Young Hikers Missing in Joshua Tree Since Thursday [7/27/17]

[OtherHand]

I'm of the opinion that there's much more to this story than is generally out in the public domain. What I do find interesting (in a somewhat morbid use of the word) is that there are now four undiscovered bodies somewhere in central JTNP. That's a rather amazing number and not what I'd expect from an apparently benign place like JTNP. But then maybe that's exactly why it happens, people not realizing how easily a place as comfortable as JTNP can kill them. It even gives me a bit of a pause before considering another trip there.

[Wildhorse]

JTNP limits overnight parking to campgrounds and a few other places. I wonder where the car was on the night of the day entered the park.

[cynthia23]

Didn't they spend the night at their AirBnB? I thought the cameras captured them driving in to JTNP at 6.45 am that morning?

I'm getting so confused now. What possible explanation, however thin, could there be for this new info? Plainly-could the couple have hiked all the way over to Smith Water Canyon from the Maze trailhead? In cool weather, it seems doable, if odd, but in July...

OtherHand, your hints are intriguing. Do you suspect foul play, i.e. an ordinary if bizarre crime, or something even odder? Because you're right, this number of missing people is very strange.

On the 'other hand' as time goes on, I'm personally somehow less inclined toward the foul play theory, and more toward the 'mysterious random awfulness of existence' theory. Today's DS article interviewed the father of Orbeso, who's been spending hours and hours searching JTNP. My God, it was so sad reading that. I feel choked up just thinking about it.

My honest prayer for all these sad suffering families is that the bodies of their loved ones be found, so the families can at least rest.

[Wildhorse]

My read was that they checked in to the bnb on Day 1. At 645 am on day 2 they entered the park. The ping occurred at 4 pm in day 2. The bnb was found abandoned on day 3. No reports have said on what day the car was found abandoned at Maze parking. If parked at Maze on night of day 2, did nps do anything? If car was found at Maze on day 3, then when was it parked there? Day 3? Or day 2? What does nps do about cars parked overnight illegally? If not parked at Maze on night 2, then where was it?

Nps has provided very little info and the press release was obscure, perhaps intentionally so.

[cynthia23]

Oh!! I see what you're driving at--smart! It never even occurred to me to consider whether the car was driven OUT of the park on Day 2 and reparked in there on Day 3. Because you're probably right--you can't just leave your car at a trailhead overnight.

Or at least, you're not supposed to, and in theory, the NPS employees should have noticed it. But I have heard that they have missed things such as that in the past. Also, presumably they have checked camera footage of Day 3 as well as whether the car was photographed leaving the park on Day 2? So perhaps the car just sat there unnoticed overnight on Day 2.

How strange and snarled this all is becoming. But to get back to my question--I have done only a few hikes in JTNP, mainly because I find the drive up Hwy 62 too stressful, and, for whatever reason, I just don't like the place that much. So I'm asking more knowledgeable folks--is it feasible/believable that they hiked from the Maze TH into Smith Water Canyon?

[OtherHand]

My read was that they checked in to the bnb on Day 1. At 645 am on day 2 they entered the park. The ping occurred at 4 pm in day 2. The bnb was found abandoned on day 3. No reports have said on what day the car was found abandoned at Maze parking. If parked at Maze on night of day 2, did nps do anything? If car was found at Maze on day 3, then when was it parked there? Day 3? Or day 2? What does nps do about cars parked overnight illegally? If not parked at Maze on night 2, then where was it?

Nps has provided very little info and the press release was obscure, perhaps intentionally so.

As far as I know, from perusing a variety of press reports, your timeline is correct, with Day 1 being Wednesday. The owner of the AirBnB checked the place on Friday, shortly after the 11 AM checkout time and found all their stuff there. I'm not sure when the owner contacted law enforcement but credible press reports stated the vehicle was discovered at the Maze trailhead "Friday afternoon" with the first searching beginning late afternoon/early evening on Friday. So it sounds like JTNP was on it pretty fast.

There may well be, but I'm not aware of any regulations restricting overnight parking to just the backcountry trailheads. Or it could be that the Maze trailhead IS considered a backcountry trailhead with a sign in board. I'm not that familiar with it. From my experiences with JTNP's resources, I doubt very much they have any sort of aggressive program to deal with parked vehicles beyond maybe a ticket.

I agree with the assessment in your last sentence. If JTNP is being intentionally obscure, and it smells like it, they must feel they have a good reason for doing so.

[OtherHand]

Oh!! I see what you're driving at--smart! It never even occurred to me to consider whether the car was driven OUT of the park on Day 2 and reparked in there on Day 3. Because you're probably right--you can't just leave your car at a trailhead overnight.

