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HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
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Has anyone checked with the staff at Red's Meadow hot springs? (near Devil's Postpile)
EDIT: It's hard to see why Matt would have gone there on his last trip (with ice axe and crampons) but perhaps he had gone earlier, or perhaps he caught a ride with staff.
Checking there is rather a long shot but easily done.
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Todd Quinn
Trad climber
Oceanside, CA
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I have the next few days off, so I'm leaving for Mammoth in the morning. Not sure what the availability is on Shady Rest Campground? but I would like to stay there and hike from the campground to Agnew Meadows trailhead. I can also refresh the flyers and post more. I'll have my crash pad and bike. If you want to join me, please message me.
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SplitPants
Social climber
LA
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Todd,
Would be great if you can post flyers. Do you have the initial one that was posted? I also have another one Ron sent me that also has Spanish. Please PM me.....thx
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LAhiker
Social climber
Los Angeles
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Cragman,
Ouch -- hope you can get more antibiotics soon! If you can't, in addition to elevation, icing or moist heat (i.e., hot compresses) can help your body fight the infection. (Also, according to Euell Gibbons, a hot poultice of the skins of overripe bananas, which have antiseptic, antibiotic, and emollient properties. But it's hard to make such a poultice if you're out of town...)
I had a question for you and others familiar with the area. Not trying to argue, just trying to narrow things down.
Cragman:
Matt going to Blue Couloir or any objective in the Mammoth Crest/Lakes Basin area does not add up with him taking his boots, crampons and axe...those areas are melted out this year.
We are on two years of drought winters....the snow has been gone for quite some time.
So, just to confirm, in mid-July this summer there would have been no appreciable snow anywhere on the Mammoth Crest? Is Matt likely to have known this? For instance, would he have seen large swathes of the Mammoth Crest when he climbed Crystal Crag on 6/29 and when he hiked from Emerald Lake to Mammoth Crest on 7/7? I suspect that a lot of the Mammoth Crest is visible from that climb and hike, but I'm not familiar with the area so I don't know.
(The climb and the hike were both with Jill and John. Matt also went to the Mammoth Crest area on 7/12 but he was alone and we don't know where he went.)
Conversely, are there any tempting places with snow -- whether in the Mammoth Crest or elsewhere -- that he might have seen on the 6/29 climb or the 7/7 hike? (Jill and John would probably also know about this...)
Thanks!
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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Hiked up toward blue crag yesterday...very little if any snow up there..Not even worth taking ice ax , crampons like Cragman mentioned earlier....
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kenish
Gym climber
Orange County, CA
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@LA Hiker- I was at Lake Mary and Lake George on Aug. 17 I walked around and took lots of photos by pure coincidence. I've reviewed the ones of Mammoth Crest and the area was snow-free.
mammothtrails.org reported Mammoth Crest trail was "clear and in great shape" on July 25. Since the trail is popular with casual hikers, I'd assume they meant completely clear of snow.
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LAhiker
Social climber
Los Angeles
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Thanks, RJ and Kenish!
I was just trying to figure out (1) whether there had been snow on the Mammoth Crest in mid-July and (2) if not, whether Matt would have known there wasn't.
Based on what your reports, it sounds like there wouldn't have been appreciable snow in the Mammoth Crest area at that point, and that Matt probably would have known that, from his 6/29 Crystal Crag climb and his 7/7 hike to Mammoth Crest (if not from other sources).
More generally, I'm wondering whether there were any objectives with snow on July 17th that would have been within a reasonable day hike from Shady Rest...
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2 l l
Sport climber
Rancho Verga, CA
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I can confirm Bloody Coulior is dry. No snow or ice in there. I saw from a good angle today.
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ß Î Ø T Ç H
Boulder climber
extraordinaire
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Taken this evening >>
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tdg119
Social climber
Northampton, PA
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Hi - I recieved another offline PM from a person in the area:
I know this comes a little late in the search, but as someone who sees travels to and from the town of Mammoth a lot, I recall seeing a younger man wearing a hat and glasses hitchhiking out of Mammoth sometime in July. It has bothered me that I didn't say anything but I was worried that this person was probably not Matthew and would have diverted your searches. I don't recall anything else about him (pack, hat color, eye color, etc...) but I thought I would share.
Also, it seems to me like the search is focused primarily in the Ritter/Banner and Minerets area, which is where the clues seem to lead. If he was ice climbing/mountaineering, should you expand the search to other prominent summer ice areas (North Peak, Dana Couloir, Conness Glacier)
When we hiked Conness the other day we watched a small rockfall come down and across the glacier there. It got me thinking that even if the terrain weren't particularly challenging, with glaciers receding it would causes new potential rock falls. Wherever you search, be safe out there and good luck. Will continue to keep my eyes out.
~Ron
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crankster
Trad climber
South Lake Tahoe, CA
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We found his Yarts bus schedule which was very worn. Obviously he used it in prior days but didn't have it with him on the 17th. So that led us to believe he didn't go to Toulomne?????
We doubt he would do Dana twice, it's not like him to repeat climbs.
^^^^ From his climbing partners Jill & John. It's certainly possible he had a pre-arranged ride to Tuolumne, however. I don't see him hitchhiking in the pre-dawn hours.
