Articles from slgwv

I haven't vanished (completely)...

nobody@ipernity.com (slgwv) — Sun, 30 Oct 2022 15:46:28 +0000

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Just been out of town a lot! So sorry about delays responding.

A 25 year old tragedy

nobody@ipernity.com (slgwv) — Wed, 13 Jul 2022 13:33:10 +0000

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[I did this writeup for a discussion group I'm involved in. Since it's a bit big for that group, I'm making it an article here and giving them a link, but my Ipernity contacts may also find it of interest.]

I recently ran across the backstory on a 25-year old tragedy and I'd thought I'd post about it, as it's relevant to some discussions of geographic scale and backcountry safety that I have been involved in. In July 1996 a German family went missing in rugged, remote country near the southern end of Death Valley. Their van was spotted in Oct 1996 from a surveillance helicopter that was patrolling for illegal drug labs. It was thoroughly stuck (three flat tires!) in a wash containing a primitive road that had been closed to vehicles for several years. (The German-language map they'd been using, however, was outdated as it still showed the route as a "road"--a problem, as noted below.) Thorough searches along what seemed to be the reasonable routes they might have taken on foot turned up nothing but a single beer bottle about a mile downstream. So their disappearance remained a mystery for years.

In the late 00s a part-time search-and-rescue (SAR) guy, Tom Mahood, got interested in the case and had the insight that they may have traveled south out of the wash, over a set of ridges. From their generalized map, they would have seen that the northern edge of the China Lake Naval Air Station was less than 10 miles (straight-line) south, and they may have figured they could find help there. What that map _didn't_ show is that such a route crossed some exceedingly rough, waterless country, and that in any case that part of China Lake (an area bigger than Rhode Island!) was remote desert that doesn't get any routine visitation. Sure enough, when Mahood and a partner took the family's inferred route (in November! and they still cached water) they found remains, including some ID, about 4 miles south in completely waterless desert. The bones were identified as the adults', but the children's remains were never found. Presumably they'd been scattered by scavengers.

This was in 2009, some 13 years after they'd gone missing. Mahood has written up his experiences in some detail:

www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hunt-for-the-death-valley-germans

I ran across his site in a different context, researching a possible place for Atlas Obscura, and had vaguely remembered the story of the missing family from contemporary local accounts.

Some YouTubers have also posted videos of the area, e.g.:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcwD9hj9vik

It is unforgiving country that you venture into only with proper gear when you know what you're doing. And even those experienced in the desert backcountry don't go there in July! The YouTube videos look very familiar, as I've spent lots of time in similar areas, both for fieldwork and recreation--but not in summer!

Mahood and others have pointed out several cultural preconceptions that probably contributed to the tragedy. First, they didn't understand the scale of Death Valley and how deadly the summertime conditions were. Even up off the valley floor where their van got stuck (and where they tried to walk out) daytime temperatures were still ca. 104 F/40 C. And the humidity would have been in single digits. You hike any distance in conditions like that without adequate water and you die. Quickly. And "adequate water" will be on the order of gallons (3.8 l) per person, so the burden rapidly gets prohibitive.

Second, their van (a Plymouth Voyager) was utterly inappropriate to the kinds of roads they found themselves on. Even when it had been open, the road where they got stuck was not for passenger vehicles.

Apparently, however, the Germans thought that anything shown as a "road" was passable to passenger vehicles--evidently that's the case in Europe. And they did have that outdated map. (The Europeans here please comment!) In Death Valley and similar places, however, showing something as a "road" merely means you won't get a fine for taking a motor vehicle onto it. It doesn't guarantee passability!

They already had found this out firsthand in driving to this point. They came west up the Warm Springs Road at the south end of Death Valley and evidently were planning to go out Mengel Pass into Panamint Valley. They then discovered that's a serious Jeep trail (check YouTube). They also must have been shocked at the condition of the road after Warm Springs--in fact the first searchers, in fall ’96, found it astonishing they got that van up it at all. Presumably they decided to try the alternate route (on their outdated map) back after this experience. Surely it couldn't be worse? Well, it was.

Third, they may have thought that various sites on their route would have at least a ranger present, as at the site of Warm Springs (a mine finally abandoned in the 80s). They seem not to have realized that abandoned places can be labeled simply for their historic interest. Even in a national park, there's not necessarily a routine ranger presence in the backcountry.

