AP photo

A piper cub airplane with Hood River County officials in it flied over the slopes of Mount Hood on Wednesday.

HOOD RIVER, Ore. -- After nine days of searching, the effort to find two climbers feared dead on Mt. Hood was called off Wednesday as another winter storm engulfed the summit. Rescue teams gave up any hope of finding the missing climbers alive on the wind-whipped mountain.

VIDEO: Search ends | Sky 8 over Mt. Hood

"We've done everything we can at this point," said Hood River Sheriff Joe Wampler after returning from one final flyover of the 11,239-foot peak.

VIDEO: Only on 8: Sheriff talks

The entrance to the first snow cave.

The dangerous search began nine days ago as a hunt for three missing climbers. Kelly James was later found dead in a snow cave near the summit. The two other climbers, Brian Hall and Jerry "Nikko" Cooke, have not been found and are presumed dead. Searchers say they may have fallen to their deaths, been buried by an avalanche, or died of hypothermia.

Theories on what happened to Hall and Cooke

The rescue effort ended with concerns about the safety of searchers, worsening weather and the decreasing chances the climbers could have survived. Wampler said family members decided the rescue search should end.

"It was pretty much their conclusion. The chance of survival is pretty nil," said Wampler. "I don't think I can justify putting any more people in the field with the hope of finding them alive."

Guest book: Share/read messages to climbers' families

"(It was) some of the worst weather we've seen all year," said Wampler. "This time of year, Mt. Hood is a very dangerous place to be."

As weather permits, officials will now look for the bodies of Brian Hall and Jerry "Nikko" Cooke, he said. Often when climbers go missing so late in the season, though, their bodies are not recovered until the spring.

Slideshow: Clues found on Mount Hood

Photo courtesy of Christopher Ford.

Brian Hall, left, and Kelly James embrace each other on Feb. 2006 in Dallas.

The men set out Dec. 8 for what was supposed to be a two-day climb to the peak and back down. On Dec. 10, climber Kelly James used his cell phone to call his family and report the party was in trouble and that his two companions had gone downhill for help. James, a 48-year-old Dallas landscape architect, was found dead in a snow cave on Sunday.

James' body identified

VIDEO: James' family mourns loss

Photos found in James' camera

High-tech locating devices that might have aided searchers in their hunt for three missing climbers are not widely used by those climbing Mt. Hood, according to several local climbing experts.

Most climbers don't carry locator beacons

Your Turn: Comment on search effort, climbers

Volunteers continued scouring the mountain for signs of Hall, a 37-year-old personal trainer from Dallas, and Cooke, a 36-year-old lawyer from New York City. They held out hope that they had dug out a snow cave or sought other protection. But climbing gear found on the peak suggested the two may have fallen to their deaths or been buried by an avalanche.

Climb was practice for Everest | Climbers had passion for adventure

The search was delayed numerous times because of the weather and the threat to the safety of the searchers, many of them volunteer mountaineers from local search and rescue teams.

How climbers became trapped | Timeline

The final attempt to find the men alive was Wampler's one-hour flight in a county plane to the 11,239-foot peak Wednesday morning, during a short break in icy, cloudy conditions as a storm moved in. Rescuers say it is one of the largest searches in memory on Oregon's tallest mountain. During the height of the effort, scores of volunteers, deputies and National Guardsmen on foot and in helicopters and a plane had searched the mountain.

But the search had already been scaled back dramatically on Tuesday. And the immediate prospects for a recovery search were limited by hazardous winter weather.

"Right now things are moving in from the west," Wampler said of the snowstorm. "That window has shut on us."

Many volunteers had already packed up and returned to their regular lives, and helicopters used in the search had returned to their bases.

"I feel good about what I did. I wanted to do what I could for the family," Wampler said. "You start something, you want to finish it."

The Associated Press also contributed to this story.