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tdg119
Social climber
Northampton, PA
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agree. A prearranged ride fits. He wakes up…turns his phone on to see if the ride called/calls him. ~ron
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WBraun
climber
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Have you people subpoena all his wireless phone records yet?
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crankster
Trad climber
South Lake Tahoe, CA
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He would not solo the North Peak Couloir, from what Jill said. Even though she doesn't think he'd climb the Dana Couloir again, he did mention it had the best snow/ice he'd seen and it is something he would solo (pretty sure he already had) and might not bring a helmet.
It's a well-traveled area, however. I would rate this scenario 2nd to the Ritter Range scenario in likelihood.
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scooter
climber
fist clamp
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Red Slate is the July ice climbing target in that area, more so than anything else. I don't think I have read anyone mentioning that spot.
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Stimbo
Trad climber
Crowley Lake
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How about this scenario:
Matt went into the backcountry to retrieve his mountaineering boots and ice axe that he had previously cached from one of his earlier climbs. When he first arrived, after his car broke down, he could have taken his ice climbing equipment into an area not knowing the current conditions. Once he was back there and saw the lack of snow and ice, he may have hidden his boots and axe, then bagged a summit in his tennis shoes (or whatever) and then with the lateness of day, sprinted back to Mammoth to avoid a bivy. When word came that his Subaru was ready for pickup, he wanted to return to the base of the route to retrieve his stashed gear. This would explain his leaving his helmet behind.
To test this hypothesis, and I apologize if something like this has been posted already, all of his recent ascents would need to be revisited. In particular, the base of snow/ice routes where he might have stashed his gear.
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HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
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I've been re-thinking the possibility that Matt headed for the Tioga Pass area.
Unfortunately the ONLY connections between YARTS and the Yosemite Tioga Road shuttle bus are at Tuolumne Meadows store and lodge and these are the only YARTS' stops west of the Mobile station on 395.
Public transit doesn't get Matt within reasonable walking distance of any Yosemite summer snow/ice climbs which are all in the Tioga Pass area.
Rant:
What ARE YARTS (private bus) and Yosemite thinking to not have any stops at Tioga Pass?
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LAhiker
Social climber
Los Angeles
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WBraun -- the family has Matt's cell phone records -- he received no calls on the morning of July 17th, but when he turned on the phone at 2:53am (which apparently was very uncharacteristic of him) he received a text from the night before from someone in Pennsylvania.
It's possible that he was checking his phone for the absence of a call -- that he had an early-morning ride lined up and that things were left that his ride would call him during the night if there was a problem.
It's also conceivable, though much less likely, that the driver was going to call him to confirm the ride and that -- not having received a confirmation -- he got ready and started walking...
Finally, of course Matt's turning on his phone at that hour could have had nothing to do with a ride -- he could even have gone back to sleep when he turned it off.
What I don't think the family has been able to gain access to yet is Matt's email accounts.
Stimbo -- interesting, but I think unlikely. For one thing, even if Matt had stashed his snow-related equipment temporarily, why wouldn't he have picked it up on the way back to town? Also, he had been in the area since June 28th and had had days on rock and days on snow, so he probably had an good idea of what areas had snow or not. For future reference, here's a timeline of his climbs, assembled by SplitPants:
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=2195321&msg=2213723#msg2213723
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SplitPants
Social climber
LA
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he received no calls on the morning of July 17th, but when he turned on the phone at 2:53am (which apparently was very uncharacteristic of him) he received a text from the night before from someone in Pennsylvania.
It's possible that he was checking his phone for the absence of a call -- that he had an early-morning ride lined up and that things were left that his ride would call him during the night if there was a problem.
(Of course it's also conceivable, though much less likely, that the driver was going to call him to confirm the ride and that -- not having received a confirmation -- he got ready and started walking somewhere...) -------
The 2:53 AM text message has been mentioned a lot. So I will add some of my thoughts to this:
-If someone sends a text message to a person and their cell phone happens to be turned off then the text message goes into what I call limbo/pending status.
-When the intended recipient turns their cell phone on, the system then recognizes the pending text recipient's cell phone is on and sends along the text message. So in summary I could send my husband a text message at 10am, his phone is turned off, he turns on the phone at 1pm and the text message appears. Records will show text message received at 1:00.
-So the person from PA could have sent the text much earlier in the evening when Matt's phone was off after 8pm.
-I looked at all of Matt's pictures multiple times and I did not see him wearing a watch. I don't wear a watch and use my cell phone to tell the time.
-The campground was noisy (I believe Matt complained about this)
-Late night noise woke Matt up, he rolled over to power on his phone to see what time it was
-Text message shows up (the text that could have been sent hours earlier-after Matt had shut his phone off to go to sleep) and now shows as a text received at 2:53)
In looking back at Matt's climbs and the timing of previous calls/messages I am not seeing where Matt got up super early. He had been in town since the 28th of June and to the best of my understanding he was a heavy user of the public transportation options available (perhaps Jill can chime in).
Then again, he could have had a pre-planned ride, hitch hiked etc....
I am just looking at the most simple explanation based on his previous days, noisy campground and no watch (at least not that I am aware of).
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