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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

Outlander wrote:and then check the headwaters of Deer Creek.

please describe your route upon your return. there are two ways to access.. from peeley t/h and/or from the drainage just east of mt. catherine. i still have a curious feeling that joe may have aborted the original plan and gone down into deer ck. just for kicks. about 1 mile upstream from the area where trail meets creek, it gets pretty hairy. an easy ankle snap could occur down there and last time i went, i got into some deep dropoffs and impossible terrain. see this photoset: http://hikearizona.com/photoset.php?ID=11116

Howdy Tewa. Just finished writing up a triplog for the hikes and will send it in, along with a few pics.

No Joe or any sign of him, but it is another zone that has been walked. The areas further upstream on the Deer Creek tributaries look to be fairly flat and easy to walk, a much more likely place to find Joe than the rough stuff I did below.

My gut feeling is that Joe changed his trip plan, something we all do at times, and simply hiked in another direction. He might have had a headache/cold or whatever, and decided to see something new. Sheep Mountain would always be there for another day. Donno. It is quite a mystery. There are so many possible scenarios, so many ways to get hurt out there.

I wanted to bring everyone up to date on a special effort recently completed by our SUN_HIKER (Gabriele) related to GPSjoe's "missing status".

Gabriele has devoted the last few days completing the appropriate phone contacts, editing, and having published with an 8.5"x11" laminated cover, this attached "Joseph S. Domin-gpsjoe missing person poster". The plan will be to have this posted by Sunday-6/12/11 on the main Mount Peeley TH information board in plain sight for all to read and help support in our continuing effort to find Joe's remains. Gabriele, thank you!

I hope it helps.

Great idea. Maybe also put one on the trail near Mormon Grove, for anyone coming from that direction.

For anyone with pictures of GPS Joe on the trail and/or memories of trails shared please contact me at

ptyrone@mchsi.com

I'm putting a little something together that will mean a lot to the family

Thanks

Trish

This has been such a tragedy.

I did not know GPSJoe, as I am a new member here. Just wanted to stop by and tell everyone sorry for your loss. Also a quick question did the SAR team use a tracking dog at all? I know it has been a while, just wondering if anyone remembers.

@K9Shep
Thank you for your concerns and yes "tracking dogs" were used on at least two of the five SAR search days between 11/16/10 to 11/20/10.

Dam. I figured they were. For someone I have never meet or heard of I am quit interested in this story. Again sorry for everyone's loss. If I ever get up that way I will do my part.

I am a new HikeAZ member and only recently came across the thread on GPS Joe.

The date that he presumably began his ill-fated trek was listed as Nov. 08, 2010--a date that caught my eye since I knew it was about that time that I began a backpacking trip in the Mazatzals. Upon checking my notes, I found that on that Monday (Nov. 08) my wife and I dropped off my car at the Barnhardt TH and then she drove me to the Mt. Peeley TH to begin my solo backpack trip north on the AZ Trail. When we arrived at about 7:45 AM, we were surprised to see a vehicle parked there on a Monday. We both distinctly remembered it as a white SUV parked on the south side of the turn-around and facing east. Once I began my hike, I neither saw nor heard anyone. I did catch sight of an occasional fresh bootprint heading my way, but those could have been anyone's from the weekend.

I camped out that night at Windsor Saddle; very high winds and dropping temp's. The next night I was at Horse Camp Seep and then returned to Barnhardt the following day. I saw only one other person and he was coming out of Barnhardt and heading north.

I doubt this information is of any use at this point, but I thought I'd put it out there anyway.

Little bits of information taken individually might seem insignificant, but added together can make a huge difference.

@Hiker John

Hiker John wrote:The date that he presumably began his ill-fated trek was listed as Nov. 08, 2010--a date that caught my eye since I knew it was about that time that I began a backpacking trip in the Mazatzals. Upon checking my notes, I found that on that Monday (Nov. 08) my wife and I dropped off my car at the Barnhardt TH and then she drove me to the Mt. Peeley TH to begin my solo backpack trip north on the AZ Trail. When we arrived at about 7:45 AM, we were surprised to see a vehicle parked there on a Monday.

Our first HAZ pic on 11/19/10 of GPSjoe's white Toyota 4Runner: http://hikearizona.com/photo.php?ZIP=166811 Also, your sighting of 7:45am of his vehicle on Mon-11/8/10 is the first time confirmation we have had.. thank you!

Hiker John wrote: Once I began my hike, I neither saw nor heard anyone. I did catch sight of an occasional fresh bootprint heading my way, but those could have been anyone's from the weekend.

Thank you for this confirmation!

Hiker John wrote:I camped out that night at Windsor Saddle; very high winds and dropping temp's.

Thank you for this confirmation regarding high winds and dropping temp's. We have had various discussions regarding the possible weather conditions for Mon-11/8pm and have discussed various scenarios GPSjoe might have decided on, but your confirmation of the actual weather conditions for Mon-11/8pm is our first and only.. thank you!

Hiker John wrote:I doubt this information is of any use at this point, but I thought I'd put it out there anyway.

Your information is very helpful and much appreciated! Don't hesitate to post as you deem appropriate and

@Hiker John

Your info is more than helpful. :thanx:
@Grasshopper
Are there any dates set up for a trip? I have some free time and would like to spend a weekend (backpacking) the search area.

Water is in dwindling supply, but heat is not. Even on the MDT at 7000 ft, it is warm, and it gets more so if you start searching the drainages. I imagine any type of comfortable backpack trip would not take place until the summer heat starts to break.

If you do intend to go out there before then, please take precautions.

@nonot
Thats what I was kind of thinking. I bet those drainages are pretty warm this time of year. Might be moving to Colorado soon, and just wanted to get a last trip in before I leave. But then again, might not move.

scheduled to do Mt. Princeton CO tomorrow (weather permitting). gpsjoe did this one without me the year prior to my first CO experience. Needless to say it's bitter sweet this year. I look at all these 14ers Joe and I did and then last year had the threesome (Joe, Hank and I) doing Shavano, Atero and Mt. Elbert the hard way...
I will look for gpsjoe's sign in on Mt. Princeton and miss him dearly.

SUN_HIKER wrote:I will look for gpsjoe's sign in on Mt. Princeton and miss him dearly.

Good luck with the weather tomorrow http://hikearizona.com/photo.php?ZIP=155286 . I know this is all the good luck you need to summit another 14er. Hope you can get a pic of GPSjoe's summit log sign-in with date so we can link it to our HAZ- summit log label

Too bad that the summit log only contained the past couple of month. When I get home i'll check out the 14er website and see if there is a registry db of all the 14ers.

I hiked the Mt Peeley Summit trail on Saturday 8/27/2011 with a friend and saw the missing person flyer firmly attached to the notice board at the Peeley TH. It was laminated so it should be of use for some time. What I am about to write next is a bit hard to say, but in the interest of finding gpsjoe I will go ahead and say it, with the hope that nobody takes offense or finds it crude: We were standing on the summit of Mt Peeley looking toward Mt. Ord, and the wind was coming from that same direction (south east) and I caught the faint smell of something dead. I thought it was my imagination but my friend Jim had smelled it too. We decided to make a short search, so from there, I climbed down to a few small cliffs between 100 to 200 yards below the summit (sorry, no GPS track!) and made a loop across the SE face of the peak. I caught the smell twice more but it was not any stronger than before. The wind might have carried it a long way. This was at 10:00 am on 8/27/2011. I give this as a tiny piece of information that may possibly be useful in the overall search, with my apologies again to those who might find this hard to read.
--Dave (Woodsnative)