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MARICOPA COUNTY -- Arizona search crews still scour the rugged mountains about 40 miles east of Phoenix for three lost treasure hunters from Salt Lake City. The men set out to find the legendary Lost Dutchman Gold Mine, but they're nearly a week overdue.
The mother of one of the hikers says the men were not prepared for a long hike, let alone a week-long trek.
"I don't know if they're dead or alive, but I hope they're alive and we can find them," says Carol Merworth.
For the third day, crews set out to search for 49-year-old Curtis Merworth, 66-year-old Ardean Charles and 51-year-old Malcom Meeks. They headed out on horseback and in helicopters.
Monday night, search crews used infrared equipment from the air to try to detect heat sources, such as human bodies in the barren terrain.
Merworth's mother says the families are upset. She says her son was obsessed with hunting for the Lost Dutchman's Gold. Adventurers have hunted that legendary treasure since at least 1892.
The area near Lost Dutchman State Park and the Superstition Wilderness is filled with steep canyons, soaring rocky outcroppings, cactus and heavy brush. With temperatures soaring above 110 degrees this week, and the men apparently unprepared for lengthy backcountry stays, their lives could be in serious danger.
Carol Merworth says the men had no plans to camp in the dry Superstition Mountains. Two of them have medical conditions, and searchers say the mercury hit 115 degrees Fahrenheit.
The men left home a week ago and were supposed to be back Thursday or Friday. The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office started the search Sunday.
"He was only supposed to be there for two days and get back here," Carol Merworth says, "but he didn't come back. He didn't call on pay phones or nothing, and I knew something was the matter."
Sheriff's deputies found the hikers' SUV at a trail head at Lost Dutchman State Park, but it had not been used for days.
Curtis Merworth actually had to be rescued in the same area last year when he got lost and called for help on his cell phone. His mother says he had to be hospitalized for dehydration, and she says he has no phone with him now.
"I told him to take it," she says. "He said he didn't think he'd need it 'cause he was coming back. He was sure."
Carol Merworth says her son has a wife and young daughter and would never run away. Ardean Charles rents a room in her home. She says he doesn't walk well and needs medication, and he only had three days worth on the trip. She says Meeks has a bad heart, and she says her son is in poor health too.
The Merworth family does not plan to head to Arizona for the search.
"We couldn't find them anyway. We'd die, ourselves, in the heat, and we don't know how to climb those hills," she said.
Searchers tell the families they will only send out crews three more days, unless they find solid evidence of the hikers they can follow.
"Hopefully we're going to find them alive, and we're continuing to search with that in mind," Maricopa County sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Jesse Spurgin said.
The Lost Dutchman mine has drawn prospectors of all stripes for more than a century. Fabled as a mother lode mined by a Mexican family in the 1840s before being lost, it was supposedly rediscovered by a German immigrant named Jacob Waltz and his partner in the 1870s.
The partner killed by Indians (or possibly Waltz himself, according to a history on the state park website), Waltz purportedly hid stashes of gold before returning to Phoenix, where he died in 1891. Searchers have tried in vain to find the mine ever since.
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Story compiled with contributions from Jed Boal and Bob Christie with the Associated Press.
