Mt. San Jacinto Outdoor Recreation

There's a missing hiker south of the San Jacinto Mountains and north of Warner Springs.

http://web.utsandiego.com/news/2015/feb/24/search-missing-hiker-north-warner-springs/

HJ

One of the commenters on the UT website speculated that he was hiking from Coyote Canyon in ABDSP to the PCT then south to Campo. Interesting. Wonder what went wrong?

There's a lot of speculation as to what happened. Best I can put together is that he was hiking the PCT going south from near Anza on Hwy 74. This would be about a mile ESE from the Paradise Cafe at PCT mile 152 if I'm understanding things right. His gear was found near the PCT south of there at about mile 127 which is consistent with the preceding. His gear:


Apparently his wallet and ID were with the gear. Now why would a south bound PCT hiker walk away from his gear? Maybe to take photos, get water, or take a potty break. In other words, he should be fairly close by his gear, but he has not been found. Some have speculated that a cat got him when he walked away from camp for a moment and then dragged him into the brush. Who knows, but he's been missing for a couple of weeks now. Doesn't look good.

HJ

Sadly, the search has been terminated.

Story: http://www.760kfmb.com/story/28247958/s ... sing-hiker

Flyer: http://ftpcontent.worldnow.com/kfmb/mis ... silvia.pdf

I'll be hiking that area fairly soon, but I doubt that I'll be able to do anywhere near as thorough a job as the main search party did. Just the same, I'll keep my eyes open.

Yeah, I saw that the search had been terminated. Kind of sad, but I guess they had nothing more to go on. The fact that he was not found probably means that it will be quite some time before he turns up.

HJ

Unfortunately, not much info coming out on missing hiker Chris Sylvia. Excerpts from an "interview" with his roommate (who sounds like a real dolt at the least) was published recently: Missing Hiker's Roommate Talks. The reason I say "dolt" is that he didn't report Sylvia for about a week after Sylvia was a "no show" at his rendezvous/resupply point. Maybe I should take it easy on the roommate though. Perhaps the roommate is just ignorant of the gravity of a person not checking in for a week. I'm trying to be charitable here. One has to wonder if there was any bad blood between Mr. Sylvia and his roommate although the Sheriff's dept. says no foul play is suspected.

HJ

Jim, you had posted a pic of Silva's gear that showed a sleeping bag spread out on a yellow, folding ground pad. Was that his gear as it found? Media reports also showed his gear but it was packed up on his backpack. My assumption is searchers packed up his stuff and brought it out that way? Seems to me that much of this area isn't far from pockets of civilization. There are some remote ranches that frankly I'd be very uncomfortable passing near. I suspect there are some very....interesting.....folks living out there. Had a rescue out in that general vicinity once and couldn't wait to get out of there.

It does seem odd that there is no foul play suspected. Grown men don't just disappear into thin air, leaving their gear behind. Given the circumstances I would think he wouldn't have gone more than a short distance and would have been easily found. Very strange.

z

OtherHand wrote:Jim, you had posted a pic of Silva's gear that showed a sleeping bag spread out on a yellow, folding ground pad. Was that his gear as it found? Media reports also showed his gear but it was packed up on his backpack. My assumption is searchers packed up his stuff and brought it out that way? Seems to me that much of this area isn't far from pockets of civilization. There are some remote ranches that frankly I'd be very uncomfortable passing near. I suspect there are some very....interesting.....folks living out there. Had a rescue out in that general vicinity once and couldn't wait to get out of there.

OtherHand, a couple of PCT hikers reported seeing the gear on the trail. This photo came from one of them (I grabbed it off of Facebook). Presumably this is before SAR got a hold of it, but let me see if I can contact the poster for further information.

HJ

https://vimeo.com/30960163

I typed in mile 127 pct and got this video. Hope I put it in right. I like the comment at the bottom of his video. Can't help but think of OH's comment of his experience out there.

Dan