CA - Jonathan Gerrish, Ellen Chung, daughter, 1 & dog, suspicious death hiking area, Aug 2021 #2

[Speculaytor]

Dehydration should have been easy to spot on autopsy, plus they had water left in their Camelbak.

You can walk a long way in the heat while being dehydrated, miles. It's terrible but doable.

I think we have to wait the 6 weeks for toxicology to come back on this one.

I agree with you on everything, but my point was acute dehydration from throwing up due to ingested toxins. If you have ever had food poisoning, you understand. Add the heat, and dehydration would speed up even more, possibly causing heart attack or unconsciousness and death. Thirty minutes is all it takes for the body to begin to react. If they did drink water from the area with toxic algae bloom, might be possible.

 

[JJ Ray]

Someone wrote (2015) about their experience hiking the same trail.
Hiking on the Savage Lundy Trail | Sierra News Online

from the article....
"This hike was a good workout and I sure loved seeing this old mining country from a different perspective. It was a cooler day with a breeze, so it wasn’t too hot as we climbed out of that canyon. I would not want to do this hike on a warm day. This trail is not for everyone though."

 

[Speculaytor]

“Investigators believe the family hiked most of a grueling 8.5-mile loop — including 5 miles of steep southern exposure trail with little to no trees or shade in 103 to 109 degree heat — before succumbing on the return to their truck on a steep switchback.” Investigators have ruled out 2 causes of death in case of Mariposa family, but still have no answers

I don’t think I’ll ever understand why they decided to hike this far under these conditions with a baby and a dog, if it is determined to be heatstroke.

Well, this would definitely explain it. 8.5 miles. WOW. And if they only had the bladder of water, very possible they use filters and use the local water. Do the filters guard against the cyano bacteria of the algae blooms? Anyone know?

 

[JJ Ray]

The guy was found sitting on the trail exposed to a direct sunlight.
I don't understand why they didn't go rest under a tree or something.
Both dying of heatstroke around the same time also seem highly unlikely.

Who said they died at the same time?

 

[JJ Ray]

Nice find. Looks like that hike didn't cover the steep trail up the hill on the other side where the family was found. Also the elevation change (back up the same trail) was less than 500 Ft. Weather conditions were much cooler and lots of shade (before the fire). However this quote is telling:

" I would not want to do this hike on a warm day. This trail is not for everyone though."

....given that this hike was MUCH less challenging than the one Gerrish family experienced.

No. that is exactly where the family was found on the switchbacks coming up the Savage-Lundy Trail.

 

[woods]

“Investigators believe the family hiked most of a grueling 8.5-mile loop — including 5 miles of steep southern exposure trail with little to no trees or shade in 103 to 109 degree heat — before succumbing on the return to their truck on a steep switchback.” Investigators have ruled out 2 causes of death in case of Mariposa family, but still have no answers

I don’t think I’ll ever understand why they decided to hike this far under these conditions with a baby and a dog, if it is determined to be heatstroke.

Can you copy and paste the whole article? It’s behind a paywall.

 

[JJ Ray]

RSBM, I just wanted to thank you for this whole list, & this tidbit especially, I hadn't caught this detail before. So they did start out in the morning, & likely planned to hike in the cooler morning hours, but something went terribly wrong.

It was easily over 90 by 10:00, if I remember the hourly temp chart in a post above.

 

[GatorFL]

Well, this would definitely explain it. 8.5 miles. WOW. And if they only had the bladder of water, very possible they use filters and use the local water. Do the filters guard against the cyano bacteria of the algae blooms? Anyone know?

They do not. Cyanobacteria make a cyanotoxin and a filter cannot filter it out. In fact, boiling water with cyanotoxin concentrates the toxin. There are ways to purify the water but nothing a hiker would carry. I only know this because I live near West Palm Beach and we recently had a cyanotoxin threat in the city water supply.

 

[woods]

It was easily over 90 by 10:00, if I remember the hourly temp chart in a post above.

99 degrees to specific, basically 100 deg.

 

[whirrledpeas]

Well, this would definitely explain it. 8.5 miles. WOW. And if they only had the bladder of water, very possible they use filters and use the local water. Do the filters guard against the cyano bacteria of the algae blooms? Anyone know?

Most filters, if not all, NOT will not protect against those types of bacteria.

 

[annpats]

Who said they died at the same time?

Well, it must have been around the same time, give or take an hour.

If it were at different times, don't you think they'd be more scattered around the trail?

 

[Figuring]

It was easily over 90 by 10:00, if I remember the hourly temp chart in a post above.

Thank you yes, I worded this comment so poorly & can’t fix it now lol, I had just meant that there had been some suggestion that they started out in the afternoon, when it would have been so much hotter. However, I can’t quite wrap my head around whether there would be a significant perceptual difference between 90 & say 105? I think the numbers are a bit hard for me to fully perceive as we use Celsius here!

 

[whirrledpeas]

Just another thought/observation I had. The list from the article I posted earlier is good information for us and I’m sure they do know more, but I find it curious that their approximate time of death has been omitted thus far.

I’m positive the sheriff’s office and other agencies are not releasing information specifically for the dozens of us trying to speculate and put pieces together (ha), but it would be a good piece to the puzzle for us.

