Hiking Solo

[Kurt]

Julian Sands is missing while hiking.

I remember reading that the number of deaths from hiking is increasing and typically the deaths follow a trend:

Experienced male hiker goes out and hikes alone and dies. Everyone is baffled because of the experience of the dead guy.

I am wondering if our definition of "Experienced" or "Skilled" is all wrong and in reality they were just as stupid when they hiked successfully but math caught up with them one day and they were dead.

It might be that there is no such thing as "So experienced you can go out alone".

[Devlin]

Experience does not protect anyone from a medical emergency such as a heart attack or perhaps a bad fall on the trail.

[Kurt]

Experience does not protect anyone from a medical emergency such as a heart attack or perhaps a bad fall on the trail.

My biggest fear is always a twisted ankle. I suspect two dipshits out in the woods who know they are dipshits will be better off than a solo experienced woodsman.

[vagabond]

So, this LA Times article about Sands and another hiker missing have a link under "skilled hiker" to another story of a hiker that went missing in Griffith Park in the spring. Forgot how to embed links but see below.

https://www.latimes.com/california/stor ... sing-hiker

Still not clear on what happened - suicide, fall, or, as you said, twisted ankle and fall. It's a heavily trafficked urban park though with people all over the trails at all times. Yet he was an 'experienced' hiker. Nature and Fate obviously don't care.

As we all know from WMDP and life, those things that feel most comfortable can be the most dangerous, like those stats about people getting into accidents within a mile of their home. Baldy isn't a 'walk in the park' though and wouldn't be somewhere someone out of shape, with little outdoor skills, should take a hike, from what I've heard from more experienced people.

Hope these two are found ok but, given the conditions there and the time its been, might not be good news.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-a ... lian-sands

British actor Julian Sands has been identified as one of two hikers who recently went missing in Southern California’s San Gabriel Mountains.

Search-and-rescue teams have been looking for Sands since he was reported missing in the Mt. Baldy area on Friday, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.

Sands, 65, is known for his work in “A Room With a View” (1985), “Naked Lunch” (1991), “Warlock” (1989), “Snakehead” (2003) and dozens of other films and TV series. Born in the United Kingdom, Sands lives in North Hollywood.

A representative for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said that ground crews were pulled off the mountain on Saturday evening due to avalanche risks and dangerous trail conditions. The search has continued, however, using helicopters and drones, and ground searches will resume when weather and safety conditions improve.
Pasadena, California January 12, 2023-A hiker slips in a creek in Eaton Canyon as recent storms have caused mudslides on local hiking trails. (Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times)

The spokesperson urged others to avoid the Mt. Baldy area, which is currently “much too dangerous, even for the skilled hiker.”

Representatives for Sands did not immediately respond Wednesday to The Times’ request for comment.

An avid mountaineer, Sands told the Guardian in 2020 that he is happiest when “close to a mountain summit on a glorious cold morning.” In the same interview he said the closest he had come to death was in the early 1990s when hiking in the Andes Mountains above 20,000 feet with three others. A storm had blown in and “some guys close to us perished.”

Sands once conducted an entire interview from the face of the Mittellegi Ridge on the Eiger Mountain in the Swiss Alps.

“And, you know what? Mountain climbing and film making are very connected,” Sands told the Yorkshire Post while phoning in from along the ridge in 2013. “There’s always another mountain. And ultimately the point of climbing a mountain is that the mountain is within. And I think that’s true, too, of the acting experience.”
Julian Sands, Tired of Twit Bits, Likes ‘Warlock’ Role

In addition to Sands, authorities are searching separately for Hawthorne resident Bob Gregory, a hiker who was reported missing by family on Monday afternoon, according to KABC-TV The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s San Dimas station told the station that the search for Gregory is being conducted in the Crystal Lake area of the San Gabriel Mountains.

According to KABC-TV, Gregory’s loved ones are worried he might have injured himself and suffered a fall, adding that police have been tracking his cellphone.

