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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

Somewhat apt for everyone to be sacrificing their GPS units in honor of GPSJoe... sort of nice.

@Vaporman
I thought you might have a radio..so I tried calling you but that wasn't until like 930 after I ran into Richard.

Vaporman wrote:Just left the Peely TH myself. Today I took the highway, err i mean ridgline trail to peak 6910 and hit a good chunch of ravine 4. I wanted to zigzag the upper section more but it's too thick and from the point 006 I headed down and found a good game trail. Due to all the big square size print and low clearances requiring me to crawl many times I'm assuming that those were bear trails... Once in the actual drainage the going got easier though still loads Of bushwhacking, army crawling, and rock hopping. Somewhere in all of that I dropped my GPS unit also. So it's going to be even tougher to get the tracks off of it this time! Ohh well, I needed a new one anyways... For most of ravine 4, I didn't see any sign of previous travel until I hit the springs in that clump of trees surrounded by ferns. Of course loads of games trail and bedding spots are there that I checked out as best I could. Stayed in the canyon this time all the way to the thicket trail and it was much easier traveling. So the lesson I learned the hard way is to stay on a ridge or a ravine and avoid the in between.

@rlrjamy. I saw u above the switchbacks this morning and thought I'd see on the next switchback not realizing that I was already on the top switchback... ;)

Dang, thanks for searching ravine #4.

@rlrjamy
I left the radio at home today since it's an older FRS-only radio and I thought I'd have the place mostly to myself. I was available via texting and Facebook most of the time though...

Somewhat apt for everyone to be sacrificing their GPS units in honor of GPSJoe... sort of nice...

Haha, I like that... My thought was that the Mazatzals are hungry for GPS units... ;)

I've got an old Etrix I'll bury on the summit over there when I make it over in the Spring...

As noted above, I searched around the top switchback and ran into Bob and Bruno. Bummer about the GPS's... I still have mine but I think it is broken. It is intermittent all the time even in the open...?

After the switchback I headed over to Ravine 4 via Thicket trail. I left the trail and cut across into Ravine 4. I think Vaporman was still higher up. We exchanged a couple of texts but then I headed back to the TH. That's some terrible thick terrain.

Vaporman - you are a tough dude!

I'll be headed up there on Saturday, and we'll have a group of 3 to help out. I have a 60CSX, so that's not a fun thing to lose...we'll keep an eye out if we're near you search area.

Anybody else interested in tagging along, let me know. Meeting in Tempe about 6:30

Vaporman wrote:by Vaporman » Dec 09 2010 6:17 pm
Just left the Peely TH myself. Today I took the highway, err i mean ridgeline trail to peak 6910 and hit a good chunk of ravine 4. I wanted to zigzag the upper section more but it's too thick and from the point 006 I headed down and found a good game trail.

For those GPSjoe family members, friends, and all actively following this forum thread and not that familiar with navigating around in HAZ, you can view (when/if posted) more detail of these individual member day search efforts by going into "triplogs" from the HAZ Home Page or by clicking-on that posting members avatar picture and locating the dated triplog in this member profile page. For a more detailed account of Vaporman (Brian's) search efforts in this important 12/9 search area, here is his "triplog" with individual member comments below--> http://hikearizona.com/TL.php?ID=56980

Rlrjamy and Vaporman so sorry about the lost gps units out there. I have a Garmin etrex Venture you can borrow to take with you on your next trips. It isnt the best unit but should be adequate.
Anyone can borrow the unit who is going out to look for gpsjoe.
It looks like the holiday gift list just got bigger for some. :A1:

dround wrote:It looks like the holiday gift list just got bigger for some. :A1:

Costco still has the 60CSx units for 2 bills.

dround wrote:It looks like the holiday gift list just got bigger for some. :A1:

LoL, yea I've been looking at getting one of those delormes with a spot and they sometimes go on sale for $350ish but an 60csx for $200 is also a great deal.

Wow, look how warm the temps are getting this December weekend! It was actually just a tad warm (with next to no wind) yesterday for long pants & sleeves but I need them or else I would have been eaten alive by all the vegetation... Good luck to those searching this weekend and enjoy the sunny warm weather while it lasts!

Sredfield wrote:Costco still has the 60CSx units for 2 bills.

As does Amazon. I also noticed that the price of the Delorme PN-60W with the SPOT locator has dropped to $399.99.....I believe it was around $440 a few weeks ago.

I've been following this story since it first appeared. I'm quite saddened that Joe has been missing for over a month now. I thought I would share a similar story that has surfaced this week here in California. A hiker climbed 10,064 foot Mt. San Antonio in the San Gabriel Mountains last Saturday and did not return. Her body was recovered from the mountain yesterday. Having climbed that mountain a number of times myself I have a pretty good idea what happened to her.

The conditions on top of Mt. San Antonio were probably cloudy and foggy. She likely didn't have a GPS or a compass. She likely became disoriented in the fog and headed off the summit northwest instead of northeast where she needed to go. How she got to where her body was found in Fish Fork is just a guess, but she likely slipped into Fish Fork and died either from exposure or from injuries sustained in a fall.

Unlike Joe, the woman did tell someone where she was going and LASAR was out looking for her the next day. However, as experienced a hiker as the news stories made her out to be, she was not prepared for the weather and was unable to navigate her way out. Because she wasn't anywhere near where she was supposed to be, SAR took 3 days to find her.

While we can't say what exactly happened to Joe yet, he might have been able to respond to searchers looking for him had someone known he was missing earlier on. The missing hiker in California might have made it out safely had she had a GPS or compass. Both incidents have given the rest of us some valuable take aways even if the take aways have come as a result of tragedy.