Fourth, from military bases in Europe they must've figured there'd be some sort of perimeter fence with a patrol. But much of China Lake (like many such areas in the west) is a gunnery practice range. It's not particularly secret but dangerous to wander around in. It's not fenced where they were trying to reach, and there are no routine patrols. There will be boundary signs, every hundred yards or so, and they're as much to shield the military from liability for people getting hurt as anything!

The whole tale is made more tragic because even when they got stuck they weren't necessarily doomed. They could have backtracked 4 miles to a cabin, where it's known they'd stopped on the way in, that has food and a running spring. It's maintained by volunteers and a ranger would have been by eventually, probably within a week. But they truly didn't realize they were in a survival situation at that point, and missing their flight out of L.A. (which seems to have become an overriding concern) was no longer important.

I haven't (quite) fallen off the face of the Earth...

nobody@ipernity.com (slgwv) — Fri, 18 Sep 2020 12:58:14 +0000

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But I haven't been around for a few months. Sorry! It's not just covid--Real Life has gotten in the way bigly around here. I won't bore you with details, but I haven't given up on Ipernity! We currently are smothered by smoke from the California wildfires, so I don't have much in the way of recent photos. But I'll try to post along even so--

Cheers, all!

Steve

(Belated) Happy New Year!

nobody@ipernity.com (slgwv) — Tue, 04 Feb 2020 15:51:55 +0000

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Well, as y'all may have noticed, I haven't been around much of late. Other things have been getting in the way--but I did go ahead and re-up my membership. I won't be able to participate a lot, but what I have done for now is remove the "me only" authorization on my newer uploads. I had been waiting to label them properly, but I just don't have time, and maybe people would find them of some interest even so--

Back from Pennsylvania--

nobody@ipernity.com (slgwv) — Tue, 19 Mar 2019 14:12:34 +0000

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Visiting the new grandson (our 1st grandchild). So, lots of things have fallen thru the cracks, Ipernity-wise! I'll try to be posting and commenting more.

Interesting...

nobody@ipernity.com (slgwv) — Fri, 02 Nov 2018 14:57:20 +0000

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Smugmug, which acquired The Other Place a while back, is going to drastically cut back on free storage there (1000 photos max). As of Jan 1st unlimited storage is going to cost $49.99 per year. I had had high hopes when Smugmug acquired Flickr, but it's been months and the same clunky interface is still present. And even some of the biggest cheerleaders for the "awesome" "improvements" that Marissa introduced are now complaining and threatening to leave. They also are acknowledging that lots of people had already left, such that the vibrancy of the photo community there is a shadow of its former self.

So, I'll decide by Jan 1--but I won't be bothering to upload anything new over there right now!

The new Ipernity

nobody@ipernity.com (slgwv) — Sat, 02 Sep 2017 16:25:26 +0000

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Just a quick note before heading out for the Labor Day weekend: I can understand why people are upset because of losing the rest of their subscriptions due to the revamped financial structure. But hey--it's better than losing them because the site shut down completely! At least this way we have a chance of building on what we've already done. It was always obvious that a new infusion of money was going to be needed to fix the previous team's mismanagement, and I've been prepared for that. YMMV, but I think it's worth the gamble, particularly on looking at how dysfunctional Flickr remains.

And now...

nobody@ipernity.com (slgwv) — Fri, 09 Dec 2016 17:34:44 +0000

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Well, what I (alas) figured would happen is happening--Ip is closing. Clint made a back-of-the-envelope financial analysis a while back that seemed to be right on--as it was. I still think Ipernity thoroughly botched a great opportunity. They had a chance to grow and achieve financial stability at the time of the massive Flickr exodus, but instead of rolling out a (figurative) red carpet they instead got all sidetracked into the silliness about "spam" comments, with the result that they drove lots of customers away. Then they compounded the idiocy by the flap about "political" commentary about a year ago, which amounted to taking aim at the _other_ foot. So now there aren't enough paying customers, to no one's surprise who was paying attention...

