Bill Ewasko found?

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Re: Bill Ewasko found?

Postby bretpct » Sun Feb 13, 2022 12:02 am

I went out there today to see if I couldn't track down the recovery site, mainly focusing on hill 4282 and the area inside the lines of the helicopter route.

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Almost as soon as you are on the Panorama Trail you are able to see Park Blvdto the East. The trail was well marked and easy to follow. First I decided to hike through and see if I could see any obvious tracks departing from the trail. I only found this a couple times and they lead simply to a vista point where a hiker could rest and enjoy the view. I hiked through to a little bit past the western track of the helicopter. From here I had four bars of AT&T service (on my T-mobile phone) and a clear view of the houses at the mouth of Quail Wash, which looked very close.

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Westernmost part of my track. Houses clearly visible. Good cell coverage here

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Hill 4282. It is very easy to to summit this hill from the trail

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These are the only tracks/disturbances I found on hill 4282. But I would guess they just from hikers.

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View of Samuelson's Spur, and the mouth of Smith Water Canyon from the Panorama Trail, just west of hill 4282

Some press coverage refers to human remains being found "adjacent" to or "near" the Panorama Trail. I'm not sure if there's much to read into that. But If Bill ever actually was on the PT, he would very clearly see Park Blvd if he were on the easterly side, and he would see houses and have cell signal if he were on the westerly side. Also, it is unfortunate that the helo tracks we have do not appear to be complete. Rather then getting the full circles it flew, they got cut off and were replaced by straight lines. Perhaps it only looks like it was circling 4282 because we're not seeing the full picture.

So, at the end of the day, I didn't find the site. But I did find something much rarer afterward, and that was an empty bar seat at Pappy and Harriet's.

Here's where I store my tracks: https://caltopo.com/m/LL01
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Re: Bill Ewasko found?

Postby Ric Capucho » Sun Feb 13, 2022 2:09 am

Just remembered something from years ago, when I was down one of the many rabbit holes… this one related to all the maps available on the USGS database.

Two caught my eye at the time…

Indian Cove 24,000
https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/ht-bin/tv_browse.pl?id=af0ce47dab0a141f75a2998fb12686e9

Keys View 24,000
https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/ht-bin/tv_browse.pl?id=8a07dcb7eacb3b34d8ef15459d998225

It had always struck me as odd that on Bill’s itinerary against “Lost Horse Mtn… Quail Mnt”, he states “Indian Cove and Keys View areas”. Why mention Indian Cove as it’s hardly a helpful landmark for anyone. So, I did wonder if those areas referred to the names of the maps he had at hand.

Please skip the below ramblings, but do take the time to look at those two topos and especially their name, and the locations of their corners. The USGS couldn’t have made a better choice to position those map areas, if their aim back in the 1930s was to confound us decades later.

So, conjecture: Bill walked his itinerary, scooting up Lost Horse first with a minimum of water to save weight. He then repositioned his car at Juniper Flats, and made the fatal mistake of forgetting to grab all that extra water that he’d taken so much care to prepare. Up he goes to Quail, then fancies a northerly easterly wash to get himself down to Quail Springs with a southerly route down Johnny Lang Canyon in mind. Looks at his compass, somehow screws uo taking the declination into account, and takes a northwesterly route instead. Walks clear off his Keys View/Indian Cove maps, onto the area covered by Joshua Tree South 68,000 map… which he didn’t have with him.

Then he does what I’ve done all too many times, when ground stopped making sense, he tried to save his route. So down into SWC, heads down and east, and reaches for a bottle of water. Oh crap, only a few left. Deteriorating fast, he exits SWC and goes to ground somewhere northwest of Quail Springs. Still just off his two maps. He sits it out under a tree for a couple of days, then hears a helicopter on the Saturday, and like a good military boy, runs upwards; he uses Saturday night to ascend peak 4282. Ping, no battery, sits it out waiting for a helicopter to wave to.

With regards to cell reception in 2010, he had a Verizon phone and back in the day we had to out up with limited roaming, and tricky menus to navigate to try to switch to another carrier. And of course we noticed that cell tower landscape between Joshua Tree and Twentynine Palms change dramatically over the last ten years. The Nguyen/Orbesco case surprised me as suddenly all manner of cell towers popped into possibility. So I’d take any cell coverage that’s available now with a pinch of salt.

