[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Bill Ewasko Found in 2022 - No wonder it took so long. (new map page 2) (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 8/5/2024 1:42:33 PM EDT
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***EDIT: These maps are wrong, correct location on page 2*** So this came up in another thread, but may deserve it's own. William Michael Ewasko, age 65, visiting from Marietta, Georgia, went on a day hike in Joshua Tree National Park (JTNP) on Thursday June 24, 2010. Bill Ewasko was an experienced hiker and had previously made trips to Joshua Tree. He was supposed to hike to Carey's Castle, but his car wasn't at the trailhead. His car was found at the Juniper Flats Trailhead and on his itinerary also listed Quail Mountain as one of the hikes he wanted to do. So the search was primarily around Quail Mountain and the surrounding area. The Search effort is chronicled here: https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/searching-for-bill-ewasko/ But after searching for 6 years, why was he never found by Tom Mahood? The guy who famously found the Death Valley Germans and a couple other missing hikers. Maybe this is why. The remains were found by hikers Tuesday near the Panorama Loop Trail in the northwestern part of the park. https://www.sfgate.com/california-parks/article/Human-remains-found-at-Joshua-Tree-16848051.php So where is this? I used MSpaint to hopefully shed light on the problem. Attached File This one is zoomed out a little more: Attached File So what happened? According to stuff I've read, he was a "map and compass" kind of guy, not a GPS person. And in 2009 smartphones were less common than they are now. I think he may have gotten turned around on Quail Mountain and started heading north through the flat areas. May have climbed into the panorama loop area to get cell service. The frustrating thing is this: He was only a couple miles south of Yucca Valley. He was probably still alive when the search for him began, but about 5 miles S/E of his current position. To put it in context, this is a possible route he me have taken in relation to how close he was to Yucca Valley Attached File |
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Quoted: It always surprises me that bones will be in the same spot in the wilderness 14 years later. I’d assume animals would have taken them away a little at a time over the years. Well we know that didn't happen in this case. His wallet complete with ID was found a short distance from his bones. The hikers who found him were able to tentatively ID the remains at the scene. |
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Maps and a compass and be very valuable...but they come with a lot of conditions. Depending on the type of map, it can be very hard to identify where you are. For example, if you only have a simple map without topography. A compass is great to point you in the right direction or to conduct intended navigation, but if you dont know where you are or where you traveled from....it is just a direction. Etc. Etc. I have done 100s of trail miles and a couple hundred off trail miles. I respect how easy it is to get lost. |
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Quoted: I have done 100s of trail miles and a couple hundred off trail miles. I respect how easy it is to get lost. Yep. It's easy to second-guess people after the fact, but getting lost happens fairly frequently and for a variety of reasons. Looking at maps of the area he was probably on trails most of the time, just headed in the wrong direction. |
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I found this image of searches. They were actually within a half mile of him back in 2011 but didn't go into the Panorama loop area. So close. Attached File Body found in the purple circle area. WITHIN the cell phone ping area. |
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Quoted: With drones being common these days I wonder if these types of searches are a thing of the past? In heavily forested areas? I doubt it. Open areas, like the DV Germans? Maybe. Certainly cheaper than a helicopter, but when it gets down to the point of looking for tiny pieces of personal belongings or even bones, I’d question the drone’s ability to locate such small items. |
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66 years old, lost in the desert in summer. Not a very good list of ingredients for things to turn out well. Granted, I'd have found this scenario far easier to understand if it was out in the Chuckwalla's near Desert Center than in Joshua Tree. Would've/should've/could've but it's unfortunate his route didn't take him closer to some of the more prominent climbing areas as he'd never be out of earshot of people with their crash pads. (JT was more fun when it was a monument, before it was a national park) |
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If he were a map and compass guy he'd have known he was going north/northwest. That's very odd. Makes one wonder if he had some type of medical event and just wandered. In that area, dead reckoning and land nav wouldn't be too hard with such distinct features. Looks like roughly 18 miles from the trailhead where he left his car to where he was found. 18 miles between life and death. Bummer. Attached File |
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Quoted: If he were a map and compass guy he'd have known he was going north/northwest. That's very odd. Makes one wonder if he had some type of medical event and just wandered. In that area, dead reckoning and land nav wouldn't be too hard with such distinct features. Looks like roughly 18 miles from the trailhead where he left his car to where he was found. 18 miles between life and death. Bummer. https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/82768/Screenshot_from_2024-08-06_14-16-41_png-3287437.JPG We don't know the exact route he took, but IF he had a map he probably would have been sticking to trails for the most part. I just saw a report today saying that he had a total of 2 bottles of water, 12oz each. 11 bottles in the car. He was 1/2 mile from being discovered where his remains were found. |
