The search for the missing hiker from Kodiak's Coast Guard base continues this morning as the search enters a new stage.

A Coast Guard C-130 has transported three Search and Rescue dogs and their handlers from the Alaska State Troopers in Anchorage this morning.

A Coast Guard helicopter surveyed for a suitable area to set down the search teams on or around Barometer Mountain earlier this morning and has gone back to the base to load up and transport the teams to an area at the mountain to begin the ground search. Kodiak Island Search and Rescue and voluteers from the Coast Guard base are also taking part in the search for missing 20-year-old Derek Winn Russell of Hollis Center, Maine.

After the helicopter sets down the Search dogs and their handlers, the helicopter is continueing on to conduct an aerial search of the mountain, according to Petty Officer First Class Sara Francis of the Coast Guard Station.

Russell, who is assigned to the cutter Munro, was reported missing on Sunday night at 6pm. Alaska State Troopers, who have the lead in the seach and rescue, immediately set up a search operation and searchers had mobilized by 9:30pm that evening.

Russell had left for the mountain at 10am on Saturday after telling friends that he was going to hike Barometer, a steep mountain near the Coast Guard base. Kodiak Island Search and Rescue saw a man at the summit of the peak at about noon on Saturday, but Russell hasn’t been heard from since.

Members of the Kodiak Island search and Rescue group found a parka on the trail to the summit, but it was not determined if the parka belonged to Russell or not.

A Coast Guard helicopter tried to search the area on Sunday, but was hampered by foul weather, low visibility, snow and cloud cover.

2,452-foot-high Mount Barometer is a a popular summertime climb on Kodiak Island. The climb, that takes approximately 2 hours, sports steep, straight, well used trails, that awes summertime hikers, but can become very treacherous in the winter months when snow build-up can present slide dangers and the weather runs foul.