Anyways, the coroners report will be fascinating.

Ric
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Re: Bill Ewasko found?

Postby bretpct » Sun Feb 13, 2022 2:33 am

Here's another article about the recovery from Hi Desert Star:
https://hidesertstar.com/news/182377/hu ... onal-park/

This article refers to the trail as the "Panorama Point Trail". Apparently the outlet confirmed with the park superintendent that the remains were found off trail, "west of the west entrance", which the Panorama Trail just barely is where it meets Quail Wash. And to further complicate things, there is ANOTHER Panorama Trail, south of Blackrock Campground, which aligns more with the Sherriff's press release and is west of the west entrance. But then of course it doesn't make sense why the chopper would land by Park Blvd.
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Re: Bill Ewasko found?

Postby Hikin_Jim » Sun Feb 13, 2022 7:17 am

OtherHand wrote:The idea that he took Quail Wash to it's intersection with the Panorama Trail, then ended up going the wrong way on the trail (counterclockwise) can be discarded. I just had a look at the Serin splash maps and there's really good cell coverage for most of the Panorama Trail from Quail Wash to almost to his final site. Had he been on any of that part of the trail, he would have lit up Serin tower. So he didn't take the Panorama Trail to get to his final spot.

That really only leaves him climbing up the slope to the SE of where he ended up. That's hard to get my mind around as Park Road becomes visible even part way up that slope and it's just over a mile away.

Even late at night? I wonder if darkness and a deserted road could be factors, but I agree with you that it's a bit hard to conceive of. Even late at night, you'd think there would be at least some traffic. However, were he lost and in the dark and were traffic essentially non-existent, he might not have realized how close Park Blvd was. Maybe.

But why is he north of Quail Springs Road? That I can't answer except with my "he's desperate for water and fixated on the West Entrance Station" conjecture. Laurence Gonzales' book, Deep Survival, talks about how overwhelmed people can fixate on "if I just do 'X', I'll be OK". He tells the story of a Navy pilot who was told on the radio to abort his approach to an aircraft carrier. There's also apparently a big red light that, if lit, means that you should abort and "go around" for a re-try. Somehow the pilot "tunes out" the radio and "doesn't see" the light and proceeds with the landing attempt... which goes very badly. The point being that he was so fixated on landing as the only thing that could save him that he tuned out all other inputs.

Perhaps low on water Bill is similarly fixated and strikes off for the West Entrance Station. For whatever reason his bearing is a bit off and he winds up further west than he should. He gets into rougher terrain than he should be in, so he climbs to a high point in order to get oriented, and he follows the terrain... to point 4282'. It's only about 300' gain from the relatively flat terrain to the SE.

Something like this: https://caltopo.com/m/6MNPM, but don't take the straight line across the flats too literally.

Yes, the "fixated on water, gets off track, goes to Pt. 4282' to get oriented" scenario is a bit of a stretch, but... what else puts him up there? Pt. 4282' is not en route to Smith Water. Or, say he gets to Smith Water, there's no logic I can think of that takes him from Smith Water to Pt. 4282'.

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Re: Bill Ewasko found?

Postby OtherHand » Sun Feb 13, 2022 7:59 am

bretpct wrote:So, at the end of the day, I didn't find the site. But I did find something much rarer afterward, and that was an empty bar seat at Pappy and Harriet's.


That's really odd you couldn't find the site. I would expect some significant disturbance and maybe leftover flagging.

If you look closely at the helicopter's tracks you'll see it never even flew near the Black Rock area. And this circle was done on the approach to the landing zone at very low altitude and slow speed, less than 30 kts. I suppose it could have been looking for a landing site there, so it would have been closer to wherever Bill was, didn't see one and diverted to Park Road. But usually the landing area is worked out in advance by SAR and there was a report on Reddit that the turnout was being used as a staging area, so the landing site suggests it was preplanned.

In any case I may have a backdoor way to get the actual location via official channels this week. And I think I'll also have a look for myself. Looks like there's still a hunt to be had!
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Re: Bill Ewasko found?

