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Searched Routes

Southern Ravines Map

Forecast Mormon Grove & Peeley

Crews looking for missing hiker
By Alexis Bechman

November 16, 2010
Tonto Rim Search and Rescue volunteers and Gila County Sheriff officers are currently searching for an overdue hiker.

The man, whose name has not been released, was last heard from nine days ago and is believed to be hiking near the Mt. Peeley trail or Sheep Mountain, off Forest Road 201, southwest of Payson.

The Gila County Sheriff’s Office first received a call that the man was overdue Monday, Nov. 15 about 9 p.m.

“The hiker has not been heard from since Nov. 7 and frequents the Mazatzal Mountain Wilderness area,” according to a press release from the sheriff’s office.

The missing hiker’s vehicle was located at the Mt. Peeley trailhead.



Six TRSAR volunteers are currently searching the ground. Earlier Tuesday, a Department of Public Safety Ranger helicopter did an aerial search of the area, but found no signs of the man

Tough_Boots wrote:

Trishness wrote:I have Verizon so it should be OK in that area.

my AT&T connection was also pretty solid for a lot of that area.

Verizon had good service from the trail on the south face of Peeley.

I texted Brian to let him know I was going to be there. No response so he may have turned his cell phone off. If anyone talks to him let him know I will be there between 4-6 PM at Peeley TH to get him and Steve.


Trish

Good luck to everyone out on the trails. I truly hope he defies the odds!

Trishness wrote:I'll run out to Peeley TH between 4 and 6 PM to pick up Brian and Steve....look for a Gold Xterra with AZHKR2 plates. I'll bring some substance too.

Hoping that FR 25 is OK for my 2WD Xterra.

Gave Ken my cell phone number to pass along. I have Verizon so it should be OK in that area.


Trish

Ken, it seems my PM to you in is suspended animation somewhere. If you talk to Brian or Steve between now and tomorrow let them know I'll be there at Peeley TH between 4 and 6 PM to give them a ride out. I left Brian a VM tonight but not sure if he got it. If messages get mixed, contact SUZAZ since she has my cell phone number....I don't want to post that on this forum.


Trish

Trish, Brian has all the details. His phone is off. Thanks for going to get the guys it is greatly appreciated, I'm sure they will be happy to put the miles into searching for Joe rather than heading back to their cars.

No problem. Bob's decided to take the drive with me. We're going to bring subway sandwiches and sodas for the guys also.....


Trish

Brian should also have photos of the Sheep Mtn approach from the North where there's a pic of the upper chute that didn't look very extreme--at least looking down at it from the Sheep Mtn summit.

If anyone is in touch with Brian and Steve 2morrow I'll be on channel 14 or 15 on the 2 way radio on my way to the TH and while at the TH.

Trish

My recent message from the guys (brian and steve) says it's COLD and HAILING they are bailing out to their cars as of 8:32am.

suzaz wrote:My recent message from the guys (brian and steve) say it's COLD and HAILING they are bailing out to their cars as of 8:32am.

i could see 4 peaks and mt ord from my patio about 15 min ago, now both are covered in snow clouds. get out safe, guys. looks like a gloomy day up there.

It is snowing in Payson right now...

Trishness wrote:I'll be on channel 14 or 15 on the 2 way radio on my way to the TH and while at the TH.

Brian's got an old-school 2-way that only goes to 14. Channel 15 will be useless trying to reach him. Anyone out there this weekend should be on 14. PM'ing this also to make sure you get this info.

airic wrote:I covered 5 top to bottom and adjacent ridges to 4b and 6 pretty heavy yesterday.. Brian also hit between 5 and 4b with Kenny I believe.

Brian is out waiting to hear about Stephen.

Adding that stephen is home

Gorging myself at Wendy's in fountains hills. We got hailed and snowed on pretty good this morning. We had great weather the last two days though and covered the 4 ridges between drainages 2-7. I saw 4-5 buzzards a few times yesterday that were circling the upper ridges between 2-4 but they never went down or focused on any one spot. From the sheep Mt going down that 3-4 ridge was rather promising with loads of evidence that someone or something had been down that ridge recently but lost the trail when we hit the manzanita Forrest and did a bushwhack from hell thru it...

Vaporman wrote:From the sheep Mt going down that 3-4 ridge was rather promising with loads of evidence that someone or something had been down that ridge recently

airic thought the 3-4 ridge looked promising and me and hike monk were definitely eyeballing that ridge from our viewpoint on 2-3. Sounds like a worthy area to spend some time on. Maybe we can convince the professionals to spend a day in there.

Vaporman wrote:covered the 4 ridges between drainages 2-7.

:worthy:

I'm out, I posted my 4 day's worth of tracks. Only one day did I truly cover truly virgin search area, looking down into the drainages on either side. I focused my efforts on Saturday on visual search using binoculars and was able to get fairly good coverages of the ridges and flat areas around half of Sheep Mtn. Areas of thick brush (including all the ravines) could not be inspected.

I have no definitive sightings to report, many sightings of odd things that are probably agaves or odd shaped rocks, and an unusual sighting of a large group of ravens near the ridgeline somewhat northeast (0.15 mi) of the peak.

If anyone intends to go back, my recommendations would be to focus on the ridgeline in the area starting just short of 6910 for the next 0.15 miles towards the peak. This area is open, fairly flat, and fairly easily travelled. It's also as far as I believe Joe could make it to the peak on a dayhike.

Brian may have trouble getting tracks off his GPS. As I understand it:

Fri: He followed my route up the ridge between 7 and 8 about 400 ft in elevation until I sighted them, then he and Kenny went across drainage 7 onto the ridge between 6 and 7. From here they summited peak 6910, and went down via the ridge between 5 and 4B (I think)
Sat: He went up in the 2-4 area, summited Sheep Mtn, met Sam, where they came down between 3 and 4, dropped into 4, then out of 4 east towards the Thicket Trail.

Sunday (today) we woke up to hail and a blizzard that was getting worse, we both exited back to our vehicles. Thanks to Trish for volunteering to come get us (even though it never came to that.)

And a big thank you to everyone who came out and searched. There were people everywhere, on ridges, in the brush, bushwhacking through brutality. Thank you very much!

Thanks so much to all in their continued efforts to find Joe. You are all doing an amazing service for Joe's family and the hiking community.

Vaporman wrote:From the sheep Mt going down that 3-4 ridge was rather promising with loads of evidence that someone or something had been down that ridge recently but lost the trail when we hit the manzanita Forrest

Thank you Brian! This above is important to remember for others ongoing efforts in this area that needs more search.