Date: 4-15-2013

Participants: Tom Mahood

General Search Area: Southeasterly slopes of Smith Water Canyon mouth and slopes above Quail Spring.

Rationale for Searching This Area:

Explained in way too much detail here: Current Bill Ewasko thoughts, January 2013.

Impressions of Area And Findings:

The usual treacherous terrain, although I must be getting used to it as it’s no big deal anymore.

Coverage Level:
Very thorough. I moved rather slowly and did a lot of scanning with binoculars. I’d say my coverage level was 80%, out to about 100′ on each side of my travel path. I also spent considerable time doing binocular scanning of the northerly slopes of Smith Water Canyon, from its mouth to about the eastern grove of Acacias. There had been some thought that Bill might have been headed down Smith Water and possibly ascended the unsearched north slope in an attempt to get a cell signal.

Comments:

A lot of miles have been spent searching the area southeast of the mouth of Smith Water Canyon to no avail. On many levels it makes sense, that Bill may have been attempting a cross country trip to Smith Water Canyon in search of water, but it is just not working out.

As we’ve probed this area there have been a few issues in regards to cell phones that caught my attention. First is that there seems to be better cell phone coverage in the upper regions than the splash maps show, at least according to what we’ve seen in the field. Second, the idea that Bill’s cell phone suddenly goes dead just as he gets to a cell zone strikes me as a remarkably unfortunate coincidence. But maybe. And finally, the measurements by Mike Melson suggest that distances measured by the Verizon system out of the Serin Drive cell tower are fairly accurate path lengths.

So here’s what’s been troubling me. Anyone coming over the top runs into some pretty good areas of cell coverage, we’ll out from 10.6 miles. And some of it is even out further than 11.1 miles, the distance considered within reasonable error. So if Bill did come over higher up, the ping should have been very strong and occurred further out than it did.

Now that changes if the travel route is lower down, and more northerly. In playing with Google Earth, I found a possible path that slowly descended from the upper reaches of the Quail Mountain area into this area without passing directly through the cell coverage zone. It skirted it just to the north, essentially just above Quail Spring. Someone traveling this path would have a continuous downhill route (important if injury is involved) and would pass just below the cell coverage area and thus could generate a single transitory ping at the proper distance.

I usually work out a GPS search route in advance of heading to the field and somewhat slavishly follow it to ensure I get the coverage I wanted. It’s sort of a mechanical, brute force method that essentially ends up doing a line search over time. I wanted to try something different this time.

What I did was ascend the slopes southeasterly of Quail Spring until I intercepted the general path I had found. I then turned to Smith Water with the view of someone who needed to get into that canyon for water and followed the terrain to best do that. I just followed my gut. I knew where the cell coverage zone was above me, so I deliberately made an effort to stay below it. I did note that from the vantage point of my approach that bowl southerly of the mouth of Smith Water could possibly be mistaken for Smith Water itself by someone unfamiliar with the area. That led me to climb the ridge between the bowl and Smith Water proper, which is almost on the 10.6 mile radius. It was along here I scanned the north slopes of Smith Water Canyon up to the height of a reasonable climb up the side.

I eventually reached the saddle between the bowl and Smith Water Canyon, having covered all the obvious possibilities. I turned back easterly and traversed across the face while ascending the south slopes generally going over areas already partly searched. From there I descended back down toward Quail Spring and back out.

Frankly, I’m stumped. Perhaps I’ve succumbed to my own delusion (usually it’s others who are its victims) but I really felt Bill was in this area. I mean, my gut still tells me that but my head says, “Look at all the red lines on the stinkin’ map! We’ve filled it in very well. He’s not there!” (My head can be rather annoying at times). Now I will concede we haven’t covered ALL possible spots in that locale, but I’d guess it has to be close to 85% of it.  So I just don’t know what to make of it. It’s like I’m working an arithmetic problem and keep getting 2 + 2 to equal 5. I know it’s clearly wrong, but just can’t see why. I suspect it will be a while before I head back out there for another search. Obviously I badly require new ideas and need to pout about this a while. I. Don’t. Like. Being. Wrong.

GPS mileage for this trip: 8.5 miles

Cumulative GPS mileage to date: 694.1 miles

GPS tracks for this trip in Google Earth kml format

GPS tracks for this trip in Garmin gdb format

GPS tracks for this trip in gpx format

JT52 tracks

JT52 tracks shown in blue, in context with the others to date. Black is from the original search, red tracks since then and the green dashed line the 10.6 miles radius from the Serin cell tower.

A detailed view of the JT52 tracks in southeast portion of the mouth of Smith Water Canyon.

The general route is shown in red. The green shaded areas are the approximate areas of cell coverage from the Serin cell tower. The black lines show the approximate distances to the cell tower.

Yes, it’s snake season! But not to be concerned, only a nice, pretty Rosy Boa.

