RMRU rescues Tahquitz climbers in dangerous conditions

Riverside Mountain Rescue Unit (RMRU) pulled two climbers off the face of Tahquitz Rock during what Lee Arnson called “brutal conditions.” What began as a textbook rescue on a beautiful Sunday, Dec. 7 night quickly deteriorated “into a full blown technical over the side mission with weather as dangerous as it gets,” as described by Arnson.

Two 23-year-old climbers from Santa Cruz, properly clothed and equipped, began their climb in beautiful weather Sunday during the day on a moderate ascent route and got off track. They wound up stranded 80 feet from the top of the peak, near White Maiden’s Walkaway, unable to go back or forward. “They went into a bad route and got way above their climbing ability,” said Arnson. The climbers used a cell phone to call 911. RMRU mobilized at 7, and had three members in place on the top of the peak by 10 that night. Arnson described rappelling down to the stranded climbers in rain, snow, winds gusting up to 50 M.P.H. and fog beginning to set in, using the voices of the climbers to orient the descending team.

By 3:30 a.m. the climbers were off the rock and at Humber Park thanks to Lee Arnson, Les Walker, and new member Donny Goetz, himself an accomplished climber. “Les and Donny were the technical guys,” said Arnson. “It was gold.”

Manning a Humber communication base and serving as backup were RMRU
members Paul Caraher and Carlos Carter.

How the lost hiker got to the desert tram station

Richard Wong, 23, of Valencia and a college student in San Francisco, confounded Riverside County Sheriff’s Department (RCSD) searchers and all probabilities by turning exhaustion into a prodigious physical feat.

On Monday, May 31, Wong began hiking with several friends from Humber Park to what searchers believed was Tahquitz Peak. Around noon, short of the Saddle, Wong told his friends he was not feeling well, was experiencing extreme exhaustion and was going to head back to Humber. He never arrived.

At 3:30 a.m. Tuesday June 1, RCSD mobilized Riverside Mountain Rescue Unit, who, along with Desert Search and Rescue and an RCSD helicopter unit, combed the area from the top of the Palm Springs Aerial Tram to Humber and Tahquitz. Late Tuesday, at around 6:00 p.m., 32 hours after beginning his hike, Wong was sited by desert station Tram personnel in a canyon, under Tram towers, directly above the station. Officials hiked up and escorted him down.

How does a man who is too exhausted to go on after less than two hours on a trail, find the stamina and sure footedness to safely navigate his way to the peak. and then down the treacherous north face of Mt. San Jacinto, a descent that has beckoned to and broken other hikers?

“Tuesday was my mother’s birthday,” said Wong by telephone, “and I wanted to make sure not to worry her.” Wong then recounted his odyssey.

After his friends went on, Wong rested, then, feeling better, decided to start after them, but not to Tahquitz, as searchers initially believed, but to the peak of Mt. San Jacinto. And although Wong encountered other hikers and even a park ranger, neither search team nor RCSD’s helicopter ran into him because they weren’t searching where he was heading.

Wong said he got to the summit about sundown, and because it was still snowy there, realized he needed to hike out of the snow. “I thought I’d hike back to Humber, but the dark and the thickness of the trees convinced me I needed to stop for the night,” he said. Wong had on a t-shirt, basketball shorts and tennis shoes. “I also had a jacket and that pretty much saved me,” he said.

The next morning, at sunrise, Wong saw that he was still on the ridgeline and that the cables of the Tram were off to his right. He decided to follow the cables down to the desert station. “Ten decently sized hills turned out to be 80 or 90 with vertical drop offs,” re remembered. “I followed a little creek, with snow runoff, down the mountain. It looked shorter and a lot easier on a map.”

Wong said it took him 10 hours to get down the precipitous north face. “It was a bad guess and a bad gamble,” he acknowledged.

Many hikers lost and desperate hikers have looked from the ridgeline to the lights and civilization of Palm Springs below and decided to make the descent. Wong is one of the lucky few that made it on his own.

Lost hiker, over 24 hour search

Riverside County Sheriff’s Department Deputy Zeke Escobedo confirmed that a male college student from San Francisco, Richard Wong, resident of Valencia, is lost in a search area from Humber Park up to the Saddle and over to Tahquitz Peak. The search is currently focusing on Tahquitz Peak, the area to which he and two or more friends had intended to hike when they began late morning May 31.

The friends said that a mile short of the saddle, Richard said he was not feeling well, was experiencing extreme fatigue and was going to go back down to the Humber Park parking lot. He separated from his friends just before noon, but never made it back to Humber. The friends reported they saw no sign of Richard on their way back to Humber at the conclusion of their hike.

They did not report him missing until 10:53 p.m., when, according to Escobedo, they made the report at the Idyllwild Fire Department.

The Sheriff’s Department mobilized Riverside Mountain Rescue Unit (RMRU) at 3:30 a.m. and later mobilized Desert Search and Rescue who took the tram up to the mountain station to cover the area, along with RMRU, between the mountain station and Humber Park.

