TYB
>mind the red scarfs
British Snapchat engineer sent desperate last text before he and his family died in 100F heat on California hiking trail - but message failed to go through due to poor reception
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10526175/Family-died-California-mountains-desperate-plea.html
This story was notable'd yesterday, due to the strange story and images. Kinda been buried because of so much going on w/ Canada, but still interesting.
I mean, props for at the very least outlining your logic and interpretation.
clockfags, take note.
So this investigation actually started last summer, and I found the original story from the San Fransico Chronicle that provides a LOT more context/information.
This one might be ripe for a dig…
A young California family died while on a hike. Investigation reports now lay out the timeline of their catastrophic missteps
For two months, Mariposa County investigators looked for algae-laden water, long-lost mines that might emit toxic gas, poisonous vegetation, evidence of lightning strikes — anything that could explain how a young family and their dog mysteriously died together this summer on a remote trail near their home.
But in the end, as detailed in 77 pages of investigative reports obtained by The Chronicle, detectives kept coming back to sizzling-hot temperatures, lack of shade, rigorous terrain and a slew of disastrous choices that led to the shocking deaths of Ellen Chung, 31, and Jonathan Gerrish, 45, along with their 1-year-old daughter, Miju, and dog, Oski, after an Aug. 15 hike.
The family, numerous experts told the detectives, appeared to catastrophically underestimate just how dangerous their trek would be with temperatures reaching 109 degrees on a steep path locals knew to avoid during the summer. Crucially, it appeared they hadn’t brought nearly enough water.
One U.S. Forest Service volunteer who had hiked the nearly 8-mile loop more than a dozen times told a deputy the family appeared “completely unaware of the dangers.”
The records, released to The Chronicle under California public records laws, recount a difficult investigation while offering insight into a tragedy that transfixed hiking and outdoors enthusiasts around the world, with many wondering how everything could seemingly go wrong at once, leading to an entire young family and their dog dying together.
The documents also provide new details about Chung, a yoga instructor and graduate student, and Gerrish, a Snapchat engineer, who perished after a pandemic-time move from San Francisco to Mariposa, where they bought numerous properties and embraced the famed Sierra foothills.
The last person known to see the family alive was their babysitter on Aug. 13, two days before the hike. The woman — whose name was redacted, as were all names other than Chung and Gerrish in the reports — finished cleaning the house and left that afternoon. Later that evening, she had her final communication with Chung, as the young mother texted the babysitter a video of Miju starting to walk.
It was that weekend when, detectives say, Gerrish used an app to map out the hike. A search of Gerrish’s AllTrails history indicated he had hiked a portion of the same loop in May 2017, in weather that was probably cooler.
The day before the hike, a friend and business associate said he received a text from Gerrish.
“Mate!” Gerrish wrote. “Just been battling through the bush to find the property corners so much fun.”
Full story here:
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/mariposa-hiking-family-investigation-report-16671200.php