[Rockhounds] Day hikers are the most vulnerable in survival situations.

[linda at middleearthminerals.com]

Wow that's quite a story.  I couldn't stop reading...

-----Original Message-----
From: Rockhounds <rockhounds-bounces at rockhounds.drizzle.com> On Behalf Of J Bryan Kramer
Sent: Thursday, January 21, 2021 8:19 PM
To: Rockhounds at drizzle.com: A mailing list for rock and gem collectors <rockhounds at rockhounds.drizzle.com>
Subject: Re: [Rockhounds] Day hikers are the most vulnerable in survival situations.

I just read a long but captivating account of the Death Valley Germans and the search for what happened to them. This was a party of four, a man his girlfriend and their two boys. They drove a minivan up a high clearance 4X4 road surprisingly far trying to cross the mountains and get to Hwy395 so they could get to Yosemite. Unknown to them this road and the pass are rated as the most difficult in the park by four wheelers.

Very stupid plan but obviously Germans have zero experience of deadly conditions in DV in July. 120 degrees in the valley. Their car eventually broke down and even tho they had visited a rescue cabin that was stocked with food and had a flowing spring next to it, they did not walk the three miles back to the cabin.
No they took off directly south, this was in the south west corner of the park. That park is the largest of any in the lower 48 and bigger than some states. The theory is that they saw China Lake Naval Station on their map and thought they could get help there. They vanished into the wilderness despite hundreds of searchers looking for them. This link is by a fellow who doggedly searched for them for over a year before finally finding them:

<
https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hunt-for-the-death-valley-germans/
>

BK

““There exists a law…inborn of our hearts…by natural intuition. … If our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies, any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right.””
Cicero

J Bryan Krämer       North Florida, USA
photos at: http://pbase.com/photoburner


On Thu, Jan 21, 2021 at 9:53 PM Paul <etchplain at att.net> wrote:

> Below are a couple articles offering advice  fossil and rock 
> collectors, who bushwhack off-road and into the wilds in pursuit of 
> rocks, fossils, and minerals.
>
> Day hikers are the most vulnerable in survival situations. Here's why.
> A new study looks at who lives and who dies when lost in the wild.
> By Jayne Moye, National Geographic, 2019
>
> https://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/2019/04/hikers-survival-t
> ips.html
>
> Safe and Found, George Brown, SmokyMountainsCom 
> https://smokymountains.com/safe-and-found/
>
> Yours,
>
> Paul H.
>
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