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Seeing a story in the paper on March 1 about a 13-year-old boy lost in the snow in Washington made me think of the boy who was visiting Crater Lake a few years back and bolted into the woods. I remember searchers looked for him for quite a while with no success. Was he ever found? — A.B., via e-mail Sadly, the mystery of Samuel Boehlke's disappearance remains unsolved more than three years after he vanished near the rim of the caldera at Crater Lake National Park. Horsemen, mountain rescue squads and searchers with dogs combed the north rim of Crater Lake for days in October 2006 after the 8-year-old Portland-area boy became separated from his father. Rescue specialists from as far as northern Washington and Southern California gathered at Oregon's only national park to look for the boy known as "Sammie." Helicopters combed a 4,000-acre search area, and rappellers from Yosemite National Park scrambled down the steep caldera looking for the boy, but no trace of him was ever found. During the search, park officials said Sammie had some behaviors that were associated with low-level autism, but he had not been diagnosed with an autism disorder. The family declined to talk to reporters during the search, which ended when early season snow covered the park. Michael Justin, public information officer for the park, said Wednesday that a large search-and-rescue training exercise at the park last fall focused on locating some trace of the boy, but nothing was found. Justin said Sammie's disappearance "still keeps me awake at night sometimes. We feel so sorry for the family." The fruitless search in the snow reminded some volunteers of a similar effort eight years earlier just a few miles away. In December 1998, dozens of volunteers tramped through deep snow in search of Derrick Engebretson, an 8-year-old Klamath County boy who vanished while cutting a Christmas tree with his father. That search ended after a week, when searchers could find no sign of the boy. His disappearance remains a mystery, too. Send questions to "Since You Asked," Mail Tribune Newsroom, P.O. Box 1108, Medford, OR 97501; by fax to 541-776-4376; or by e-mail to [email protected].