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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I was Googling to see if there was an update and came across Jonathan’s profile on All Trails. It says he’s completed the Hites Cove trail before. 
https://www.alltrails.com/members/jonathan-gerrish/completed[/quote]

That’s interesting. As I review his profile, I get the impression that he is familiar with that area. He completed the Hites Cove Trail four years ago. So if he’s been hiking this area for quite a while, it might have given him a false sense of security that it was okay to take his family out there. [/quote]

Hites Cove Trail is described as out and back on the same trail. Looks like he decided to go along the river and come up the switchback.[/quote]
He had lived in the area before moving to San Francisco and then back. As I recall there was no evidence that he’d previously hiked the Savage-Lundy portion, which makes a loop together with Hites Cove Trail. Along with others, I’m wondering if they started to have issues down at the river and figured Savage-Lundy was the better return option since it was shorter than doubling back. They may well not have known how shade-free and unforgiving it was after the fires. [/quote]

Is it more likely they would have made it back had they doubled back and done another, what, 5 miles? Or were they past the point of no return either way?[/quote]
I don’t think we know enough to say—we don’t even know for sure that they ended up trying doing the 8.5 mile loop instead of down and partway back on Savage-Lundy.  But if the dog or baby were in distress, I see wanting to go the shortest route back, plus carrying a big dog 5+ miles would not be easy.  Another thing I’ve read elsewhere is that the temperature readings for the day, while they were taken from only a couple miles away in El Portal, likely underestimated the heat they faced. I gather the measurement point in El Portal is shady and at a higher elevation, so cooler.  Given how terrible Savage-Lundy was, maybe they would have been better off sitting in the river for a few hours until the temps went down, but they may have been afraid to enter the water due to the algae warnings. They also wouldn’t have had enough water or food for that course, most likely. [/quote]

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