Note from Tom: This search trip and writeup is brought to you courtesy of Adam Marsland. Blame any typos on him. But if you think it’s written well I’ll somehow take credit.

Date: 4-14-2013

Participants: Adam Marsland

General Search Area: Mountains on southeasterly side of the mouth of Smith Water Canyon

Rationale for Searching This Area:

Still the most likely place for Bill to have wound up, and wanted to add some redundancy to previous searches and also further explore an area from previous trip.

Impressions of Area And Findings:

The approaches up Smith Water Canyon are, as has been previously stated, hella steep. The terrain levels out a bit once you get high up. Many jumbled rock formations.

During the search, I was able to make a call from a spot that I think may have a significant probability of being the source of the mysterious Sunday cell ping.

Coverage Level:
Good in the higher elevations. I kept my eyes open bushwhacking back down, but once darkness fell I was focused on saving my own skin. Coverage after dark, with a headlamp, was surprisingly good (albeit in a very low probability area). The headlamp did a good job illuminating the brush…probably more so than daylight.

Comments:

Owing to an unexpected trip to Las Vegas and an equally unexpected detour on the return trip south, I found myself in the Joshua Tree area with a little time to kill. I was tired and my feet were aching from the previous night’s wedding gig playing songs I didn’t know for three hours in ill-fitting hushpuppies, but I wanted another shot at the Bill Ewasko search before the summer heat set in and touring commitments would take me physically out of the area for several months. After debating which end of Smith Water I wanted to tackle, I decided to go back over the area on my first trip, hopefully fill in a few spots, and if I was lucky and had enough stamina get back to the open area on top of the mountains where I’d felt the strongest sense that Bill might be nearby on my previous trip.

I parked the car on Park Road to set out just before the ungodly late hour of 4 p.m. I had noted at the park entrance that sundown was at 7:15. I was dubious how much searching I could do before daylight faded (it’s three miles from that point to the mouth of Smith Water), but not being an early riser by nature and living 2 1/2 hours from Joshua Tree, I figured it at least would tell me if I could get any real searching done with that late a start. The answer turned out to be yes, but with a significant increase in the risk level attached to the hike. Don’t try this at home, folks.

I made good time down the various washes toward Smith Water. I made a call out from Quail Wash and it occurred to me that one of the only places you can actually ping the Serin Tower AT 10.6 miles in the area is from Quail Wash. I had been shocked to notice for the first time a large barrel hidden inside a bush that I remembered from my last trip through this area, and reflected that it really is a lot easier to miss something hidden inside a bush then something laying in a rocky area. I mused that, despite all of the traffic through Quail Wash, it wasn’t inconceivable that Bill could still be there, having expired at some point heading north towards Joshua Tree. If he had taken shelter under a large bush, people could have passed within feet of him and never noticed. And there are lots and lots of bushes in Quail Wash. (Not to mention quail, which weren’t present the last time I was here)

I pushed these speculations aside as I headed back into the bowl above the mouth of Smith Water. After taking a quick look at one of the hills I had searched on my previous trip, I decided to angle towards the left (southeast) side of the bowl and try to angle upward towards the high ridge above. I was dubious I had enough time to make it, particularly since, so as to not duplicate previous searches, I tried to take a fairly idiotic path upward. This notwithstanding, I was surprised to note footprints in one particularly sketchy spot. Looking at Tom’s search grid, this appears to have been one of his crew. Shortly after that point I diverged upward and started making my way towards the top of the ridge.

I had gotten most of the way up when I made probably the most significant discovery of the day. In climbing up I had circled around a rocky area from the back and, completing the maneuver, stepped over a low ridge so that after circling south I was again facing north towards the canyon. Upon doing this suddenly I could see Joshua Tree village in the distance. Based on my experience the previous week on the north side of the canyon, I felt pretty certain I could get a call out at that point. I tried it…and succeeded.

This was significant since judging by my landmarks, I was closer to the 10.6 mile radius and also lower in elevation than the points where I had previously been able to get a call out from this ridge, further to the west. Moreover, I was only a few feet from that low ridge I had just crossed, behind which was ALL lower lying land all out of sight of town. This fit all the criteria for the mysterious Sunday morning ping, since someone could conceivably have traveled from the Quail Mountain area all the way to this point in the dark of the cell tower, cleared the low ridge, and immediately have cell reception. Once I got home and reviewed the location and GPS tracks, this impression was confirmed. If someone traveled all the way north from Quail in the cell phone dead zone, this is the spot they would wind up. And from what I could tell, once there the cell reception would be sudden, and strong. If someone had been trying for three days to get a call out, and they hit this spot…well, I could imagine the battery going pretty fast.

My personal feeling is that this spot has a high likelihood of being the source of the ping. To me, it all fits.

