A firefighter with the Log Hill Volunteer Fire Department and another man are missing near Buena Vista after they went hiking last weekend and didn’t return.

Kaden Matsuda, 19, of Ridgway, and Jackson Donlon, 20, of New York, were reported missing Monday by staff at Colorado Mountain College in Leadville, who said the students left the campus on Oct. 23 to go for a hike and hadn’t returned to the campus. Authorities interviewed friends and family and learned Matsuda and Jackson planned to hike Ice Mountain, a technical climb, at the far north end of Chaffee County, Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office officials wrote in a social media post.

Friends and family told authorities the two men are experienced hikers who should have had appropriate clothing and planned to return Saturday if they didn’t feel safe or Sunday if they continued to Ice Mountain.

Sheriff’s deputies found Matsuda’s car at the Mount Huron trailhead Monday. They believe the men arrived at the trailhead on Friday and set up camp before a snowstorm dropped 8 inches of snow at the trailhead and 1 to 2 feet of snow on Ice Mountain.

Search and rescue crews and dogs looked for the hikers on Monday but didn’t find any human tracks. Helicopters, drones and aircraft with infrared technology searched the area of Ice Mountain and other nearby peaks but didn’t find either man.

Searchers returned on Tuesday, and a helicopter spotted an object around noon near Lake Ann. A search team responded and discovered the object was the hikers’ tent that had collapsed under the weight of the snow. Searchers found the men’s sleeping bags, a stove and some clothing inside the tent, but there was no snow under the tent and no visible footprints in the snow, reaffirming authorities’ belief that Matsuda and Donlon arrived in the area on Friday before the storm hit.

“We are still optimistic Kaden and Jackson are hunkered down somewhere waiting to be rescued,” Sheriff Andy Rohrich said in a statement. “Our window of opportunity is closing as poor weather is expected again later this week, so we are putting all our available resources in the field.”

Rohrich said officials are also considering potential destinations the men may have been headed to other than Ice Mountain. He noted Matsuda is studying to be a wildland firefighter and Donlon is studying to be a mountain guide, “so hope is not lost.”