Mt. Baldy is considered one of the most dangerous peaks to climb in the United States. In recent years, its icy terrain has led to the deaths of several experienced hikers. Seuk Doo Kim, a 78-year-old South Korean hiker from Culver City, had climbed the mountain more than 700 times but fell to his death in 2017.
Hiker Eric Lewis of Riverside At Cucamonga Peak summit on Dec. 24, 2022. (Courtesy of Eric Lewis)

Another experienced hiker, Sreenivas Mokkapati, 52, of Irvine, also died on the mountain after he became separated from his group in December 2019. Authorities had suspended the search for Mokkapati at one point after a volunteer searcher, Tim Staples, 32, of La Verne, fell and died on the mountain.

Most recently, Crystal Paula Gonzalez-Landas, known by her family as “the dancing hiking queen,” died earlier this month after falling down an icy slope along the mountain, according to People.

[ReptilianKittenEater]

I'll go solo hiking for a few hours, but what is suggested in the news story is way more dangerous (A winter ascent of an avalanche prone mountain). Yeah we all need to sieze the day, but in certain activities you have to be prepared the day may sieze you.

It does not take much, even in relatively populated areas, to run in to trouble if you do not have sat or cell phone, have tricky conditions such as deep snow, and do something like a sprained ankle a couple of hours from a trailhead and no one knows where you are.

Can even be a lot less. A uni friend of mine died some years later when his car broke down in a drive thru in a snow storm. Police thought he was headed to a garage maybe 100 metres away, got disoriented in the snow, a froze to death.

[vagabond]

Can even be a lot less. A uni friend of mine died some years later when his car broke down in a drive thru in a snow storm. Police thought he was headed to a garage maybe 100 metres away, got disoriented in the snow, a froze to death.

That's crazy. A lot of sad stories coming out of Buffalo, NY similar to that after this recent storm.

[Darcy]

I go way off the beaten path all the time to get to remote trout streams, almost always by myself, zero cel coverage. Just got myself an InReach so maybe a little safer now. I tell my wife where I'm going, often with a screen shot of a GoogleEarth location. Never overnight though, but dark to dark very often. I carry typical survival gear, good knife, bear spray... Like an hour or two down remote abandoned logging roads then another hour or two hike in.

I dive by myself too so maybe I'm kinda stupid.

[Kurt]

I go way off the beaten path all the time to get to remote trout streams, almost always by myself, zero cel coverage. Just got myself an InReach so maybe a little safer now. I tell my wife where I'm going, often with a screen shot of a GoogleEarth location. Never overnight though, but dark to dark very often. I carry typical survival gear, good knife, bear spray... Like an hour or two down remote abandoned logging roads then another hour or two hike in.

I dive by myself too so maybe I'm kinda stupid.

Thats the thing...I love the solitude.

My favorite places to hike are bogs. No one goes into bogs to hike ever and that's what I love about them. No litter, no signs of humans at all, it is actually a proper wild place that is often close enough to civilization to drive to a road to access it.

And no one I know likes hiking in bogs anyway.

But if I die I at least hope to be preserved by the tannins in the water.

[Alphabet]

When it's your time, it's your time.

Yes, we have slightly evolved, and have cool little tools to help us, but when ya gotta go, ya gotta go.

I'll do what I can against getting attacked by a bobcat or falling down a ravine, but really hope I just get killed by snoo snoo in a reverse gangbang with the Chilean woman's national football team.

One can dream.

[Mr.PocketsOfSteel]

I go way off the beaten path all the time to get to remote trout streams, almost always by myself, zero cel coverage. Just got myself an InReach so maybe a little safer now. I tell my wife where I'm going, often with a screen shot of a GoogleEarth location. Never overnight though, but dark to dark very often. I carry typical survival gear, good knife, bear spray... Like an hour or two down remote abandoned logging roads then another hour or two hike in.

I dive by myself too so maybe I'm kinda stupid.

Kinda sorta. But I understand the pull of it all. :o)

[Mr.PocketsOfSteel]

When it's your time, it's your time.

Yes, we have slightly evolved, and have cool little tools to help us, but when ya gotta go, ya gotta go.

I'll do what I can against getting attacked by a bobcat or falling down a ravine, but really hope I just get killed by snoo snoo in a reverse gangbang with the Chilean woman's national football team.

One can dream.

Pretty good.