<\/p>\n
The body of a snowmobiler missing since Dec. 6 has been recovered from Groundhog Reservoir.<\/p>\n
Ronald Wallace Jr., 37, was found Feb. 7 after an extensive search by a specialized dive team that lasted seven days.<\/p>\n
On Dec. 11, Dolores County and Lewis-Arriola emergency crews discovered his snowmobile under the lake ice. But the search for Wallace, an Air Force veteran, was suspended because of severe weather and ice conditions.<\/p>\n
In February, British Columbia-based Cold Water Divers arrived on scene with a pair of Deep Trekker remotely operated vehicles to conduct an extensive search mission, said company spokeswoman Amanda Coulas.<\/p>\n
The search lasted for seven days as crews worked up to 14 hours a day in temperatures as low as minus 15 degrees Fahrenheit.<\/p>\n
\u201cWallace\u2019s father, Ronald Sr., and his family were determined to not give up the hope of finding Ronnie,\u201d Coulas stated in a press release. \u201cThey wanted closure and to bring Ronnie home to have a proper burial.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amid a blizzard, the dive team set up small heated tents over holes drilled in the foot-thick lake ice. The Deep Trekker vehicles were then deployed to search the lake bottom for 14 hours a day.<\/p>\n
Coulas said that Wallace\u2019s body was found on the seventh day of the search, in the last section of the three square-mile search area.<\/p>\n
Wallace, was last heard from Dec. 6 when he phoned a friend during a break from a snowmobile ride.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Remote-control vehicles search lake bottom<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":106307,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[21,44,837,13,3093],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-106306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-cortez","tag-dolores","tag-dolores-county","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-wreck"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106306"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=106306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}