Just to my right at that spot was a tower of rock. Remembering Tom’s theory that Bill’s final cell ping could have come just prior to a fatal fall, I searched the area thoroughly. No Bill.

I continued to head east, aware that the sun was beginning to set, but still wanting to find the level terrain area at the first summit of the ridge I had come upon in my first trip to the area. I had felt, more than anywhere else, that Bill was in that general vicinity; it offered the most places to hang out and take shelter. I could not find it, however, even though I know I was in the area. My sense was that I was just above and behind it My desire had been to search just to the west of that spot, so I struck out for the area that I thought was in about the right place (from what I could tell reviewing the tracks later, I was in roughly the right area). There was a high rocky cliff and an area below where a fatal fall could easily occur, and two other similar spots just yards from me. I scanned the landscape that rapidly dropped away below carefully. Nothing.

At this point, with the sun beginning to set, I had to think about getting back. I decided to bushwhack straight back toward the car, which would take me through the Quail Springs area, an area which I remembered Tom had expressed a desire to search more thoroughly. I knew a dusk bushwhack through unfamiliar terrain was risky (and remembered a comment that the terrain above Quail Springs was particularly steep), but I figured it couldn’t be any worse than Smith Water and I might gain some unexpected insight into Bill’s frame of mind racing the clock.

At first, the terrain was fairly even and I did a good bit of looking around as I went down. I could see from foot and pole prints that previous searches had covered this area, but I did poke around a few rocky spots, including one just south of my suspected cell phone ping spot. As I progressed north towards Quail Springs though, it became apparent that the way down would get steeper and steeper the further I got, and I was still a long way from my destination. As darkness began to fall and the terrain got less forgiving, the hike started to get harrowing. I did start thinking about Bill, conceivably finding himself in a similar situation in a bushwhack gone wrong that fateful Thursday, with that unhappy understanding dawning that the further down you got, the more dangerous it got, and the longer you took, the darker it got. A bad tradeoff, but I kept reminding myself that you’re not REALLY in any danger until you injure yourself, and took proper care as I negotiated the ever steeper descent into the area around Quail Springs. I had a hiking stick; he didn’t. Looking around, it wasn’t hard to imagine how Bill could have gotten himself into an odd spot. After all, the only reason I was where I was was follwoing a line of sight from where I had just been to the arm of a hill that was in line with my car. Otherwise, there was no reason for anybody to be there.

Once I got down (EXTREMELY relieved) into the wash that snaked up into the hills towards the spot I descended, the wash was rocky enough that rather than following it out of my way I kept moving in a straight line over a low hill that separated me from Quail Wash. Right at the point I finally put the last of the mountainous rocks behind me, I came across a half of a jawbone in my path. It had no fangs and human-sized teeth, so I took a picture and some film. Tom later indicated it was probably from a deer or a mountain goat. Not human.

The slog back to the car was, just like last time, brutal. I hit the road nearly a mile from my car and had I not had the GPS track to refer to I would have never found it. Interestingly, once I donned a headlamp to make my way back, I had much better visibility into the brush than when it was daylight. Thinking back on my idle Quail Springs theory earlier, I fancifully envisioned a group of night hikers, dressed in head lamps, walking up Quail Springs doing a lo-tech X-ray of the brush therein. And trudged on.

GPS mileage for this trip: 8.9 miles

Cumulative GPS mileage to date: 685.6 miles

GPS tracks for this trip in Google Earth kml format

GPS tracks for this trip in Garmin gdb format

GPS tracks for this trip in gpx format

JT51 tracks

JT51 tracks in blue, original search tracks in black, tracks since in red and Serin cell tower 10.6 mile radius in dashed green.

A detailed view of the JT51 tracks, in blue, in the SE Smith Water Canyon mouth area.

The Composite H-Quad

Having trashed my Tricopter to no end, I thought I might like to take a stab at building something of my own.  I wanted it to be light, very strong (I beat the crap out of things), make it backpack transportable and also minimize vibration. I knew that dissimilar materials do a lot to kill vibration so I began to consider using a laminate of G-10 fiberglass sheet epoxied to a lightweight Poplar wood core. The G-10 provides huge tensile strength and the wood provides compressive strength. I wanted an H layout instead of an X Quad as I intended it for photography and with H-quads it’s a lot easier to keep the rotors out of the picture.

To further reduce vibration I sandwiched the motor arms with neoprene rubber where they attach to the body. But wait, there’s more! The attach screws themselves float with a combination of rubber washers and something called “Neobond” washers from a local real hardware store (not a big box). These things have a thick soft rubber washer bonded to a steel washer. The resultant setup has the arms firmly held to the body, all via rubber-to-rubber connections. I went one step further and floated the camera mount platform between two layers of a Sorbothane-like material called Kyoshoto Zeal. It has completely killed all Jello effects in the video.

