Argentine authorities suspend search

CRAWFORDSVILLE, Ind. -- Argentine authorities Tuesday suspended their search for a missing Wabash College student whom they believe drowned in a lake in the Andes Mountains.\nThe search for Anthony Hyatt Lobdell, 21, was suspended on its fourth day after Argentine police narrowed their search to southern Argentina's Lake Gutierrez, alongside a mountain where Lobdell had been backpacking.\n"They're pretty sure his remains are in the lake," said Dianne Graham, press officer for the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires.\nOn Friday, police found Lobdell's footprints, a backpack containing his camera and diary and a coat and lighter on a beach at Lake Gutierrez. Since then, no other belongings have been found, Graham said.\nLobdell, who was studying through an Institute for Study Abroad program at Universidad Nacional de Cuyo in Mendoza, was last seen by an American couple at about 4:30 p.m. April 9 near Bariloche, a town in the Patagonia region of the Andes.\nGraham said the quick onset of darkness could have surprised the seasoned traveler, who spent time in Ecuador last year. Officials theorize that Lobdell, while backpacking along the mountain en route to a bus stop, became disoriented.\n"Maybe he just ended up veering off the path. Once disoriented, he might have tried to swim to lights from nearby cabins along the lake," Graham said. "Perhaps he went in that direction and may have slipped or fell in or swam. The water would have been very cold, and he would have become hypothermic very quickly."\nNighttime temperatures are chilly in Argentina, where it is late autumn.\nLobdell left his host family's home in Mendoza April 1 for a vacation, but did not return by April 11 as promised. He was reported missing April 15.\nGraham said Lobdell's parents "are pretty much resigned" to the grim prospect that their son drowned in Lake Gutierrez.\n"But we just keep praying and hoping that maybe he got lost and bumped his head. People have been lost in these mountains for a couple of weeks," she said.\nLobdell is a junior majoring in political science at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Ind., where students remain concerned.\n"They're nervous, anxious," said Jim Amidon, a college spokesman. "Final exams are next week. It's creating a sense of anxiety around campus"