My best wishes to all of you that continue with the search. My heart goes out the Joe's family and friends.

Here's a picture of the area that I searched today. While I didn't get to the specific location that I was asked to look at, I did do a fair amount of that area. The area is incredibly difficult to hike when you go off-trail as I did. One possibly significant event occurred during my search. I've marked the location with a way-point. Here's what happened:

I was trying to work my way up to the Peeley summit. In the area of the way-point, the shrubbery was less intense so I tried to zig-zag as best I could. During my entire hike today, where possible, I took several steps and then looked all around to try to cover as much area as possible and from several angles. Anyway, I was traversing the marked area and as I rounded the corner of an outcropping, the wind suddenly stopped. I don't know if the side of the area I was in momentarily blocked the wind or what, but the very slight breeze that was present seemed to swirl a bit. I caught an odor that seemed like something was possibly rotting (at waypoint N33 59.7394 W-111 29.0467). I can't say that the odor was as intense as a decaying animal but it had a slightly putrid quality, but slightly sweet. It's difficult to describe and I only caught the odor for a few seconds. I honestly don't know what it was. I sniffed the area trying to fill my lungs with it and turned to try to locate the source. Suddenly, the wind kicked up again from the South-East and the odor was gone.

I searched all I could, trying to traverse as many areas as I could. I ended up going across a drainage and gaining elevation while constantly surveying the area all around me. Nothing. I searched until I realized that I couldn't summit Peeley due to time and extreme fatigue. I then traversed across and dropped down to the switchback area and met up with Linda Beckett who searched areas along the Mazatzal Divide Trail.

I'm pretty battered and bruised from the brutal vegetation. I don't think that I can make my way back to that way-point tomorrow but I feel that a search should be undertaken in the general area I've circled. The problem is that it's so exhausting to get to that point that it will be difficult to get there and search effectively. Maybe some of the younger guys that are in better shape may be able to put together a team to try. I'm not saying for certain that Joe is in that circled area, but I searched pretty extensively everything to the East including drainages.

I hope that this information helps. I'm not sure that putting all of the community's resources in this area is the way to go, but perhaps worth further investigation. Maybe from the Cornucopia trail, up the first drainage and then traversing North-West. That's not an easy route.

One note about this picture, the track does not seem to be registered very well with the map. Not sure why, but the track seems to be drawn quite a bit South of the trail on the map. I realize that the maps aren't perfect but this is the furthest off I've seen them. My point is that the way-point is actually much further North of the trail. Maybe the track file that I sent Hank will register more precisely with the Garmin maps.

I plan to be back out there tomorrow morning but I'm not sure that I'm up for another brutal day of fighting manzanita! We'll see...

thesuperstitions wrote: I caught an odor that seemed like something was possibly rotting (at waypoint N33 59.7394 W-111 29.0467). I can't say that the odor was as intense as a decaying animal but it had a slightly putrid quality, but slightly sweet. It's difficult to describe and I only caught the odor for a few seconds.

Odor is a clue although an elusive one. Rotting vegetation in a stagnant pool of water is often the source of odor but it is normally not "sweet". This is the second report of an odor (actually the third as the first find was repeated later in the day at the same location) and I am not familiar enough with the mapping you all have done to know if the two locations are near each other or within a reasonable distance to be from the same source. However a deceased human body does give off a putrid sweet odor therefore it is necessary to find the source of this odor. Missing persons are found by investigating clues found and to the best of my knowledge the only two clues that have been found in this search that may belong to Joe are these two reported odors.

Just some thoughts from an old SAR guy...

Wish I could be there to help you search.... :thanx:

Yea, things seem to be pointing back at the southeast side of Mt Peely... On the many ridges & that ravine I just searched, I'm only finding games trails and disturbances from previous searchers. But SE Peely at least has some potential clues though as noted it's very cliffy & overgrown and would take a fair amount of manpower & time to fully search. Maybe it's about time to make a grid of the sides of Mt Peely and we can take turns slowly searching them. ;)

thesuperstitions wrote: I hope that this information helps. I'm not sure that putting all of the community's resources in this area is the way to go, but perhaps worth further investigation. Maybe from the Cornucopia trail, up the first drainage and then traversing North-West. That's not an easy route.

Thank you Ken for looking in that area. At this moment we have to consider every area, even one that is close to the TH such as this one. BTW, this is also the area where the two dogs alerted their owner and wanting to go down the ravine.

SuperstitionGuy wrote: This is the second report of an odor (actually the third as the first find was repeated later in the day at the same location..(I don't recall this being previously stated?-GH) and I am not familiar enough with the mapping you all have done to know if the two locations are near each other or within a reasonable distance to be from the same source. However a deceased human body does give off a putrid sweet odor therefore it is necessary to find the source of this odor. Missing persons are found be investigating clues found and to the best of my knowledge the only two clues that have been found in this search that may belong to Joe are these two reported odors.

Here is the reference map (see the red diamond waypoint locations for proximity of odor/smell locations and note that the first waypoint by TRSAR was corrected (I left it in the map for reference only), thus I believe only two "odor/smell" locations to date(11/16 and 12/10): http://hikearizona.com/location_g.php?QX=202 ; I will soon check out "thesuperstitions" emailed to me .gdb map with waypoint and if it proves to be beneficial to the cause, I will also post it and later reference on our forum. Like previously stated by others, we do need more concentrated search efforts around and in-between these two key "odor/smell" waypoints areas. Thank you!

Vaporman wrote:Maybe it's about time to make a grid of the sides of Mt Peely and we can take turns slowly searching them. ;)

I think this is exactly the track that should be taken at this point. Hopefully I'll be able to get down there between Christmas and New Years, if the search is still ongoing.