The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans | Hacker News Reader

The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans

otherhand.org

179 pointsswatkat61 comments

This is probably one of the greatest pieces of long form journalism I have ever read, and I've read a lot.

You'd be doing yourselves a disservice by not setting aside some time and reading this all the way through.

I read it a year ago and just reread it now. I thoroughly enjoyed it, the author sounds like a very unique person to do this.

Past midnight, couldn't stop reading.

Can't imagine the sheer horror of their predicament in that terrain, during the summer heat.

The author deducing how the Germans ended up in that canyon was a stroke of investigative genius.

This guy also wrote about his hunt for the crash site of a predecessor of the SR-71. I enjoyed reading it: http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/area-51-and-other-strange...

Yes! The titanium bits. Phenomenal, this guy's stories.

Mentioned at the very end of the story. Hours of endless fun. He also has a sidebarlink, but from personal experience many people may not click: he goes places and tells lot of stories, should you wish to try them. http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/miscellaneous-adventures/

Also here's the report from another group that went hiking there successfully in early 2010. I do hope that the 'animal bone' the teenager is holding is indeed from a burro. http://www.panamintcity.com/backpacking/anvilspringcanyon.ht...

Good find! Was there any followup on that bone? That trip was March 18 2010 and it wasn't until the last week of November 2010 that the officials allegedly helicoptered their 4-5 man team in for an overnight to recover the remaining bones.

Further studying the trip log, the bone discovery appears to be early in their hike while they were still in Lost Spring Canyon. This is a considerable ways east of the Germans' area.

Following up: I confirmed from the source that NPS looked at his picture and it was an animal bone.

Those who argue about the level of danger of that terrain should note one really important aspect: young children overheat really quickly in thelse environments. In these scenarios even if given water reserves, adults will outlive children (initially). There are plenty of tales in Death Valley about this. So with kids the risk is an entire level higher.

Do you know why? Is this a surface area vs volume case, except in reverse e.g. the environment is pumping heat into small creatures faster than big creatures?

A child will have significantly less water mass.

What is amazing is the scope of the search that took place, both when the Germen's car was found and, several years later, when the human bones were located. It is gratifying to know there are people in the S&R teams who will devote their time trying to find (or, very often, recover) people who have gotten into trouble.

Also credit goes to the human penchant for curiosity, an observation I'm suggesting because of recently watching the TNG episode, "Clues."

It's hard for me to second guess but I think if it had been me, as soon as the car got stuck I would be backtracking the way I came in. If a car made it in, it's clearly going to be pretty easily walkable, and you're heading back towards more main roads where a passing car is more likely.

I can't imagine taking off into the brush with no water or gear. Especially with kids.

The author did an excellent job of getting into their heads in the situation and rationalizing their decisions. They underestimated road conditions; "their pamphlet offered an (erroneous) alternative, apparently shorter route back down to the valley in the form of a road down Anvil Canyon;" they made an easy-to-make wrong turn; and they were operating under an assumption that help was a few miles south instead of dozens of miles back.

"Given the information available to them, where could they best find it? It is likely they had gone the entire day without seeing another human, so their entry route offered little hope of others. In examining their maps, Ballarat was many miles away, and with unknown services. Furnace Creek, with everything they needed, was far to the north, out of their reach. Even the paved Badwater Road on the valley’s east side had only intermittent traffic and was in a zone of lethal heat. But there was another possibility... [only about 8 or 9 miles to the south of them]"

Here's a map someone made to go along with the story:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?dg=feature&msa=0&ie=UTF...

I got kind of obsessed reading this story and needed to follow it on Google Earth too, my map has a few extra places marked, such as the landing sites, China Lake sites, and final resting place.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1FdGZI6DDRPe3Y9-dtpLGGtDr2p...

Thank you, I couldn't locate the tower without this.

I've heard about this incident first hand from old timers out in DV, having gone for years myself.

The warning at the start of the piece, maybe merited, feels a bit over the top.

The story itself is quite intriguing.

Reading through the story, I had heard most of it while in the desert a few years ago. The writer's style generally rubs me the wrong way on multiple fronts.

It's an interesting story and case, but I can't get over the "style" of the presentation.

I was not a huge fan of the style either, but it does a fairly good job of keeping the reader interested. That said, the amount of digs he takes at various local and federal agencies is really unnecessary.

I dunno, I think he earned the right to criticize them. It was fairly mild, considering the effort he put into it compared to them. And he was complimentary to them overall. He didn't even launch into what would probably be an epic rant if he were to provide all the details, but rather stopped himself.