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Quoted: Always have a compass. Always know the heading to take if you get hopelessly lost that will get you to a road or river or powerline you can follow to safety. I think dehydration was causing him to behave irrationally. I'd also argue that GPS* with downloaded maps is MUCH more useful than a map and compass in most cases. *And sufficient battery life |
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Quoted: If he was a proficient map and compass guy, how did he get " turned around", unless he wasn't consulting his map and compass and was perhaps using terrain association and thought he knew where he was until he clearly wasn't The hills are deceptively similar due to the terrain. At least from all the pictures I've seen. Terrain association is harder than a lot of people think in highly varied terrain. |
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I've been out in the California Desert in the summertime. You can get dehydrated sitting still Humidity is down below what you can imagine Add in activity you really have to work at keeping up your water intake. Now, drink tons of water and you still don't need to pee. You sweat so much salt out next thing you know is that you start having your vision narrow and hearing decreasing. Mental sharpness goes. Congratulations your now a statistic |
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Quoted: They said he had a cell phone. I wonder if stinger type devices are appearing in the SAR world yet. Seems like if you could get it to ping and feed you back its GPS coordinates, you could drill down to their location pretty quickly. No service where he was for the majority of his hiking. IIRC the ping was 2-3 days after he went missing. He may have been already dead at that point. |
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It turns out that incorrect map info played a part in this. Two part video with analysis and conclusions. Part 1: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvrRytPRrIE Part 2: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2J9wsJb8P1Y Here is a Reddit thread that has conclusions: https://www.reddit.com/r/nonmurdermysteries/comments/110hfgd/how_did_bill_ewasko_get_lost_despite_a/ Many people go missing in national parks every year, but hiker Bill Ewasko's case was different. He had only planned on a day hike in Joshua Tree National Park, the topography between his goal and his car would barely allow him to get lost, and the only clue - a brief cell ping from his phone three days later - indicated he was still alive but inexplicably far from his car, in an area with little to no cell reception but fairly close to roads, trails and trailheads. Tom Mahood of Death Valley Germans fame, who was involved in the original search and rescue effort, was so puzzled that the original search did not find him that he set out to locate Ewasko's remains. Over the course of the next eight years he and others made 80 trips to Joshua Tree to search, with Mahood logging the search blogs on his website, along with FOIA documents, maps, and every possible resource that could be brought to bear. Despite that when the search was called off in 2018, the same year The New York Times profiled the case, the mystery was no closer to being solved. By accident, a group of hikers found Ewasko's remains in February 2022...not far from the area indicated by the cell phone ping, miles away from his car, but that had not been covered by the search because it was literally in sight of the main road. In April 2022, one of the searchers who helped Mahood visited the site and with Mahood's help recently made a two part video (part one and part two here), the length of a feature-length documentary, to try to resolve Ewasko's movements and the various theories about what happened in light of where he was eventually located. After covering what was found at the site and how it impacts the thinking about Ewasko's movements, it advances a new theory that suggests, among other things, that Ewasko was never injured as was previously thought but instead became lost because of incomplete maps of the area and then navigated for three days in the back country to various trailheads without finding help, before expiring just one mile from rescue. Though it never was a huge internet phenomenon, many people went down the rabbit hole of this case because of Mahood's extensive and well-written blogs on his website. Though Ewasko's remains were found, putting to rest some of the wilder theories of his disappearance, the basic oddities of the case and its timeline that caused those theories remained. Though the new video and theory attempt to answer them, without the discovery of more evidence, in the vastness of Joshua Tree National Park it will be difficult to ever know for certain. |
| I feel like this is a story that repeats itself. Confident experienced hiker found deep away in the woods dead. I think they get lost and that is where we find them. Their experience is only so good until the brain convinces you that you got this when you are way past in trouble and have no idea you crossed that bridge. He may thought he was one mile from a road. |
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Quoted: If he were a map and compass guy he'd have known he was going north/northwest. That's very odd. Makes one wonder if he had some type of medical event and just wandered. In that area, dead reckoning and land nav wouldn't be too hard with such distinct features. Looks like roughly 18 miles from the trailhead where he left his car to where he was found. 18 miles between life and death. Bummer. https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/82768/Screenshot_from_2024-08-06_14-16-41_png-3287437.JPG This... one main valley. Walk in the park. |
