BRIDGEPORT, Calif. (AP) – A 10-member team of elite athletes and expert mountaineers fanned out on foot Monday in rugged mountains on the Nevada-California border, hoping to find what search planes and satellite imagery couldn’t – Steve Fossett’s body.

The multimillionaire adventurer was declared legally dead in February, five months after he was last seen taking off by plane from a remote Nevada ranch owned by hotel magnate Barron Hilton.

The search team, led by Canadian geologist and adventure racer Simon Donato, focused on remote, wooded areas in the Sweetwater Mountains, near where the 63-year-old Fossett was last seen. The areas could conceal wreckage not visible to the many private and military planes that searched last year.

Keith Szlater, the Donato team’s base camp manager, said Monday that the searchers were “in good shape” despite the rough mountain terrain. The Sweetwaters, about 110 miles south of Reno, have peaks higher than 11,000 feet.

Because the search area, which also takes in the Bodie Hills just south of the Sweetwaters, is close to Hilton’s ranch where Fossett was staying, Donato believes it’s the best place to search.

Search team members, paying their own way, will continue their efforts through Friday and possibly Saturday, covering 15 to 20 miles a day depending on the terrain, Donato said.

Previous searchers provided maps and other detailed information on the harsh landscape.

Fossett gained worldwide fame attempting to set records in high-tech balloons, gliders and jets. In 2002, he became the first person to circle the world solo in a balloon.

Donato, who never met Fossett, considers him a hero to many people because of his scores of attempts and successes in setting records. He has said he arranged to take time off from his job as an oil company geologist because Fossett “just deserves to be found.”

In late August, Robert Hyman, a Washington, D.C., investor and alpinist, plans to bring in a team of as many as 15 climbers, mountain guides and others with backcountry expertise to check an area just east of the section where Donato will search.

Hyman said he will focus in and around the Wassuk Range, dominated by 11,239-foot Mount Grant. When Fossett took off Sept. 3 from Hilton’s ranch in a borrowed plane on what was supposed to be a short pleasure flight, he headed toward Lucky Boy Pass in the Wassuks.

The search area is so rugged that for some a continued search may seem hopeless. It has on occasion taken decades to find missing people and planes crashed in the area.

Fossett’s widow, Peggy, issued a statement saying she’s not involved in the latest search activity and has “no further plans for additional searching.”