As of this writing, the search has been going on for over 24 hours. A Sheriff’s Department helicopter unit surveyed the search area, including Tahquitz, with no reported sighting.

Wong is described as 6’1” tall, 185 lbs. 23 years old and dressed for light hiking.

His parents are en route from Valencia to Idyllwild.

Treacherous RMRU rescue of lost hiker

Early Monday morning, April 12, Riverside Mountain Rescue Unit (RMRU) volunteers retrieved Air Force Major Robert Wilson, 44, from the west side of Black Mountain, in what RMRU volunteer Les Walker describes as “probably the most harrowing and challenging rescue I’ve been involved in.”

Four RMRU Idyllwild residents — Walker, RMRU President Lee Arnson, Chad Marler and Chuck Springer responded to a call at 9:30 p.m. Sunday, April 11 to locate a lost day hiker. “We were not able to get him out until 6:30 a.m. Monday morning,” said Walker. “He had gotten off trail and weather conditions had badly deteriorated. We had 40 M.P.H. wind gusts and sideways sleet and hail sticking to us. Because of weather conditions, with wind and fog, it wasn’t possible to get a helicopter in [for rescue assist].” A helicopter had, prior to conditions deteriorating, spotted Wilson.

Arnson echoed Walker’s impression of the mission. “It was the hardest physical mission I’ve ever been on in my life,” he said. “It took us 10 hours to go three miles. It was the worst terrain and the worst weather, an absolute nightmare of a mission. I firmly believe he would have died had we not gotten him out. We and the subject were all hypothermic at the end. They wanted us to go to the hospital as well, but we refused. It was a great mission, hard, strenuous, dangerous. I’ll never forget this one.”

After rescue, Wilson was transported to a local hospital for treatment of exposure.

RMRU team leads in finding missing Germans

Eight Riverside Mountain Rescue Unit (RMRU) volunteers played a lead role in discovering what are likely the remains of three Germans missing in Death Valley since 1996. Multi-agency search teams including RMRU, Inyo County Search and Rescue, China Lake Mountain Rescue Group, San Bernardino Desert Search and Rescue, Calaveras County Search and Rescue, National Park Service, and U.S. Customs conducted an expanded search on Saturday Dec. 5 in a remote area of the vast national park. Thirty searchers and 3 dog teams participated in the mission.

A previous private search conducted by RMRU volunteers Tom Mahood and Les Walker on Nov. 12 triggered the expanded mission. Mahood and Walker, employing a search theory developed by Mahood, found what are believed to be the remains of the fourth member of the party, Cornelia Meyer. Positive identification of all remains awaits forensic confirmation by the Inyo County Coroner’s office.

Two U.S. Customs Homeland Security helicopters flew teams in early morning Saturday, Dec. 5. Teams were at the seach site by 8 a.m. The mission used Mahood’s search theory to canvas an expanded area centered on the site where Mahood and Walker found Meyer’s remains. Teams fanned out in half -mile radii from the site of the initial discovery. The RMRU team consisted of Les Walker, Lee Arnson, Tom Mahood, Tom Marshall, Lew Kingman, Nick Nickson, Chad Marler, and Pete Carlson.

According to RMRU President Lee Arnson and Walker, the combined teams found what are believed to be remains of the missing three by end of day Saturday, Dec. 5. Conditions on the day of the search were difficult, with winds gusting to 40 M.P.H. and nighttime temperatures dropping into the teens. Search teams camped overnight on the 5th, worked the site on the morning of the 6th, and hiked 19 miles out.

According to an account from Arnson and Walker, the search area was rugged high desert, remote and pristine. “It’s the most remote place I’ve ever been,” said RMRU team member Carlson. “Other than the four Germans, I don’t think anyone has ever seen this area before we did,” said Walker. “We spent the night at the site. I hiked up on a knoll and looked out over miles and miles of nothing — never a light and not a sound but the wind.” Arnson, remembering the desolation of the search area, wondered, “How in the world did they [the Germans] get here?” Walker observed that the Germans, as Europeans, probably had no comprehension of the vastness, desolation and danger of the American west, especially Death Valley in the summer. As to why they had taken the road they did, before getting stuck in a wash, Walker said, “They may have been intrigued to see this secret military base [China Lake Naval Weapons Testing Center].” Both noted the Germans couldn’t have made worse choices.

Arnson said teams tagged and secured the remains of the additional three. But authorities are keeping the exact location under wraps to prevent any unauthorized interference at the site. “We don’t even know the exact location,” said Walker. “We had to turn over all our GPS information coordinates to the Inyo County Sheriff’s Department.”

Once back at base camp, Arnson and Walker had to go back to perform another rescue, this time of a very sick member of another rescue team who had participated in the search and could not hike out on his own. They recruited a Park Service Humvee to bring the sick man in.

At the conclusion of the rescue, “All the other team members were shaking our hands,” said Walker.