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In that blog, a lot of theories about where he might have gone were discussed. One of the more prominent ideas that guided the searches was the idea that he headed toward Smith Water Canyon in search of water. So just go past that. He made it to Smith Water Canyon, then looked at a map and thought where do I go from here? Heading out toward that campground would have looked like a good option. Would be interesting to know if there were indications of a broken bone or other injuries, if that would still even be possible to discern. ETA: I'll watch the videos 
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Quoted: In that blog, a lot of theories about where he might have gone were discussed. One of the more prominent ideas that guided the searches was the idea that he headed toward Smith Water Canyon in search of water. So just go past that. He made it to Smith Water Canyon, then looked at a map and thought where do I go from here? Heading out toward that campground would have looked like a good option. Would be interesting to know if there were indications of a broken bone or other injuries, if that would still even be possible to discern. Discussed in the Reddit thread I linked above by the guy who made the videos I linked. If he was injured, he would have needed hiking poles to be at the location he was found. Since there were no hiking poles, that is strong evidence he had no injuries. |
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Quoted: After covering what was found at the site and how it impacts the thinking about Ewasko's movements, it advances a new theory that suggests, among other things, that Ewasko was never injured as was previously thought but instead became lost because of incomplete maps of the area and then navigated for three days in the back country to various trailheads without finding help, before expiring just one mile from rescue. Why would you navigate to a trailhead and, because no one was physically present at that moment, go back into the woods and keep hiking rather than remain at the trailhead. That makes no sense at all. |
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Quoted: By accident, a group of hikers found Ewasko's remains in February 2022...not far from the area indicated by the cell phone ping, miles away from his car, but that had not been covered by the search because it was literally in sight of the main road. That really sucks. Since he was on trails most of the time before dying, I wonder why he didn't just sit or lay down in the middle of a trail once he got to the point he couldn't keep going. Seems like he went somewhere off the trail if it took over a decade for someone to find him. I've hiked a lot in VA and even in the most remote trails you'd probably see another person within 2 days at most. |
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Quoted: We don't know the exact route he took, but IF he had a map he probably would have been sticking to trails for the most part. I just saw a report today saying that he had a total of 2 bottles of water, 12oz each. 11 bottles in the car. He was 1/2 mile from being discovered where his remains were found. Quoted: Quoted: If he were a map and compass guy he'd have known he was going north/northwest. That's very odd. Makes one wonder if he had some type of medical event and just wandered. In that area, dead reckoning and land nav wouldn't be too hard with such distinct features. Looks like roughly 18 miles from the trailhead where he left his car to where he was found. 18 miles between life and death. Bummer. https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/82768/Screenshot_from_2024-08-06_14-16-41_png-3287437.JPG We don't know the exact route he took, but IF he had a map he probably would have been sticking to trails for the most part. I just saw a report today saying that he had a total of 2 bottles of water, 12oz each. 11 bottles in the car. He was 1/2 mile from being discovered where his remains were found. That’s really odd if he was an experienced hiker and went that far with just 24 ounces of water. I’ve been to Joshua Tree many times and would never consider that. I’d guess he didn’t have a compass with him and got turned around. |
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Quoted: That’s really odd if he was an experienced hiker and went that far with just 24 ounces of water. I’ve been to Joshua Tree many times and would never consider that. I’d guess he didn’t have a compass with him and got turned around. Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: If he were a map and compass guy he'd have known he was going north/northwest. That's very odd. Makes one wonder if he had some type of medical event and just wandered. In that area, dead reckoning and land nav wouldn't be too hard with such distinct features. Looks like roughly 18 miles from the trailhead where he left his car to where he was found. 18 miles between life and death. Bummer. https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/82768/Screenshot_from_2024-08-06_14-16-41_png-3287437.JPG We don't know the exact route he took, but IF he had a map he probably would have been sticking to trails for the most part. I just saw a report today saying that he had a total of 2 bottles of water, 12oz each. 11 bottles in the car. He was 1/2 mile from being discovered where his remains were found. That’s really odd if he was an experienced hiker and went that far with just 24 ounces of water. I’ve been to Joshua Tree many times and would never consider that. I’d guess he didn’t have a compass with him and got turned around. Gotta watch videos. He had 2/3 liters of water in a Camelback with him. The 2 12 oz bottles were his emergency reserve. One plastic bottle was found at his final location where he perished. |
