SEARCH UPDATE: Alpine Teams Fly To Search For Missing Redondo Beach Man Near San Jacinto Peak

Search-and-rescue personnel from Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties joined the search Monday morning for a Redondo Beach man last heard from Saturday when he set out to climb 10,834-foot San Jacinto Peak.

Helmeted volunteers equipped with ice axes, steel-spiked crampons and snowshoes were flown by helicopter to be inserted into hard-to-reach pockets of the snow-blanketed mountains more than 8,000 feet above the desert city of Palm Springs.

Searchers were optimistic they could find Brian Carrico, 57, alive and unhurt. Family members described him as an experienced hiker. He left the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway mountain station Saturday morning with a permit to climb the mountain, food, water and warm clothing, authorities said.

Temperatures dipped into the teens in the San Jacinto high country early today, but Saturday night and early Sunday were colder, said Donny Goetz, a volunteer with the Riverside Mountain Rescue Unit.

"If you were out Saturday night you definitely would have built a shelter," said Goetz, who lives in Irvine. "With the windchill it was below zero. I was out that night and the storm kept going until early Sunday."

Goetz spoke Monday morning next to a temporary landing zone just off Highway 111 next to the road up to the tramway lower station. A Riverside County Sheriff's Department helicopter crew was using the sandy spot to shuttle pairs of rescuers up to the search area.

Carrico rode the tram up to the mountain station  Saturday morning, sheriff's officials said. When he did not return later that day, family members called State Park authorities, who contacted the sheriff's department.

Deputies found Carrico's locked vehicle in the tramway parking lot below the lower station.

The last known time Carrico's cellular phone was functional was at noon Saturday, sheriff's officials said.

Riverside volunteers were called out Saturday night in "white-out" conditions, a rescue official said. A team from Sierra Madre joined Sunday, as well as four members of a state team who specialize in backcountry ski mountaineering and assessing avalanche risk.

Frigid alpine conditions gripped the mountain Sunday night and early Monday, but search teams and anyone else out in the open benefited from light north winds under 5 miles per hour.

The summit of San Jacinto Peak, the second-highest point in Southern California, stands at 10,834 feet above sea level. The top of the mountain is about a six-mile walk by trail from the tramway mountain station at 8,500 feet elevation, but the trail disappears in snow conditions.

Anyone with information about Carrico's whereabouts was urged to call the Cabazon Station at (951) 922-7100 or send an email to CabazonStation@riversidesheriff.org.