Postby OtherHand » Sun Feb 13, 2022 10:53 am

OK, there's a twist here I stupidly missed. Since bretpct came up empty for, well, anything, I took a very close look at what the helicopter was doing at each GPS time stamp. I discovered that after it completed its clockwise loop of what I took to be Ewasko's site, there was an 18 minute jump in the timestamp before it reappeared at the turnout and landed and sat for the rest of the morning. This means it landed and sat for maybe 15 minutes near where the ADSB coverage dropped after it completed its loop. I'm guessing, but based upon the track, speed, altitude and the topography, it touched down maybe 1,000' easterly of 4282. A likely suspect appears to be a small knob which bretpct circled the base of and was within 300' of its top.

There is some sense to this, as sheriff's detectives and coroner folks aren't usually too keen on hiking, so they may have been dropped off reasonably close to the site, at least easy walking distance. So Ewasko shouldn't be too far from the landing site, which should be findable. Field trip!
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Re: Bill Ewasko found?

Postby bretpct » Sun Feb 13, 2022 12:40 pm

I thought I saw a foot impression in the drainage adjacent to this knob. If you look at my track I double-backed and tried to find more, then I wasn't sure what was the original impression and what were mine. It seemed like a strange area for there to be a print so I thought it was maybe animal.

I'll leave it to Tom or someone else to check it out. This might be my last ever Ewasko hike. I've heard there are other things to do in Joshua Tree! Also the expense of driving out there is getting a little out of my budget.

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Re: Bill Ewasko found?

Postby Pete.Z » Sun Feb 13, 2022 1:02 pm

Wow, closure, what a relieve for his family and friends that will be.
I have been following this case for years, here and on Otherhands site, and I do hope someone will find the exact place where Bill was found, and for the first-hand story of the hikers who found him.
Living in Europe, we only visit family in SD once or twice a year, so I never was able to go out there myself, but really want to thank all for the effort and the great stories that provided, extremely interesting to follow.
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Re: Bill Ewasko found?

Postby Hikin_Jim » Sun Feb 13, 2022 9:31 pm

Ric Capucho wrote:Indian Cove 24,000
https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/ht-bin/tv_browse.pl?id=af0ce47dab0a141f75a2998fb12686e9

Keys View 24,000
https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/ht-bin/tv_browse.pl?id=8a07dcb7eacb3b34d8ef15459d998225

It had always struck me as odd that on Bill’s itinerary against “Lost Horse Mtn… Quail Mnt”, he states “Indian Cove and Keys View areas”. Why mention Indian Cove as it’s hardly a helpful landmark for anyone. So, I did wonder if those areas referred to the names of the maps he had at hand.

Boy, that sure sounds right. Indian Cove Campground is about 8 miles as the crow flies from Quail Mtn. It's also on the far side of the Wonderland of Rocks. The only reason to mention it is that "Indian Cove" is the name of the 1:24,000 Quadrangle.

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Re: Bill Ewasko found?

Postby Hikin_Jim » Sun Feb 13, 2022 10:32 pm

So, why do I keep asking about exactly which maps does he have?

We've got reason to believe he's got the 1:24,000 Indian Cove Quadrangle. Maybe it's the version I have attached here (it looks sideways, but if you click on it, the orientation is correct). This is a special Interior Department version of the USGS Quad that I got from the visitor's center. On it, you can see the Bigfoot Trail.

Now, say you're in survival mode traveling at night. You want water. Bad. You could head east to Park Blvd, but it's the middle of the night, so there's not going to be any traffic. You decide to go for the sure thing: The spigot at the entrance station.

What's the best way to get there on foot? The Bigfoot Trail. [no, this doesn't make perfect sense, but in Bill's state, maybe] So, you head north on the Bigfoot Trail. About 0.8 mi up, the trail enters a wash. You head north up the wash, but after a bit, you become unsure. Is this the trail or is this just a wash? You climb the little 200' rise to your NW to get your bearings. Perhaps you rest for "just a minute" at the top of the rise. Unfortunately, your luck, like your water, has run out. You're "rest" takes on a rather permanent character, if you get my drift. And thus Mr. Bill Ewasko arrives atop the little knoll in the vicinity of Pt 4282'.

I've marked where the trail enters the above mentioned wash here: https://caltopo.com/m/6MNPM. If you toggle to satellite view, you can see the wash, the trail entering, and the trail exiting.

No, it's not the greatest iron clad scenario. OK, great. So what scenario does put him atop that knoll? By all means, please expound.

Anyway, just trying to figure out what the HECK put him atop that knoll so far north of the Juniper Flats Backcountry Board and Quail Mtn.

HJ
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