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Quoted: In heavily forested areas? I doubt it. Open areas, like the DV Germans? Maybe. Certainly cheaper than a helicopter, but when it gets down to the point of looking for tiny pieces of personal belongings or even bones, I'd question the drone's ability to locate such small items. Quoted: Quoted: With drones being common these days I wonder if these types of searches are a thing of the past? In heavily forested areas? I doubt it. Open areas, like the DV Germans? Maybe. Certainly cheaper than a helicopter, but when it gets down to the point of looking for tiny pieces of personal belongings or even bones, I'd question the drone's ability to locate such small items. ETA: Drones and Bones ETA2: Forgot his server doesn't like external links. Navigate to www.otherhand.org and choose "Drones" at the top. |
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Just speculation, but even experienced people can panic when they realize they’re lost, low on water and they’re baking in the sun. That could explain the long detour. Always carry comms, and a fire starter. You don’t have to load yourself down but bring more gear than you need. Bring a headlamp even if you’re just doing a “day” hike. Find or make shade when the sun’s up. Only move at night if you need to move. Stay where you are and start a freaking brush fire. Burn things that make dark smoke during the day. |
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Quoted: Gotta watch videos. He had 2/3 liters of water in a Camelback with him. The 2 12 oz bottles were his emergency reserve. One plastic bottle was found at his final location where he perished. Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: If he were a map and compass guy he'd have known he was going north/northwest. That's very odd. Makes one wonder if he had some type of medical event and just wandered. In that area, dead reckoning and land nav wouldn't be too hard with such distinct features. Looks like roughly 18 miles from the trailhead where he left his car to where he was found. 18 miles between life and death. Bummer. https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/82768/Screenshot_from_2024-08-06_14-16-41_png-3287437.JPG We don't know the exact route he took, but IF he had a map he probably would have been sticking to trails for the most part. I just saw a report today saying that he had a total of 2 bottles of water, 12oz each. 11 bottles in the car. He was 1/2 mile from being discovered where his remains were found. That’s really odd if he was an experienced hiker and went that far with just 24 ounces of water. I’ve been to Joshua Tree many times and would never consider that. I’d guess he didn’t have a compass with him and got turned around. Gotta watch videos. He had 2/3 liters of water in a Camelback with him. The 2 12 oz bottles were his emergency reserve. One plastic bottle was found at his final location where he perished. Got it, my point still stands though. That amount of water would make sense for a day hike, but If the 18 miles quoted is accurate, that’s not a day hike. Getting lost seems the most likely scenario. |
| People have died from dehydration and exposure on the hike from the parking lot to Amboy Crater, which is regionally proximal to JOTR. And that hike is like a mile and change tops one way, with the destination and parking lot in sight at all times. The desert will straight up fuck you if you’re not prepared. |
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Quoted: So this came up in another thread, but may deserve it's own. William Michael Ewasko, age 65, visiting from Marietta, Georgia, went on a day hike in Joshua Tree National Park (JTNP) on Thursday June 24, 2010. Bill Ewasko was an experienced hiker and had previously made trips to Joshua Tree. He was supposed to hike to Carey's Castle, but his car wasn't at the trailhead. His car was found at the Juniper Flats Trailhead and on his itinerary also listed Quail Mountain as one of the hikes he wanted to do. So the search was primarily around Quail Mountain and the surrounding area. The Search effort is chronicled here: https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/searching-for-bill-ewasko/ But after searching for 6 years, why was he never found by Tom Mahood? The guy who famously found the Death Valley Germans and a couple other missing hikers. Maybe this is why. The remains were found by hikers Tuesday near the Panorama Loop Trail in the northwestern part of the park. https://www.sfgate.com/california-parks/article/Human-remains-found-at-Joshua-Tree-16848051.php So where is this? I used MSpaint to hopefully shed light on the problem. https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/144375/Bill_Ewasko_1_png-3286453.JPG This one is zoomed out a little more: https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/144375/Bill_Ewasko_2_png-3286467.JPG So what happened? According to stuff I've read, he was a "map and compass" kind of guy, not a GPS person. And in 2009 smartphones were less common than they are now. I think he may have gotten turned around on Quail Mountain and started heading north through the flat areas. May have climbed into the panorama loop area to get cell service. The frustrating thing is this: He was only a couple miles south of Yucca Valley. He was probably still alive when the search for him began, but about 5 miles S/E of his current position. To put it in context, this is a possible route he me have taken in relation to how close he was to Yucca Valley https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/144375/Ewasko_3_png-3286478.JPG |
