HikeArizona.COM

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

ssk44 wrote:Just curious for my own interests... The photo below shows the rugged east slope of peak 6,910. Has anyone searched the thick and narrow primary gully and fall zones below cliff edges visible in this photo? Current posted GPS routes show this nasty east slope as not searched but rather skirted around.

IMG_3124 - Copy.JPG

Twoseeking wrote:

nonot wrote:

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. When we got on the ridge between Peeley and Sheep Mtn., we saw evidence consisting of broken twigs and branches and disturbed surface. These were slightly aged but appeared to be much fresher than an April hike would have produced. In fact they appeared fresher than the last rainstorm. None of it was clearly identifiable as human versus animal (no partial boot or shoe prints) but it is very rare for animals to produce all of the disturbances we saw. We got as far as Joe's previous endpoint in April, I will call it point A (.35 mile from summit) and two of us continued on to within .23 mile of the summit, my waypoint 009 (33d 59m 20s, 111d 30m 22s). 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 am going to repost this and add comments.

At the time this was posted, I cross referenced these data points against data provided to me via Hank of Joe's previous routes.

A) I believe the SAR search limit point has a typo (20s North vs 30s North)
B) The "Last sign of physical disturbance" point matched up with the extent of Joe's April trip to this area, allowing for relatively minimal GPS discrepancies.
C) The "signs of trail disturbance headed east downhill" is the major point I wish to address
1) At the time this was written, I observed this point lays directly on Joe's April 2010 hike and his December 2009 hike
2) At the time this was written, I was not aware that EAST from this point is uphill towards 6910 peak
3) At the time this was written, I observed a drainage originating at this location, however it heads mostly SOUTH

If anyone is able to contact "Twoseeking" could he be asked the following:

As his "signs of trail disturbance heading east downhill"
-Did he mean downhill (south)?
-Did he mean east (uphill)?
-Did he think downhill to the right (as you are heading back towards the TH) was east at that point?
-Did he mean something different?

Please note that a southernly descent down this drainage falls between the two routes done by Brian and other searchers. (600 ft to east and 1600 ft to west)

Sorry, I have not been on this website for awhile. Here are the answers to your questions. When we are on search missions, we use UTM UPS as our position format and NAD 27 CONUS as the map datum. I converted the data thinking it would be more helpful as a post, but I may have made a conversion error. So for accuracy, here are the original data from my GPS. Point 008 at 12 S 0453343/3761099 and Point 009 at 12 S 0453325/3761115 were recorded near our furthest penetration into the area. We actually had gone several meters further but I could not get my GPS out until I retreated a little. Point LAST is at 12 S 0453420/3761253. Point 006 was at 12 S 0453608/3761306. Nonot is right. I should have said South meaning downhill. I had East in my head from looking at Mt. Ord, but it was a mistake to say that was the direction of disturbances. Please note that the comment by MtnResq30 below in these posts can be misleading. We were the first rescuers from any agency on that mountain on the afternoon of Tuesday the 16th. Helicopter insertions were not made until the next two days.

Vaporman wrote:I suspect the upper section will be quite adventurous. With gravity on our side, it shouldn't be too crazy though canyoneering has certainly upped my tolerance for nasty bushwhacks. I may be able to spare a day later this week...

rlrjamy A few of us are heading out again tommorow morning...searching the North side again and some side searches if time allows

Vaporman wrote:Anyone available tomorrow for a nasty bushwhack thru hell and back?

Grasshopper wrote:

thebrayer wrote:I know how to contact Twoseeking if anyone needs me to.

Yes, please do and ask Twoseeking to log on to HAZ and pick up his PM that nonot (Steve) said he would send to Twoseeking for his reply back to nonot's questions..
Thank you!

rlrjamy wrote:Joe and Liz slept on the ride back

Grasshopper wrote:Along with the recent release of "some new GPS Search Track Data (for period 11/16-11/20) by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office", they also released some important waypoint coordinates and relative notes to support some of these waypoint locations. Of particular interest to the family of GPSjoe and some of us who first reviewed this information (SUN_HIKER-Gabriele and myself), was a key waypoint location entered on the first official GPSjoe search day, 11/16/10, by the TRSAR team members. One member of this search group and I quote from the report submitted: There was reference to one team member from Gila County detecting a "dead smell" on Mount Peeley the first day. No one else on the team smelled it and we put dog teams in that area the next day and came up with nothing.

For any group planning on helping to search this Sheep Mountain/Mount Peeley area soon, this new area now needs more search attention and is located at/around
waypoint N34.00040 W-111.48175 (From the Peeley TH in on Mazzie Divide TR23 and 3rd switchback, then SW off-trail--> map reference is here for your review and download A/R: http://hikearizona.com/location_g.php?QX=197 ;Please also note the Red Diamond waypoint location on this map for the 11/16 noted "dead smell"). We all :thanx:

juliachaos wrote:@Grasshopper
A small group of us checked out that area today but didn't find anything there.

juliachaos wrote:by juliachaos » Dec 08 2010 8:00 pm

juliachaos wrote:@Grasshopper
A small group of us checked out that area today but didn't find anything there.


Scratch that... it looks as though we went in one switchback too early