What happened to this California family?

[Anonymous]

Could this be the path they were on? At the beginning you can see switchbacks and I can kind of correlate some parts to the map. I believe this was made before the fires.

[Anonymous]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RkbKeYbgOM

[Anonymous]

I've seen several posts questioning why the couple were even hiking. After watching some of these videos, I want to get out there.

Also for everyone going on about the trail being closed, have no doubt a lot of looky loos are heading out there to poke around. People who have no business being out on that trail are probably trying to get some info. This story is big internationally.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Could this be the path they were on? At the beginning you can see switchbacks and I can kind of correlate some parts to the map. I believe this was made before the fires.

I believe that is still the trail off of Highway 140 and not the trail involved in this story.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From Webleuths:

As an Incident Commander said during an Incident Team meeting for fighting the Ferguson Fire in 2018, “You may know that some of the peaks and gulches in this area have “Devil” in their name. There is a reason for that; the terrain is incredibly rugged and steep.”

Sleuth poster: Here is a video of a hiker doing the Hite Cove trail:

Adding this extra link because additional videos.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuo8jSRPfwKkTvhP1WVtH6g

Another sleuth' response to video:

Great find. There's actually more than one video there.
Totally the wrong trail to be on in summer. Not at all a trail for beginners. Catastrophic for an unleashed dog (they'd head straight down one of those steeps to the river).

Umm yeah, that looks like a pretty typical california hike so not sure what the point is here. People who think that is extreme must not be hikers.

Agree. I was envisioning not a cut trail, but a very rough barely-there trail with boulders you had to climb over and that sort of thing. This doesn't seem bad at all - although I wouldn't do it in 109degree weather.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Going for a recreational hike anywhere when it's 95+ outside is not a good idea. Look at all the people they have to rescue from bill goat trail near the Potomac every year.

95+ here with humidity is 1000x worse than 105+ with no humidity.

Except that, as has been posted multiple times on this thread, it was unusually humid as well as unusually hot when they set out on 8/15. The relative humidity was 47% at 8:00 am that day. By 11:00 am it was 99 degrees and 22% relative humidity. The lowest humidity point during the day, at 3:00 pm was 16%, when it was 109. Absolutely miserable, beastly weather anyway you slice it.

Huh? That’s is a dry heat.

https://www.weather.gov/epz/wxcalc_heatindex

99 & 22% feels like 96.9
109 & 16% feels like 107.3

Or maybe even less according to this chart:

I mean it's only "Extreme Caution" or "Danger" ... practically a cool spring day.

The point was dry heat is better than swampy DC humidity, which is what the graph shows. The air temp actually feels COOLER with low humidity.

I was the one who posted the humidity numbers, and the graph supports the point I was making, which is that the weather this family faced was not a bearable dry heat that so many people on here are speaking of. To use PP's example of a 95 degree day in August in DC, given that the average afternoon humidity here is 55%, that is going to feel like a beastly 110 degrees if you look at the chart. The high temperature this family faced, 109 degrees and 16% humidity, is going to feel like a beastly 108 degrees. Had it been low-humidity day, that 109 degrees might feel as pleasant as a (still not very pleasant) 99 degrees.

Basically, I think anyone who says that the temperatures they faced were not so bad because it was a dry heat are wrong anyway you slice it.

There wasn't very low humidity that day, but it was fairly low. It felt cooler than it the air temp because it was relatively low.

Anyway, back to my point: "95+ here with humidity is 1000x worse than 105+ with no humidity."

95 @ 55% - feels like 108.9
105 @ 3% - feels like 98

Plus here you're all sweaty and nasty because the air is too humid to evaporate the sweat. So disgusting.

Whether it was "feels like" 108.9 or "feels like" 98 it was damn hot. Plenty hot enough for a baby and dog to get heatstroke at least and plenty hot enough for an adult to get heatstroke too if they were exerting themselves a lot by trying to care for and carry/hike with the baby and dog. Plus none of them were likely drinking enough water if they truly did intend to go on a 8.5 mile hike and truly only had 3L of water for the 4 of them.

Reading comprehension issues?

[Anonymous]

To help with the trail confusion here are some links to Google Maps.

