missing from “spiritual” camp in southwestern Colorado

By Austen Erblat, Jasmine Arenas

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    SAN MIGUEL COUNTY, Colorado (KCNC) — Search and rescue officials are looking for a woman in southwestern Colorado who was reported missing from a camp near Norwood.

Gina Chase was last seen around 11 a.m. Wednesday and reported missing on Thursday. She was part of a spiritual group who would go on solo “quests” and were discouraged from bringing cell phones, other electronics or food, according to the San Miguel County Sheriff’s Office.

The 53-year-old set off from the Lone Cone Trailhead in the Lone Cone area outside Norwood, a town of just over 500 people, about 55 miles east of the Utah-Colorado state line and about 360 miles southwest of Denver.

The sheriff’s office says 11 campers from an organized group from Durango set off on solo journeys. The sheriff’s office says the group discouraged food and electronics to “maximize a spiritual experience with nature.” They used a buddy system designed to confirm campers’ return to camp after their journeys, but Chase’s buddy said she hadn’t returned.

When camp guides began looking for her and her belongings, they say her daypack was missing, which they said contained an emergency blanket, whistle, power bar and water.

After a several-hour search turned up nothing, guides contacted the sheriff’s office, which deployed deputies and a search and rescue team, which included aircraft and dogs. By Saturday, more than three dozen people from the sheriff’s office, plus others from several counties and agencies, were involved in the search.

Responders deployed to the field and aircraft were dispatched, but Chase wasn’t located. Search efforts resumed Friday morning with additional aircraft and K9 teams, but she still wasn’t found.

“Our team of deputies and Search and Rescue volunteers are working tirelessly to locate this missing woman,” San Miguel County Sheriff Bill Masters said in a statement on Saturday. “While their efforts have not been successful thus far, we remain hopeful that she will be found.”

People are being asked to stay away from the area of Lone Cone and refrain from flying drones in the area so as not to interfere with search efforts.

The sheriff’s office said despite the resources deployed and the relatively small size of the search grid, there were challenges in search efforts.

“The area we are talking about is not all that large but it’s extremely dense, and with rough terrain, a lot of dense underbrush, dense trees, and it’s just very difficult for that reason,” Susan Lilly, a spokeswoman for the San Miguel County Sheriff’s Office, told CBS News Colorado. “We have a lot of agencies participating. We have air resources and were just not coming up with anything.”

The sheriff’s office identified the group Chase was with as the Animas Valley Institute. On its website, the group says it was founded in 1980 and organized as a nonprofit organization since 1998 and offers “intensives, Quests, yearlong immersions, wilderness pilgrimages and trainings.”

“This contemporary enactment of the pancultural vision fast is a dynamic wilderness rite for men and women seeking greater depth and clarity about life purpose and meaning,” the group says on its website. “As a rite of initiation, the quest is a ceremonial descent to the underworld, in which you die to your familiar way of belonging to the world, uncover the passion and wisdom of your soul, and retrieve the gift that is yours alone to bring to the world, enhancing personal fulfillment and genuine service. The quest serves as a modern rite of initiation — not into any social, religious, or spiritual group, but into your own soul and deeper layers of true adulthood.”

CBS News Colorado reached out to the Animas Valley Institute for comment Saturday but did not immediately hear back.

Colorado wildlife officials urge people going into the backcountry to bring food, water and a cell phone for safety. The San Miguel County Sheriff’s Office further encourages people to bring a cell phone and GPS device and to never go into the backcountry alone.

The sheriff’s office does not suspect foul play at this point.

Anyone with information about Chase’s whereabouts is asked to call the San Miguel County Sheriff’s Office at 970-728-1911.

She’s described as 5’4″, about 125 pounds and possibly wearing a purple rain jacket.

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