Received this message from friends today… still ongoing…

Two climbers from San Diego went missing a few days ago.

Ben and Gil went to attempt a first ascent on the south face of Palcaraju Oeste in Peru and have been missing for over 5 days now.

A search team found Ben and Gil’s tent, followed tracks up the glacier to the base of the route (a 800 m face of steep snow and ice), and spotted tracks on the descent ridge at about 5,800 m. That’s all they know so far.

YOU can help in two ways:

1. Look for signs of them on satellite pictures here: http://tomnod.com/gi/peru/

(some more info here: Facebook Page (Search Event), and an example of how the three rescuers were spotted here: Satellite picture with 3 people on)

2. They are looking for a plane to do a fly-over. Here’s the latest on that:

We have a good lead on a private plane for tomorrow. Still happy to take suggestions of private planes people have access to — you’d be amazed how many Peruvian pilots our network knows! We want someone out there today if possible.
> The US embassy in Lima is trying to get the Peruvian national guard to launch their planes. First the team on the ground has to report in from the mountain — should happen in the next hour.
> Satellite imagery is in and they are analyzing it.
> Ben’s network of elite climbers is hard at work identifying Peru-based climbers to back up the on-the-ground efforts. Unfortunately it sounds like the team there now can’t go up until tomorrow morning.
> At this point, I literally cannot keep up with all of the leads coming in. If you have a very promising contact — like a Peruvian military officer who owns a plane — call me and I will give you the number of the guy coordinating on the ground. Anyone who has a good reason to call the embassy, it’s 51-1-618-2000. It’s possible the 1 before the 6 is dropped but I dont think so.
>
> Liora (fiance of Ben)
> 202-558-8346

Latest updates can be found here:

https://www.facebook.com/Tomnod