Clues have also been opened in Mount Baldy after the death of three climbers who fell into the river after sliding on the snow last month, which the searchers believe are two unrelated incidents.
That doesn’t mean conditions are safe, warned the agency responsible for handling the rescue there: Snow, ice, limited visibility and the potential for sudden storms continue.
Twenty-three people have died on the mountain outside Los Angeles in the past decade, and crews have responded to 345 search and rescue calls on its slopes, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said in a news release criticizing the US Forest Service, which manages the area, for not doing more to prevent injuries and deaths.
“Our emergency department is often involved every year, and the indifference to what happened at Mt. Baldy by those responsible for keeping visitors safe needs to be addressed,” San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus said in a statement. “For the past few years, our department has been trying to get the US Forest Service to be more involved in keeping people safe while re-working Mt Baldy.”
Dicus said he continued to meet with representatives of the organization and Congress to express his concerns. In the past, he has asked the forest department to temporarily close the mountain during unsafe weather, and put in place an authorization process to track the number of hikers and educate them about the dangers they face. San Bernardino County officials still support those measures, Supervisor Dawn Rowe said recently.
The Forestry Department did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on the sheriff’s statement. The agency has recently evaluated several ways to improve visitor safety as part of an effort to control visitor use, and is already closing trails when conditions warrant. “When considering closures, we must balance public safety and continued public access,” a Forest Service’s Region 5 spokeswoman said in an email Jan. 6.
The Forest Service also said signs warning of severe weather and recommending hiking gear and winter training are being posted at several high-use recreation areas, including the Icehouse Canyon, Bear Canyon and Devil’s Backbone trails, a steep trail where hikers fell and died last month.
Instantly visible as a backdrop to the LA skyline, Mt. Baldy attracts both experienced climbers and beginners to its beautiful alpine routes. However, some of those routes, especially Mgogoqo ka Devili, can be deceptively difficult in winter, changing from hiking to dangerous hiking trails that require special equipment and training.
Marcus Muench Casanova, a 19-year-old college student home for winter break, slipped and fell on the afternoon of Dec. 29 while hiking near the south slope of Mount Harwood days after winter storms dumped snow and freezing rain, his family said. While trying to find him, search helicopters happened to see the bodies of two other men, Juan Sarat Lopez, 37, and Bayron Pedro Ramos Garcia, 36, who had been seen walking together.
Strong winds initially prevented crews from lifting the men, but later that night, investigators confirmed all three were dead. It is believed that they fell on the same day, in the same direction.
After the tragedy, Casanova’s parents spoke out to remember their son as an unusually kind and energetic young man and to warn others about the dangers of hiking the trail in winter without a helmet, ice ax and crampons.
The Sheriff’s Department urged anyone thinking of hiking Mt. Baldy to “carefully evaluate situations, handle the right things, and understand one’s own limits.”
