Hikin_Jim wrote:Personally, I'm starting to think that he really did descend Smith Water Canyon. He was still mobile on Sunday and in good enough shape to ascend to the ridges between Pts 4282 and 3976. He wasn't injured. It's about 16 to 17 miles from the Juniper Flats Backcountry Board to where Bill was located. A strong hiker could do that in a day, even with some cross country thrown in. Even if it took him two days to get there, he doesn't show up until the morning of the fourth day. Where's he been all this time? And why didn't he just back track as soon as he realized he was in trouble?
HJ
I've been pondering this for a while now, and I'm inclined to agree with HJ. A traverse from the Quail Ridge to Smithwater seems so off the wall as to be fantastical. But it's the only one of the three routes that really fits the circumstances.
If he was running low on water when he reached Quail or the ridge crest, and knew of the presence of water at Smithwater, he may have been tempted to proceed northerly, not knowing how bad that terrain is (It looks benign until you get into it). This is the sort of (bad) decision that could have been made on the fly.
If his cell phone was off, which is likely since he wasn't pinging towers all the way in to JTNP, there would be no need in his mind for him to make any emergency calls because he felt he knew what he was doing. So his phone stayed off. However, unless you know of the rather small area in Smithwater Canyon where the water actually is (And I'm fairly confident he didn't) it would be easy to make the descent into the canyon and miss it. By the time he realized there was no water, and not knowing where it was, it was too late. No cell coverage to call for help and a tremendous amount of energy and water expended to get there. It's clearly now a survival situation (it was earlier, he just didn't know it). The only reasonable option is to head easterly (downhill) to its junction with Quail Wash.
His decision tree from the Smithwater/Quail Wash junction get a bit murkier. If he had a map, and he presumably did and a sense of positional awareness, he should have known it was an easy run easterly across a flat, slightly uphill plain to Park Road a bit over 2 miles distant. Instead it appears he turned left, and proceeded downhill (northerly) in Quail Wash. This course would have eventually saved his butt since in around 3 miles he'd come to the park's boundary and there were homes. But this isn't visible until you get there and the area appears extremely remote.
Unfortunately he didn't hold this course. For reasons I can't really fathom, after a short time in Quail Wash he made a right turn and started easterly up a broad canyon. This is the region where he would have pinged the Serin tower, his first cell phone connection. This canyon has a small use trail in it, but I don't think there is signage he'd see. I've been along this same course several times traveling just as he did. There's a point where the trail veers right and tops out of the right edge of the now narrower canyon. From here it's another straight shot across easterly the previously mentioned plain for 1.5 miles to Park Road.
But he didn't know to veer right, and stayed in the narrowing canyon bottom which curved left (northerly) and ran into high terrain to the north. He finally had an assfull of that and climbed the southerly side of the canyon to the saddle where he succumbed. I'm not sure why he kept climbing with so little energy unless he was trying to get a cell signal or he had no idea where he was.
As much as I don't really want to go back out to JT, I'm thinking I should, and recreate his route from the Quail Wash/Smithwater junction. I've travelled that route at least twice, but at those times I was in a preplanned search mode and not thinking about what would draw me in certain directions. It may have simply been dehydration, fatigue and stress that caused him to miss the required exit from the canyon he was travelling in. I recall it as being easy to miss, so maybe that's it. Dunno.
I must say that Bill's behavior as a "lost" hiker was one of the biggest outliers I've ever seen. He FAR exceeded any expectations of the people running the SAR operation. And that's not a good thing if you're trying to get yourself rescued. And by no means am I saying this as a hit to the SAR people. They did a great job, they just didn't know who they were dealing with. When the "this can't possibly be right" 10.6 mile ping surfaced, they reacted quickly and checked it out.
As for me, the only thing I've been right about is saying that if/when he's found, it will be someplace no one has thought of. Boy, is that not the truth...