Apparently he has gotten the "style" feedback enough that he felt it necessary to put a full disclaimer at the head of the article.

I think the effort he put in is pretty hard to justify objectively. He can do what he likes with his time, but it doesn't mean the various agencies deserve criticism for doing less.

It wasn't doing less. It was not sharing helpful information with someone who'd earned rights to it through assistance, and dismissing very well-founded advice and input.

That said, it's very harsh territory, and local government has very few resources.

He comes across as very earnest; that might be misread by some people as obsessive. He also did do some very questionable things like remove the day planner and other items. It could be that law enforcement didn't really want to work with him any more than they had to. It's hard to know, we don't get to see that side.

I really enjoyed his account. I've spent a lot of time doing field work in the Mojave (I am a plant taxonomist), and it's such a neat place to explore -- at least in spring time, before it gets too hot.

Uncovering human remains after 8 years in the desert of foreign nationals, hours from the nearest signs of civilisation, at risk of one's own life, and wanting to demonstrate to others that the claim is substantiated: removing an item that provides solid proof strikes me as grounded.

The author clearly deliberated over, and fairly considered the merits, of removing other items.

Consider too: finding something once in the desert does not mean you're likely to find it again. Animals, weather, rains (rare, but often overwhelming), or other humans could further disturb the scene, or you could simply lose track of where the item had been (even with GPS) or be distracted by false hits (the reflective surfaces which turned out to be rocks).

Particularly after discovery of the remains had been reported and multiple parties were aware, with information being leaked out.

I find nothing malicious, and nothing reproachable, in his account. Though note that this is his account, there may be another side.

In addition, the police lost/damaged some evidence apparently, like the note written in German that was folded.

I was left wondering whether the sheriff simply claimed to have found some of the kids' bones or they actually did find them and didn't want to tell the author any real details.

I think there's probably a strong motivation for the sheriff's office to close the case, especially after so many years and so many resources expended. On top of that, there was probably some desire for them to make the author go away. Law enforcement officers have to protect the perception that they are both competent and caring, and this "enthusiast" proved to be better on both counts in this case. So either there's jealousy that makes them not give him the information that would have satisfied his curiosity (and spared him a couple more trips to the desert), or they just told him they found more bones when they actually hadn't to make him stop looking.

Either way, I think they owed him more than that for solving their cold case, but couldn't stand to do that because now people like me say things like "he solved their cold case."

Edit: Keep in mind this is the same office that had the responsibility to find all the bodies Charles Manson and gang buried out by the Barker Ranch, and didn't. I get that they have limited resources, so not blaming them, but it probably stings when this guy finished the job they started.

The items have been there for the past eight years. They will last another few days until authorities can come back and work the area. He had a camera to document the find, and survey flags to mark the items. There was no reason to take these things, especially as a enthusiast with no permission from the NPS to do what he was doing and no official involvement in any kind of search. Even if he was in the right, it likely did piss off NPS staff and law enforcement.

As far as "risk of one's life," that seems a little over the top to me. Yes, it's the desert, and yes, it's remote, but people do go hiking and backpacking in Anvil Canyon, there is a cabin with water 4 miles away, and he had a SPOT (at least his partner did) to signal for help in case he got in trouble. The most dangerous thing he did was probably the speeding on the rush back to Furnace Creek. Single vehicle accidents are the leading cause of death in Death Valley.

I think this is one of those cases where initiative and begging for forgiveness paid off.

It did seem like he was doing it to satisfy his own curiosity more than anything though. Be interesting to know what the family thought of his write up if anything.

Yes, and it really is an excellent write-up. It captures the flavor of the Mojave, even if there are some things he could have done differently.

I'm curious about what rubs you wrong.

The writing is good, clear, intelligent, informed, and captures the sense of the place and people -- I've spent some time there myself.

The warning is not over the top at all to anyone with any experience of the Nevada deserts. You want to be prepared and fit. The extreme heat will tire you out and raise your need for water. See the multiple gallons of water they carried in for just a couple of days? Many people have no clue that hill walking in moderate climates is much uch easier compared with the desert in terms of stamina.

Even in the Central Valley in California, it routinely gets into the high 100s for a few months in the summer. Having lived most of my life there, and knowing how debilitating that level of heat is, I can't imagine what drives people to think they can hike around in 20 degrees (F) warmer weather without carrying a gallon of water for the afternoon.

... Aside: I seem to remember seeing something about the Arabian Peninsula soon becoming so warm you cannot maintain core body temperature by evaporation of your sweat, at which point it will be uninhabitable outside of modern buildings with A/C ...