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Wow!!! What a deep dive!!! A few points from videos: 1. It seems he literally died with a map in his hand. 2. He had hiking poles but was likely not injured due to the difficult terrain he was in. 3. The discussion about the omission of a major jeep trail and the inclusion of trails on the map that didn't actually exist at the time was very interesting. I made my living in GIS as a professional map maker so it was especially meaningful to me. 4. In old timey days of the 80s I spent an enormous amount of time learning all the dirt trails in Big Bear/Holcomb Valley/Pioneer Town/Yucca Valley an a very small trail bike with just a forest service map as a resource. I never had any problems, but I was good with maps and there were no other resources at the time. If I was to do it today I would have enormously more resources. I remember in 2001 I borrowed a GPS from the community college I was learning GIS and brought it up to Big Bear to mark GPS points for the first time in my life. |
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Quoted: Got it, my point still stands though. That amount of water would make sense for a day hike, but If the 18 miles quoted is accurate, that’s not a day hike. Getting lost seems the most likely scenario. Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: If he were a map and compass guy he'd have known he was going north/northwest. That's very odd. Makes one wonder if he had some type of medical event and just wandered. In that area, dead reckoning and land nav wouldn't be too hard with such distinct features. Looks like roughly 18 miles from the trailhead where he left his car to where he was found. 18 miles between life and death. Bummer. https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/82768/Screenshot_from_2024-08-06_14-16-41_png-3287437.JPG We don't know the exact route he took, but IF he had a map he probably would have been sticking to trails for the most part. I just saw a report today saying that he had a total of 2 bottles of water, 12oz each. 11 bottles in the car. He was 1/2 mile from being discovered where his remains were found. That’s really odd if he was an experienced hiker and went that far with just 24 ounces of water. I’ve been to Joshua Tree many times and would never consider that. I’d guess he didn’t have a compass with him and got turned around. Gotta watch videos. He had 2/3 liters of water in a Camelback with him. The 2 12 oz bottles were his emergency reserve. One plastic bottle was found at his final location where he perished. Got it, my point still stands though. That amount of water would make sense for a day hike, but If the 18 miles quoted is accurate, that’s not a day hike. Getting lost seems the most likely scenario. He was only planning a day hike. He was betting his life on the maps available at the time with lots of omissions and inaccurate information that the videos thoroughly document. |
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everyone who dies hiking is "an experienced hiker" no one ever got lost and died hiking in moms basement. I'll say here where there is hot pockets. also.... best case if he went straight to his presumed destination and came back. that's a 10 mile hike alone in the desert up a mountain, June isnt that hottest month but not winter either. and he took 24 oz of water? I take more than that going to church in the morning. Darwin won. |
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Quoted: The hills are deceptively similar due to the terrain. At least from all the pictures I've seen. Terrain association is harder than a lot of people think in highly varied terrain. Not every map looks like the Tenino map with towers, church steeples and railway cuts. |
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Quoted: everyone who dies hiking is "an experienced hiker" no one ever got lost and died hiking in moms basement. Exactly. When's the last time a sheriff's officer said "Yeah, that guy didn't know what the hell he was doing, and died because of it"? Never.... Actual experienced hikers aren't going to start hiking out into that desert at 10:30 am in the middle of summer. That's a dumbass newbie move. |
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Quoted: It turns out that incorrect map info played a part in this. Two part video with analysis and conclusions. Part 1: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvrRytPRrIE Part 2: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2J9wsJb8P1Y Here is a Reddit thread that has conclusions: https://www.reddit.com/r/nonmurdermysteries/comments/110hfgd/how_did_bill_ewasko_get_lost_despite_a/ Many people go missing in national parks every year, but hiker Bill Ewasko's case was different. He had only planned on a day hike in Joshua Tree National Park, the topography between his goal and his car would barely allow him to get lost, and the only clue - a brief cell ping from his phone three days later - indicated he was still alive but inexplicably far from his car, in an area with little to no cell reception but fairly close to roads, trails and trailheads. Tom Mahood of Death Valley Germans fame, who was involved in the original search and rescue effort, was so puzzled that the original search did not find him that he set out to locate Ewasko's remains. Over the course of the next eight years he and others made 80 trips to Joshua Tree to search, with Mahood logging the search blogs on his website, along with FOIA documents, maps, and every possible resource that could be brought to bear. Despite that when the search was called off in 2018, the same year The New York Times profiled the case, the mystery was no closer to being solved. By accident, a group of hikers found Ewasko's remains in February 2022...not far from the area indicated by the cell phone ping, miles away from his car, but that had not been covered by the search because it was literally in sight