Marin Couple Mysteriously Disappears While Vacationing In Inverness

INVERNESS (KPIX) - Carol Kiparsky and Ian Irwin were last seen Friday afternoon in Inverness. They were staying at a rental and scheduled to leave Saturday morning. When they didn't check out, the room was searched.

"We found a bunch of personnel effects that would normally go with someone if they were going to leave on a hike," said Marin County Sheriff, Sgt. Brenton Schneider. "We found hiking gear still in the house. We found cell phones, food that was still there, laptops so, it's definitely a mystery as to where they've gone."

Carol Kkiparsky is 77. Ian Irwin is 72. More than 160 trained trackers were searching for the couple including a fixed wing Cessna, a CHP helicopter, drones, dogs and even a mule.

Incident Command Search Manager Michael St. John explained, "It's incredibly dense brush and I have some of the best Mountain rescue teams in Northern California that got really beat up, you know, crawling on their belly's going through it."

There is no evidence of foul play and nothing suggesting they went for a hike.

The lack of any clues is what has folks so concerned. Felix Chamberland has lived on this remote road near, where the missing couple were staying, for 50 years. He saw them last Thursday.

"I saw them walking down the road and they looked like they were moving along. They didn't look like big hikers. They didn't look like they'd be cross country trekking whatsoever," said Chamberland. "I said Hello to them and they nodded and acknowledged me."

The couple lives in Palo Alto. They have family flying in from out of state that is expected to arrive sometime this evening.

It's a true mystery, very distressing but it's more of a mystery at this point and we hope we find them" says Chamberland.

The search will continue Monday through the night with aircraft using Night Vision and FLIR technologies.