Family unsure of hiker's survival

But then, Shimono finds herself thinking that if anyone can survive for what would now be 14 days in the woods, it could be her brother. She said he spent his entire life hunting, fishing, and even managing forests in the Canadian province of Ontario where the family lives.

“We feel that the likelihood of him returning home alive is very slim,’’ Shimono said in a telephone interview from Ontario yesterday.

Shimono and her family are e-mailing news outlets like the Globe seeking more coverage of the disappearance of the retired Ontario parks employee in hope of triggering a memory from a hiker who passed by her brother.

“Rather than sit here and do nothing, we are appealing to the hikers to jog their memories,’’ she said. “. . . If they could remember seeing someone . . . then authorities would perhaps look a little further.’’

New Hampshire Fish and Game was not alerted to the disappearance of Shintani until June 16, one full week after he went for his hike.

Shimono said that, given her brother’s health and what they believed to be his experience with the woods, the family had no reason to be worried when he was not back in Ontario on June 10 as expected. And it was not until after Shintani failed to show up for his volunteer work with his church and a senior center that concern grew to alarm over the succeeding days, a fear that prompted Shimono to contact New Hampshire authorities and report him missing.

New Hampshire authorities located Shintani’s truck in the Pinkham Notch parking lot at the foot of Mount Washington. Inside, they found Shintani’s journal from 5 a.m. on June 9 in which he described a bright pink sunrise and wrote that he was heading up the mountain.

But Fish and Game Lieutenant Douglas Gralenski said the search was hampered by Shintani’s failure to record his hiking plan with officials. And, he said, it appears that Shintani was ready for a day hike, but not prepared for the dangerous conditions that can greet anyone on Mount Washington.

On the day he went missing, Gralenski said, the day started bright but ended with more than a half-inch of rain during a 24-hour period. If Shintani had made it above tree line, Gralenski said, visibility would have been just 100 feet.

Gralenski said his office will reopen its search, ended after three days without discovering a trace of Shintani, if new information surfaces. But, he said, he does not believe it will be a rescue operation.

“Certainly, miracles happen, but in all probability, if he is still out there, he is deceased,’’ said Gralenski, who discounted theories that Shintani somehow fell victim to violent crime.

Shimono said that her brother was the father of three adult children, was in both good physical and mental health, and early in his parks career once faced off against a bear while in the woods.

“He was adventurous, but he was not reckless,’’ Shimono said of her brother. “He just loved the wilderness.’’