of the main road. In April 2022, one of the searchers who helped Mahood visited the site and with Mahood's help recently made a two part video (part one and part two here), the length of a feature-length documentary, to try to resolve Ewasko's movements and the various theories about what happened in light of where he was eventually located. After covering what was found at the site and how it impacts the thinking about Ewasko's movements, it advances a new theory that suggests, among other things, that Ewasko was never injured as was previously thought but instead became lost because of incomplete maps of the area and then navigated for three days in the back country to various trailheads without finding help, before expiring just one mile from rescue. Though it never was a huge internet phenomenon, many people went down the rabbit hole of this case because of Mahood's extensive and well-written blogs on his website. Though Ewasko's remains were found, putting to rest some of the wilder theories of his disappearance, the basic oddities of the case and its timeline that caused those theories remained. Though the new video and theory attempt to answer them, without the discovery of more evidence, in the vastness of Joshua Tree National Park it will be difficult to ever know for certain. Quoted: It turns out that incorrect map info played a part in this. Two part video with analysis and conclusions. Part 1: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvrRytPRrIE Part 2: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2J9wsJb8P1Y Here is a Reddit thread that has conclusions: https://www.reddit.com/r/nonmurdermysteries/comments/110hfgd/how_did_bill_ewasko_get_lost_despite_a/ Many people go missing in national parks every year, but hiker Bill Ewasko's case was different. He had only planned on a day hike in Joshua Tree National Park, the topography between his goal and his car would barely allow him to get lost, and the only clue - a brief cell ping from his phone three days later - indicated he was still alive but inexplicably far from his car, in an area with little to no cell reception but fairly close to roads, trails and trailheads. Tom Mahood of Death Valley Germans fame, who was involved in the original search and rescue effort, was so puzzled that the original search did not find him that he set out to locate Ewasko's remains. Over the course of the next eight years he and others made 80 trips to Joshua Tree to search, with Mahood logging the search blogs on his website, along with FOIA documents, maps, and every possible resource that could be brought to bear. Despite that when the search was called off in 2018, the same year The New York Times profiled the case, the mystery was no closer to being solved. By accident, a group of hikers found Ewasko's remains in February 2022...not far from the area indicated by the cell phone ping, miles away from his car, but that had not been covered by the search because it was literally in sight of the main road. In April 2022, one of the searchers who helped Mahood visited the site and with Mahood's help recently made a two part video (part one and part two here), the length of a feature-length documentary, to try to resolve Ewasko's movements and the various theories about what happened in light of where he was eventually located. After covering what was found at the site and how it impacts the thinking about Ewasko's movements, it advances a new theory that suggests, among other things, that Ewasko was never injured as was previously thought but instead became lost because of incomplete maps of the area and then navigated for three days in the back country to various trailheads without finding help, before expiring just one mile from rescue. Though it never was a huge internet phenomenon, many people went down the rabbit hole of this case because of Mahood's extensive and well-written blogs on his website. Though Ewasko's remains were found, putting to rest some of the wilder theories of his disappearance, the basic oddities of the case and its timeline that caused those theories remained. Though the new video and theory attempt to answer them, without the discovery of more evidence, in the vastness of Joshua Tree National Park it will be difficult to ever know for certain. He's got more after those two videos:  Bill Ewasko update (2 of 2) - Refinements & Alternates His theory makes a lot of logical sense, in that a minor error in getting onto the wrong trail ends up with him, well, where he ended up. Puts the cell phone ping in the right place at the right time and explains how he got there. A comment from another hiker on an earlier video that made a similar error on that exact location offers an even easier explanation for how he could have gone down the wrong trail. The issues with the maps of the correct vintage makes a lot of sense and is reminiscent of the Germans as well, in that their old map showed a road that had been closed. Quoted: Why would you navigate to a trailhead and, because no one was physically present at that moment, go back into the woods and keep hiking rather than remain at the trailhead. That makes no sense at all. The theory advanced in the videos has Ewasko staying overnight at a trailhead on friday night, and departing probably midday on saturday. Looking at the maps that they believed Ewasko had makes it easy to see why someone would have chosen the route that put him in the location where his remains were ultimately found. |
| Weird. I grew up in Yucca and hiked and hunted "not by the park land but up by the blm land by Pioneer town" all around the area and never had a problem telling what direction everything was. You can see San Gorgonio Mountain and San Jacinto Mountain peak from most places around there, making it easy to triangulate directions visually. Based on where he was he might have had to climb up a hill to see Jacinto. |