Then again, if you live in a coastal area where the temperature is usually between 50 to 80 F, an 8 mile hike in the hills sounds like a pleasant activity to take on after lunch :-)

> Aside: I seem to remember seeing something about the Arabian Peninsula soon becoming so warm you cannot maintain core body temperature by evaporation of your sweat, at which point it will be uninhabitable outside of modern buildings with A/C ...

No source on this, but I remember reading somewhere that in the hottest conditions recorded (Persian Gulf heat + humidity), the humidity would actually condense on a human like a cold water bottle on a hot day.

Great, so you get to absorb the heat of vaporization from how ever many moles of water that is per hour.

I wonder if the German government recognised his efforts in some way. That would have been a nice gesture. Even if just a photo or handshake from the Ambassador or the Consul in LA.

Extremely well written, a sad story full of important lessons. I will certainly remember it if I ever find myself wandering onto unknown terrain.

I dunno, he meanders through the story in a very long-winded way, including bunches of stuff that doesn't actually move the narrative forward. A good editor could have helped him cut maybe a third out of that without losing anything of significance. Then again, it's a blog so no big deal.

Yeah, you can pretty much skip the later entries without missing much, it's all about how they searched but couldn't find anything else.

Unless you like reading trip reports, then it was great. I wish he had described the problems with the police in more detail, though.

Naturally it could be better but I was riveted. My patience has suffered far more at the hands of more established authors like Tom Clancy and more recently Neal Stephenson with stuff that I really don't need to know.

What fascinated me about this article is how much info they were able to gather. The context of my fascination is the idea that currently the powers that be are asking to track more and more and more in the hopes of pre-crime detection. The ability to collect so much information in such a hostile place seems like if you are motivated, it was already all there in 1996, no more is needed.

I came across this blog a while ago when doing a deep dive into EM-Drives. Turns out the author did his master's thesis under one of the original pioneers of that field (well the field is still really new).

Awesome to learn something new about and old source :)

"There are some who will say that any backcountry travel in Death Valley using a normal street vehicle in Summer is inherently foolish. This is certainly a debatable topic."

No, it's not.

It probably depends on your definition of backcountry. There are some reasonable unpaved roads. But in general I agree.

EDIT: And summer certainly raises the stakes.

The last wild flower bloom(not this year, 5 or so years back), a buddy and I only had a 2wd Tacoma at our disposal. The back roads we were used to (out to Butte Valley, for instance), which aren't all that bad were a challenge and we opted to play safe.

Any time of year, parts of DV back country are not to be taken lightly. You may not see anyone for days if something goes wrong.

The key thing is knowing when to turn around. I've taken some drives out into the Mojave and Death Valley that weren't all that smart in a 2wd sedan, but I also turned around the instant the road made me feel uncomfortable. And I had a couple pallets of bottled water in my trunk, but I always do. Calculated risks.

Still, it can be really hard to turn around when you're far enough in to be "committed" to the road. Sunk costs and all that.

Tacomas are tough little trucks though... I've seen them go into and out of places they really have no business being.

They are, but tires play a big part in being able to handle terrain as well. And typical tires on a 2wd Tacoma aren't usually that rugged.

The author was being understatedly polite to the Germans. He knows that you need to be prepared. Notice from the pics the heavy offroad vehicle he was using. A standard consumer 4x4 is also likely to be inadequate, with stret tyres and too-low clearance. You will also want a full size spare and also preferably a kit and the ability to patch tyres yourself. And emergency food and water for a few days, and preferably a GPS locator and portable shade.

And at least a second person with you!

I personally have gone as far as Warm Spring Canyon and in my case I have a Tacoma with full 4WD. But I don't have a winch or boards or any of the other survival stuff so that's as far as I'd go on a solo (one vehicle) trip. Even in December.

Here, if you find this stuff interesting: http://confluence.org/confluence.php?id=223

I took that statement as being firmly tongue in cheek. It seems to feel that way with the flow of the rest of his writing at least.

What is a wordfence? Anyone else blocked from reading this "article?"

I had no issues reading it in entirety (datapoints: Canadian IP, Linux+Chrome)

No problems for me using chrome on a mac.

I think wordfence is a wordpress plugin that is supposed to block malicious traffic.

So most likely they either blocked the country you're in, your ip is blacklisted somewhere, or you have malware on your computer/network.

Here is an archive.org mirror from June :

https://web.archive.org/web/20160619164015/http://www.otherh...

It looks like a (2012) tag should be added to that submission, the 2012 wayback snapshot looks exactly the same as today.

I'm blocked; I live in India.

Blocked by the host website.

Reason: Access from your area has been temporarily limited for security reasons

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