At any rate that's all water under the bridge now (cue cliches about "opportunity lost" and so on). I will be delighted if they found a white knight to take over, but the chances seem exceedingly slim. At this point, I won't close my account yet, but I'm not going to be making any new uploads, either. No point in throwing good effort after bad... I have a presence on Flickr, under the same username, but Flickr is so cumbersome I doubt I'll be spending much time there. Maybe I'll just have to Get a Life--

Back again--

nobody@ipernity.com (slgwv) — Wed, 09 Sep 2015 14:07:35 +0000

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With more pix, but Real Life is again getting in the way, so I won't be visible much--

Well, well, well...

nobody@ipernity.com (slgwv) — Thu, 23 Jul 2015 18:48:52 +0000

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F***r is offering Pro subscriptions again. At twice the price they usta be, and still with the crappy "improved" layout, but-- it's obviously a backpedal. Yahoo revenues for 2nd quarter again missed the Street's expectation...could it be that the New! Awesome! business model isn't so awesome after all?

After long silence--

nobody@ipernity.com (slgwv) — Sat, 11 Jul 2015 18:26:52 +0000

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I'm just back from a couple of weeks on the road, with yet more new pix, but Real Life is getting in the way so I'll be kind of scarce for a while--

I'm back (again!)

nobody@ipernity.com (slgwv) — Tue, 26 May 2015 12:58:11 +0000

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I've been mostly on the road the last few weeks, with very limited time and Internet access. I have lots of new photos, which will get loaded RSN (Real Soon Now--)

I'm back!

nobody@ipernity.com (slgwv) — Mon, 28 Apr 2014 12:24:18 +0000

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I've been mostly on the road the last couple of weeks, so I've been pretty scarce. I have lots of new pix, tho, which will get uploaded as time permits--

USGS topos online!

nobody@ipernity.com (slgwv) — Sat, 05 Apr 2014 15:43:35 +0000

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I know lots of my friends and contacts also like to wander around the back roads of the American west, and a couple of years ago I found a resource that may be of interest. The US Geological Survey has put all(!) of their topographic maps online, available for free download as .pdf files. Here's the main URL:

store.usgs.gov/b2c_usgs/b2c/start/%28xcm=r3standardpitrex_prd%29/.do

Click on the "map locater" in the upper left corner. They've included, not just all versions of the current map series (7.5', 30x60', etc., in all different revisions by date) but also obsolete series going back to the 1880s! It's kind of a kick to check out the differences in the areas covered over the years. Of course, the early maps weren't made from air photos, either, and you get a sense that some of the surveyors were much better than others!

Folders are here!

nobody@ipernity.com (slgwv) — Wed, 23 Oct 2013 13:08:36 +0000

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Well, it took a bit longer than they expected, but Ipernity now has folders, more or less the equivalent of "collections" at The Other Place. So, all my albums are now in folders, and thus their organization should be a lot more obvious! I am finding I am now working from folders almost exclusively; find the album in the folder and open the organizer from it directly.

I could wish that folders could be included within other folders, and that an album could be in more than one folder--both things that were possible at The Other Place--but even so they're a big help.

Ipernity staff says they're working on an option to have folders visible on the homepage, and I'm looking forward to that.

My albums' organization (etc.)

nobody@ipernity.com (slgwv) — Fri, 12 Jul 2013 21:48:17 +0000

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Hi Everyone!

Another former Flickrite here--I've decided to use Ipernity's "article" feature to describe my album layouts (or at least proposed album layouts) and organization, as they probably now look like an intimidating mess. I've been busy off and on the last few weeks moving everything over from The Other Place (and thanks again to the Ipernity Team for the set-import script!), but once I get everything set up here I look forward to interacting more with groups and my contacts. Pending the "folders" feature (equivalent to Flickr's "collections"), I'm trying to bring some order to my hundreds of albums by prefacing each title with a keyword that will flag its main folder. They're localities (often US states, e.g., Nevada, Utah) or subjects (Mining, Geology). Other descriptors then follow, often with some abbreviation so the title will fit in the alloted space. As I rename and organize each album I will put it in alphabetical order. It's a slow process, unfortunately, and will probably always be a work in progress. Albums named with just the date the pictures were taken are "holding" areas, and some pictures from them will eventually (!) get copied to albums with more descriptive names. Albums just prefaced with a decade (e.g., 1990s) are family'n'friends pix unlikely to be of interest to anyone else. In fact, all the albums are largely for archive storage, and pix I think others might like I'll post to groups.

So, all is chaos now, but one of these days--

I'll also have some thoughts on the Flickr Disastr at some point.