CRYSTAL MOUNTAIN -- Teams searching for three missing snowboarders Thursday found a wood shelter believed to have been built by the men, but there was no sign the friends had been there recently, the Pierce County Sheriff's Department said.

And when darkness concluded the fourth day of searching, the men had not been found.

Searchers in a helicopter located the 12-foot-by-12-foot wooden structure, said Lt. Cynthia Fajardo, commander for Pierce County Search and Rescue. According to friends, the men had spent several months building the hut and used it during frequent camping visits.

Fajardo said searchers found firewood, hacksaws and cooking utensils in the structure built by the missing snowboarders -- Kevin Carter, Devlin Williams, 29, and Phillip Hollins, 41.

"They used it right before Thanksgiving," Fajardo said of the hut, near a location known as Crown Point. "So it's hard to tell whether or not they'd been in there since."

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