Searchers find no trace of missing pipeline workers

PRICE — Searchers found no trace Friday of two natural-gas pipeline workers who have been missing for nearly a week.

Mark Widegren and Brian Axe, both 28, work for W.C. Striegel Inc., a Colorado-based pipeline construction company that is building a natural-gas pipeline in Nine Mile Canyon. The men left the construction site, where they also live during the week, on Jan. 28 and headed into Price to eat and watch a game at the Silver Dollar Steakhouse, according to Carbon County sheriff's deputy Wally Hendricks.

Widegren and Axe, who are from Grand Junction, Colo., left the Silver Dollar about 11:30 p.m. in a gold-colored Jeep Grand Cherokee, Hendricks said.

Officials began searching for the men after they were notified Wednesday by family members that they still hadn't returned to work. An aerial search was hampered Thursday by poor weather in the canyon, but helicopter crews were able to fly over the area several times on Friday.

"We've flown and flown and flown and have nothing," Hendricks said Friday. "Bottom line is we have nothing more than we had yesterday."

Media reports about the vehicle the men were driving have generated some tips, the deputy said. Those were being tracked down by investigators with the state Department of Public Safety.

"So far, none of those leads have panned out," Hendricks said.

Relatives and friends of the two men have traveled to Price, as have search volunteers from the Grand Junction-based nonprofit group the Abby and Jennifer Recovery Foundation. But Hendricks said, aside from the helicopter flights and some searchers on ATVs, there has been no ground search conducted in the canyon so far.

"We don't need boots on the ground, because we don't know where to put them," he said Thursday, a position he reaffirmed Friday.

Carbon County Sheriff James Cordova was expected to meet with members of Widegren and Axe's families Friday night to brief them on the search plan.

Neither of the missing men's bank accounts have been touched since they were last seen, nor have investigators been able to pick up signals from the men's cellphones, Hendricks said.

Authorities still do not believe Widegren and Axe left the area, based on items that were found in their room at the W.C. Striegel camp.

The search could go on for some time before there is a resolution, Hendricks said, but it won't be for a lack of effort.

"We're working hard but we're not getting far," he said.

"We live in a world of instant gratification. This is not an instant gratification job," the deputy added. "It takes hard work and lots of hours, so we're just going to roll up our sleeves and keep working."

Anyone with information about Widegren and Axe should call the Carbon County Sheriff's Office at 435-636-3251.

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