September 18 Update, 5:05 P.M. MDT: The Conejos County Sheriff’s Department confirmed to Outside that the bodies of two males were recovered from the area. As of this update, they remained unidentified. 

Two elk hunters who had been missing in the Colorado backcountry for a week have been found dead. The news was announced on September 18 by the family of one of the missing men.

Ian Stasko of Utah and Andrew Porter of North Carolina disappeared on September 11 after they “failed to check in with loved ones at a predetermined time” when bad weather swept through the area.

Conni Ricci of the Conejos County Sheriff’s Department confirmed to Outside that two male bodies had been recovered from the area, though they were unidentified at this time.

“On September 18 at approximately 11:00 am, the Conejos County Sheriff’s Office recovered 2 unidentified males 2 miles from the Rio De Los Pinos Trail Head. Following an extensive search operation,” wrote the department in a press release. “At this time, the individuals remain unidentified. The investigation is ongoing, and no further details are available pending identification and notification of next-of-kin.”

However, a family member identified the two men in an online post.

“It is with a broken heart and through tears that I give you this update. Andrew and Ian have both been found deceased. Their bodies were discovered earlier today by Colorado Search and Rescue. I will provide another update tomorrow,” wrote Lynne Runkle, Porter’s aunt and organizer of a GoFundMe raised to help find the men.

Both were originally from Virginia, according to the news publication, Charlottesville Right Now.

On September 15, Porter’s fiancée, Bridget Murphy, shared an update on Facebook, writing that the duo had been hunting near the Los Pinos trailhead in the Rio Grande National Forest. She had last spoken with the men via a Garmin device on September 11, and the two were last seen at a nearby trail with their car on the following day.

“Fellow hunters had reported encountering the two 25-year-olds on Friday morning, Sept. 12, near the Spruce Hollow Trailhead in the Rio Grande National Forest around 10 a.m. The missing men said they had spotted a large bull and had headed back out to track the animal, the other hunters told authorities,” wrote Charlottesville Right Now. “About an hour later, the men’s car was apparently moved to the Rio de Los Pinos Trailhead, where it was found by search and rescue teams.”

Their disappearance kicked off a major operation by the Conejos County Sheriff. The agency deployed multiple resources to find the two men, including over 54 teams of professionally trained search and rescue personnel mixed with volunteers in the field.

The sheriff’s department reported that officials had located the missing men’s vehicle at the trailhead, but that neither man was present. Deputies launched search and rescue operations after locating camping gear and backpacks in the vehicle, as “heavy rain and bad weather” swept through the region.

“While they are experienced hunters, bad cold storms and fog came in quickly and continuously until [September 14] morning. A lot of their gear is still in their car at the trailhead, as we assume they probably thought they were going out for a quick evening hunt with clear weather,” wrote Murpy.

Saguache County Search and Rescue posted on Facebook that the men’s sat phone had since “gone unresponsive” and because much of their gear was still in the vehicle, “they may not be fully equipped for an extended stay out.” In a post to Facebook on September 17, the U.S. Forest Service Rio Grande National Forest noted there was a “large search and rescue operation in progress” in the area.

According to The Colorado Sun, none of the gear items needed to hunt, harvest, or pack out an elk were found in the vehicle, suggesting the two men had gone back out to hunt.

“We didn’t find his bow, his butchering knives, his game bags or binoculars, things he would take with him to go kill an elk with the hope that they could start packing it out to the car that night,” Murphy told the publication. In previous hunting trips, Murphy said the men would return to their car overnight to sleep.

Located near the southern border of Colorado, the Rio Grande National Forest is a vast wilderness area encompassing more than 1.8 million acres. The area where the two men were hunting in the San Juan Mountains, west of the Trujillo Meadows Reservoir, is a popular, rugged area known to elk hunters.

Outside contacted the Colorado Search and Rescue Association, as well as the Conejos County Sheriff’s Office, for further information. We will update this article when a response is received.