Or at least, you're not supposed to, and in theory, the NPS employees should have noticed it. But I have heard that they have missed things such as that in the past. Also, presumably they have checked camera footage of Day 3 as well as whether the car was photographed leaving the park on Day 2? So perhaps the car just sat there unnoticed overnight on Day 2.

How strange and snarled this all is becoming. But to get back to my question--I have done only a few hikes in JTNP, mainly because I find the drive up Hwy 62 too stressful, and, for whatever reason, I just don't like the place that much. So I'm asking more knowledgeable folks--is it feasible/believable that they hiked from the Maze TH into Smith Water Canyon?

With all the speculation in the Ewasko case of his car being there, then not, then there, perhaps it's not a coincidence that cameras were installed at the entrance station afterward. I'm pretty confident JTNP staff would have checked entry images for the full duration. I can't recall if the cameras are placed to also record exits, but I would expect so. It's essentially no additional work to record both entries and exits.

And to answer your question as to the possibility of them hiking to Smith Water Canyon, my answer would be not unintentionally. Also, the Maze trailhead is about the furthest you could pick if wanting to go to Smith Water. There are much closer ones along Park Road. And it's been reported dogs picked up their scents and tracks were observed on the North View/Maze trails. A normal hiking excursion would not start with a Maze Loop hike, followed by a Smith Water hike. And it's even more inconceivable on a hot day. Yet recent media reports mentioned a ping in that area as well as searching in Smith Water.

In my opinion it's not a lost hiker scenario, but remains to be seen just what it is. Beyond saying that, I'm inclined to keep my speculation to myself considering this is a public forum.

[Wildhorse]

One possibility is that movement of the car may have been involved in the ping.

[Wildhorse]

No sign in board at Maze pullout. Overnight parking not allowed there based on posted rules.

[cynthia23]

Wildhorse, that's a good point about the possibility of the ping occurring during movement of the car. That could support the theory of a crime of some sort. I do think though that it's perfectly plausible the car sat there at the Maze TH all night, unnoticed.

But returning to the 'natural causes' theory--OtherHand, you said no one would hike from Maze TH to Smith Water Canyon 'unintentionally', (or intentionally), but I wonder if it could have been done 'semi-intentionally'--i.e. perhaps they went on the Maze loop as their original plan, but then made such good time progressing along quickly (it's said they were very fit, and certainly they were young) that in a foolish moment they decided spontaneously decided to continue to hike to Smith Water Canyon? It would be a very bad idea, obviously, but perhaps its badness wouldn't be obvious if it was still fairly early in the morning and relatively cool. As I see it on the map you cross the road. The road itself might have given them a false sense of security. It would not have occurred to them (it would not necessarily occur to me) that if anything bad happened, searchers would find their car at the Maze TH and wrongly think they were somewhere on that trail. Also, if there's any truth to the 'they were doing mushrooms' theory, that could certainly explain a very bad/odd decisionmaking process that would later confound searchers.

As I said, I've somehow become more inclined to a 'natural but weird' explanation, but presumably, if the 'murder/staged disappearance' theory is viable, investigators would be looking to see if Orbeso had withdrawn money, left the country, pulled a passport, or something similar. JTNP is very handy if you want to quickly drive to Mexico.

My 'abduction by strangers' theory seems to be the unlikeliest theory of them all, but actually, according to the FBI, there were (at least) 331 abductions by strangers in 2014, which I don't think includes those which end in murder. Bizarre and unlikely though such a crime would seem to be, it has to be at least no more statistically unlikely (and probably it's less so) than two heat stroke deaths which leave no body behind. At OtherHand chillingly pointed out, at this point there are four people missing in JTNP. That's kind of a lot. I'm not suggesting that all the deaths are linked, at all, but it does seem to me that an unwillingness to even entertain the idea of a abduction/serial killer type thing is not rational. It must be at least considered.

Although, again, at this time, I'm leaning more toward the 'natural' explanation. I remember about ten years ago or so the Desert Sun reported that a hiker had found skeletal remains in a small cave or crevice in the Santa Rosas, fairly near Palm Springs. The skeleton had a broken leg, and with some remains, they were able to determine that the body was that of a woman who had gone missing while on a solitary horseback ride way back in the 1950's. They'd searched for but never found her. The theory was that the horse threw her, breaking her leg, and of course with no phone, the woman crawled for shelter into the small cave and died in there. A horrible story, weird and sad, but one could certainly conceive of something similar befalling Orbeso and Nguyen.