 

[annpats]

I think the numbers are a bit hard for me to fully perceive as we use Celsius here!

Yes, I'm having to use Google to look up what the temperatures are in °C, as I just don't understand Fahrenheit.

Celsius is easy. Water freezes at 0°C and boils at 100°C.

So 65°F sounds warm! Or so I thought. But nope. Only 18°C.

Please, USA, please.....join the rest of the world in using Celsius. You'll thank yourselves for it. Or at least we will!

 

[Figuring]

This article says he researched the “Hite Cove trail” the day before. It doesn’t mention him looking up the Savage Lundy. My understanding is they were found on the Savage-Lundy trail. I believe the two intersect at one point. Is it at all possible they made a wrong turn, & had intended to stay on the Hites Cove trail? Perhaps they had little idea of what the SL trail involved? Are there clear signs & getting lost wouldn’t be possible?
Redirect Notice

 

[Suglo]

Yes, I'm having to use Google to look up what the temperatures are in °C, as I just don't understand Fahrenheit.

Celsius is easy. Water freezes at 0°C and boils at 100°C.

So 65°F sounds warm! Or so I thought. But nope. Only 18°C.

Please, USA, please.....join the rest of the world in using Celsius. You'll thank yourselves for it. Or at least we will!

Just remember that 37C is 98.6F (normal body temperature) and take it from there.

 

[RickshawFan]

Well, for anyone who cares to go down this rabbit hole with me, after finding the info on Gerrish's AllTrails page, I went to a site called westernmininghistory.com, a database, with maps, of what they claim to be every mine in the western US, and located three mines on the route the family took. One was slightly off Hite Cove Road, while the other two were directly on their path: at the Merced River, and at the base of Savage-Lundy.

The mines are called Liberty Lode (manganese), Blossom #1 (gold) and Devils Gulch (gold). I have screenshotted a map of all three, which you can view here:

imgur.com

Source: Mining Towns in the Western United States

Beats me why LE said the nearest mine was three miles away.

I have this idea still going in the back of my head that it was lightning. As we sourced upthread, there don't have to be any signs. The lightning can go underground. It can kill multiple creatures at once (one bolt killed 300 reindeer in Scandinavia). Mining suggests to me that there are metallic veins in the ground that would easily conduct electricity.
The West has dry lightning (no thunderstorm), and you can get "rogue" bolts with any lightning storm. This is lightning season.

 

[bpeterson912]

Thank you yes, I worded this comment so poorly & can’t fix it now lol, I had just meant that there had been some suggestion that they started out in the afternoon, when it would have been so much hotter. However, I can’t quite wrap my head around whether there would be a significant perceptual difference between 90 & say 105? I think the numbers are a bit hard for me to fully perceive as we use Celsius here!

Those temps convert to 32 and 40.5 Celsius.

Individual perceptions are subjective, but I think most people would notice that 105 degrees is hotter than 90 degrees. More importantly, if you're talking about a relatively strenuous activity like hiking up switchbacks, the difference between 90 degrees and 105 degrees could be the difference between unpleasant (but survivable) heat illness in the case of the former and fatal heatstroke in the case of the latter.

 

[DCA58]

I'm late I know...

but what in gods name possesses 2 parents to take their baby and dogs out in this hideous heat? I can't see both parents making this decision to go hiking any more than I can see them dying all at once from heat stroke.

<modsnip>

these people were fit , young and experienced...thats why I feel they actually know better and at least for the sake of the child would not attempt this hike in extreme heat which is just beyond dangerous for dogs..let alone babies.

toxicology will tell right? what kind of poison would kill so quickly without leaving tell tale traces like pink foam or bloating or vomiting?horrible grimacing from pain? there were no snake bites or anything...just so bizarro..

I'll have to read more about them . something not right about this..if its algae or lightning then it is a freak accident..but wouldn't there be signs? certain damage or sick reaction to algae? these people dropped dead.

crazy..I promise to get caught up over here!

mOO

I totally agree!

 

[d4i5y]

If the autopsy said no heat stroke.. then what else could it be.

If it’s not heat stroke then it’s some sort of toxin, I think. Saying that though, each could have separate causes of death.

I think it’s significant the authorities keep re-testing the local water (and at different points). Given other information and input here, it might be possible they carried a small amount for the first part of the hike then were going to rely on filling up from the river. Even if there were algae pockets they may have calculated there were other parts they could safely draw from. One clip I saw on YouTube shows a section with quite fast moving water so perhaps something like this. Draw that, use a purifier. They already had the baby to carry plus were prepped for a “day hike” so they wouldn’t want to carry what could easily be over 8L of water.

One other thing is I’ve looked through her Instagram and she seemed quite an intrepid person; travels included hikes through jungle in Asia, scaling ice walls in Iceland, etc. As someone else pointed out, they were fans of Burning Man’s “radical self-reliance” so I can imagine they would think sourcing water from the land, etc. was within the same ethos. I also wonder if Burning Man being cancelled this year plus doesn’t look like they went last year as she would have just had the baby was a factor. Something about them wanting to do big endurance hikes or something. That sort of makes sense in my head but I can’t explain it well.