Twoseeking wrote:I was on the Tonto Rim SAR team on Tuesday morning the 16th. We were the first ones to arrive and first to search on the mountain. Maybe some of the info I have will help some of you.
Twoseeking wrote: At my waypoint LAST, about 33d 59m 33s, 111d 30m 18s we saw the last of any physical disturbances. From there on, the brush was very thick but we saw no broken twigs, branches or ground disturbances, although we certainly created a lot of our own on our way in and out.
I tend to believe no one had hiked that part of the ridge for a long time. Two days later another of our teams was taken by helicopter to the summit and hiked down to our furthest point and found two sets of footprints, most likely ours from two days before.
At my waypoint 006, 33d 59m 35s, 111d 30m 11s, I saw disturbances heading downhill to the east. Two of us hiked about 100 yards down but could not find evidence of any path toward the summit, which was our assignment to search toward. Now in retrospect and reading the other blogs, I think it is possible that my waypoint 006 could have been a bailout point for Joe. Where I was looking, was one or two ravines west of where SSK44 is suggesting to look. I don't mean to dissuade anyone from following SSK44's advice, but another possible bailout at my waypoint 006 might be worth looking at. Although unlikely, it is possible that Joe might have tried to go along the north flank toward Sheep summit from somewhere in the area of the LAST, but that area is very dangerous with major dropoffs and loose rock. I would discourage anyone other than well equipped rope climbers to venture in there.
I wanted to bring
this important post back up to the top of our forum thread for serious consideration for any qualified hiker/searchers looking for a important area that needs more search attention (before the winter in this area really sets in and closes down this area for a long time really limiting our ongoing search efforts for Dec into Jan-Mar 2011..)..
Here again is the visual of his important waypoint 006 area:
http://hikearizona.com/photo.php?ZIP=167183
Also, for your future reference Twoseeking's present format above for his "006 waypoint"
converts toThe HAZ preferred format of: N33.993056 W-111.5030556 ; You can go into the HAZ TrailDEX map and enter this format at the top right entry screen and hit GO and the HAZ magic will take you right to this location and put a brown teardrop; Also, you can do the same input by first loading the reference map link from our home page, then entering this waypoint format and it will do the same magic, but this time showing this location related to exactly on GPSjoe's actual hiking tracks for Nov'09(bailout route),and ridgeline hikes 12/4/09 and 4/27/10.
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