Trailhead for the Hite Cove Trail - this trail is not one of the trails reportedly used by the family:
https://goo.gl/maps/Lp8r137NjiaVC3Tj9

Trailhead for the Hites Cove Trail - this trail is one of the two trails, along with the Savage-Lundy Trail, that the family was reportedly on:
https://goo.gl/maps/aeCe8wWYMpR7NbzU9

Hope this helps.

[Anonymous]

Did anyone else read the article today in the NYTimes? I was about the mystery surrounding the deaths, and odd to me because it did not mention heat/heat exhaustion as a possible cause of death (while mentioning a lot of other possibilities).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To help with the trail confusion here are some links to Google Maps.

Trailhead for the Hite Cove Trail - this trail is not one of the trails reportedly used by the family:
https://goo.gl/maps/Lp8r137NjiaVC3Tj9

Trailhead for the Hites Cove Trail - this trail is one of the two trails, along with the Savage-Lundy Trail, that the family was reportedly on:
https://goo.gl/maps/aeCe8wWYMpR7NbzU9

Hope this helps.

Need to correct my last post. This is a more accurate link to the Hites Cove trailhead. Although not marked on the map if you zoom in on satellite view you can see the trail leave to the left of the dirt road.

https://goo.gl/maps/WihNR6RE2SbHc8Xb6

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To help with the trail confusion here are some links to Google Maps.

Trailhead for the Hite Cove Trail - this trail is not one of the trails reportedly used by the family:
https://goo.gl/maps/Lp8r137NjiaVC3Tj9

Trailhead for the Hites Cove Trail - this trail is one of the two trails, along with the Savage-Lundy Trail, that the family was reportedly on:
https://goo.gl/maps/aeCe8wWYMpR7NbzU9

Hope this helps.

So there is no way the family meant to take the easier Hite Cove trail but made a mistake?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To help with the trail confusion here are some links to Google Maps.

Trailhead for the Hite Cove Trail - this trail is not one of the trails reportedly used by the family:
https://goo.gl/maps/Lp8r137NjiaVC3Tj9

Trailhead for the Hites Cove Trail - this trail is one of the two trails, along with the Savage-Lundy Trail, that the family was reportedly on:
https://goo.gl/maps/aeCe8wWYMpR7NbzU9

Hope this helps.

So there is no way the family meant to take the easier Hite Cove trail but made a mistake?

No. If you looked at the links they are miles and miles apart.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did anyone else read the article today in the NYTimes? I was about the mystery surrounding the deaths, and odd to me because it did not mention heat/heat exhaustion as a possible cause of death (while mentioning a lot of other possibilities).

Yes. Because the deaths are obviously not heat-related. But this is DCUM, where we just cannot stop blaming the victims for poor decision-making aka bad parenting. It's what we do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Could this be the path they were on? At the beginning you can see switchbacks and I can kind of correlate some parts to the map. I believe this was made before the fires.

I believe that is still the trail off of Highway 140 and not the trail involved in this story.

It looks more like the trails near Jerseydale.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To help with the trail confusion here are some links to Google Maps.

Trailhead for the Hite Cove Trail - this trail is not one of the trails reportedly used by the family:
https://goo.gl/maps/Lp8r137NjiaVC3Tj9

Trailhead for the Hites Cove Trail - this trail is one of the two trails, along with the Savage-Lundy Trail, that the family was reportedly on:
https://goo.gl/maps/aeCe8wWYMpR7NbzU9

Hope this helps.

Need to correct my last post. This is a more accurate link to the Hites Cove trailhead. Although not marked on the map if you zoom in on satellite view you can see the trail leave to the left of the dirt road.

https://goo.gl/maps/WihNR6RE2SbHc8Xb6

So where would their car have been on this map? It was reported that they were found near Devil's Gulch but only 1.5 miles from their car. That doesn't make sense from the map. Their car would have been on the left side of that map.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Could this be the path they were on? At the beginning you can see switchbacks and I can kind of correlate some parts to the map. I believe this was made before the fires.

I believe that is still the trail off of Highway 140 and not the trail involved in this story.

It looks more like the trails near Jerseydale.

This is his description of the flight: "A flight to the Hite Cove area and along the South Fork Merced River, then back up the hill to the Highway 140, Merced River, and Yosemite Cedar Lodge area. Filmed by a DJI Mavic Pro."
To me this sounds like the Hite Cove Trail that originates off !40.