More remains discovered in Death Valley

According to a press release released by the Inyo County Sheriff's Department, a multi-agency search mission took place Dec. 5 and 6 to discover remains of the three missing members of a party of German tourists lost in July 1996 in Death Valley.

Additional remains were found and, as with the remains discovered by Les Walker and Tom Mahood believed to be those of Cornelia Meyer, they will be turned over to the Inyo County Coroner's office for forensic identification.

Agencies identified as participating in the search are Inyo County Search and Rescue, Riverside Mountain Rescue Unit (RMRU), China Lake Mountain Rescue Group, San Bernardino Desert Search and Rescue, Calaveras County Search and Rescue, National Park Service and U.S. Customs.

Unofficial reports indicate that enough remains were discovered to identify the remaining three, Max Meyer, 4, Connie's son, her boyfriend Egbert Rimkus, 33, and his son Georg Weber, 10.

Eight RMRU personnel participated in the search including Walker.

The remains were all in a location about 9 miles from the Germans' rental van and about 3 miles from the boundary of the China Lake Naval Weapons Testing Center, the destination the Germans were apparently trying to reach.

Further updates and information will be posted when made available.

Off duty RMRU pair find remains likely those of missing German tourists

On Thursday, Nov. 12, off-duty Riverside Mountain Rescue Unit (RMRU) members Les Walker and Tom Mahood found skeletal remains likely those of at least one of four German tourists missing in Death Valley since 1996. Walker and Mahood organized the trip specifically to search for the missing Germans. They discovered remains in a remote area 2 hours southwest of Furnace Creek Visitors Center near the Panamint Mountains.

Inyo County Sheriff's Spokesperson Carma Roper said formal identification of the remains would be a long process and that the case is currently being handled as a criminal investigation. "But there is no evidence of foul play at this point," she said. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Interpol are also involved in the investigation.

Mahood, a retired engineer, had formulated a search theory based on a U.S. Park Ranger map probably used by the tourists that led him and Walker to concentrate on a previously unsearched area about 2500 feet elevation between a saddle that looks out over China Lake and the intervening area leading to a map-marked boundary of the China Lake Naval Weapons Testing Center. The area was eight to 11 miles from the tourist's abandoned vehicle. "Tom put this whole plan together to look in an area where no other teams had looked before," said RMRU President Lee Arnson. "All previous teams had GPS'd their search routes.

"We tried to put ourselves in their [the tourists'] shoes," said Walker, "using the U.S. Park Service map they probably used as a guide." Mahood's theory focused on a military base (China Lake Weapons Testing Area) marked on the Park Service map. He theorized that the Germans, lost, on foot and contending with temperatures near 110 degrees, might have decided to walk toward the military base thinking there would be people there. That logic paid off for Walker and Mahood. Walker found remains about two to four miles from the Weapons Center boundary. "We found them right where we suspected we might find them," he said.

"I first came across a wine bottle, something that was not in their van's inventory. Death Valley is a pristine area. I was not on any regular hiking route. The wine bottle seemed definitely out of place. This was not an old mining area. There was no reason for anyone to have been there. As I was looking at the bottom of the bottle to see if there were identifying numbers on it, I looked down and saw I was standing in an area of white-flecked bits - a bone yard. I was standing among bone fragments. I picked up a potential clue not knowing that I was standing in the answer. Had I missed the wine bottle, I might have walked on. I next found partial vertebrae in a nearby bush. Then I saw a wallet. I picked out a German photo ID of the missing woman. Nearby there was a human skull. A distance away was a daytimer and a small shoe. I couldn't tell if it was the woman's shoe or a child's shoe. I used my two-way radio to call Tom who was about a mile away. When he reached me we fanned out separately and conducted a larger search, a complete circle 100 yards around the remains."

The four Germans, Cornelia Meyer, 27, her son Max, 4, her boyfriend, architect Egbert Rimkus, 33, and his son Georg Weber, 10, disappeared in July 1996. Although numerous search teams, both public and private, had attempted to find the four over the last 13 years, none had succeeded until Thursday.

"They [official investigation coordinators] will fly us out there Friday [Nov. 20] for a Saturday and Sunday search to locate the rest of the remains," said Walker. "They want to talk to us about our way of looking at the search. About 100 people will be involved in the search - FBI, Inyo County, and the National Park Service." The Federal Bureau of Investigation, Interpol and Inyo County Sheriff's Department are securing the area.

Records indicated the German tourists checked out of a Las Vegas hotel room on July 22, 1996 and arrived in Death Valley the same day. Temperatures in the park had topped 120 degrees. Their last entry was on July 23, 1996 left in a guest book kept in a box on a metal pole in an abandoned mining camp, indicating the visitors were going through a pass, probably Mengel Pass. The entry was signed "Conny, Egbert, Georg, Max."

A team of 45 searchers, eight horses and four helicopters from California and Nevada law enforcement agencies mounted the initial search for the missing tourists. From 1996 until the present, over 200 searchers have looked for the Germans.

We will post updates as they become available.