Making it transportable was a challenge, and I was only partially successful.  I began by making the arms removable with just a couple of screws holding them in place. I then set it up so the four  ESCs are on the body and the three motor wires from each connect to the motors via bullet connectors which have color coded heat shrink on them. So I just match the colors and I know each motor will be turning in the right direction. What I didn’t take into account was the additional extension of the propeller blades, 5″ at each arm end. This makes for a somewhat long package to transport, made worse by the fact that each end, the props, are bendy. This has proven to be a pain.

Although the paint job may seem frivolous, I assure you it’s not. When the quad is flying some distance away and I’m not running FPV, it’s often times very hard to discern its orientation. You might think it’s pointed toward you, so you push the stick forward to bring it back, when in fact it’s pointed the other way and is flying merrily away from you. The white nose end provides a contrast which tremendously improves orientation recognition.

All the goodies in the current incarnation. This weighs in, without battery, at 1,454 grams.

I floated the camera mount off the body by using rubber spacers. This meant the camera mount, constructed of 3/32″ modeling plywood, was a separate piece. After having to rebuild a first iteration of a mount that didn’t work well, it occurred to me I could make multiple mounts for different purposes and simply swap them. This allows me to quickly change between a forward looking mount (about a 15 degree downward slant), a 45 degree oblique view mount, and a pure vertical mount to look straight down. My still camera, a 14 megapixel Canon A2200 is running  CHDK software which I’ve setup to shoot an image every 5 seconds at a shutter of 1/1000 second. This has provided excellent pictures. I actually find the forward looking mount does the best “scenic” shots, and I want to use the vertical mount for mapping or photogrammetry projects. I think the 45 degree mount might be useful when doing shots on hillsides or rapidly rising terrain.

Detail of Swann HD camera used for flight video. It also provides a mediocre video output which is fed to the transmitter for FPV use. Its  1080 recorded video is quite good though (and it was cheap!)

Detail of forward looking camera mount. Camera platform “floats” between two layers of green Kyosho Zeal vibration absorption sheet so there’s no hard connection to the body of the aircraft. Works great for killing Jello.

Canon A2200 with FPV camera (Sony 600TVL Super HAD) peering over its shoulder. This allows for a video feed while taking still shots. This configuration weighs 1,556 grams without battery. It seems heavy.

Canon A2200 on 45 degree mount for oblique aerial views. 

Canon A2200 on vertical mount. Use of this requires caution as it’s just asking to damage the camera during a hard landing. Also it’s prone to dusting from the rotors. Note the use of the Zeal gel to the left of the camera to kill vibration.

Detail of the vertical camera mount and vibration isolation setup. The arms are insulated from the main body by neoprene strips top and bottom. The camera mount is further insulated from the body with Neobond washers. Oh yeah, the landing legs are sliced sections of PVC rain gutter downspout. Cheap and VERY springy!

Vibration isolation stack for the camera mount using “Neobond” washers. They are rubber washers bonded to steel washers (I’ve flipped one over on the lower right). The center washer floats the camera mount away from the main body. There are no hard attach points to it.

The disassembled Quad and accompanying equipment after packing it into a remote desert location. Tarp was to provide a dust free landing/takeoff area to protect the cameras. I failed to consider the propeller extension in my design and discovered they stick out in transport, leading to bent props. Lesson learned.  

Construction notes

The following are some shots taken during the construction which show the inner workings.

Arm components with G-10 fiberglass upper and lower plates and Poplar wood core. One of the assembled arms weighs 90 grams. The G-10 is 0.046″ thick.

Dimensional drawing of arm design. For those of you that know of such things, these dimensions result in a configuration roughly equivalent to a 560 mm class quadcopter.

Detail of arm end showing wood core. I extended the G-10 plates out to act as a protective skirt for the motors. When you crash as much as I do you think of these things. The wood is .500″ thick.

Body components during epoxy process. The bottom plate has the larger holes. I made the wood web here Balsa instead of Poplar and it has proven to be plenty strong. The interior depth is 0.800″ and allows for running the wiring.

The assembled arms and partially assembled body. The holes are for lightening and to allow wiring to pass through. The black strips on the arms are the neoprene spacer/isolaters.

An earlier version with a camera mount that didn’t work. Too much vibration resulting in Jello video. With the camera mass out on the “diving board”, it oscillated too easily. So I stiffened the mount, brought the camera inward and added Zeal vibration isolation gel.

All in all I’m pretty happy with the result. It flies well, for around 9 minutes and feels like it has a lot of power. The APM flight controller provides amazing abilities, some of which, like fully autonomous missions, are further up the learning curve from me. But I have benefited greatly from its GPS and the ability to simply throw a switch and have it come back to me from wherever it is, under its own control, and land. That’s just friggin’ amazing.

This design has been fantastically strong, due to the composite construction. During one crash incident I flew through a tree at 20′, then impacted a concrete V ditch. I figured it was toast, but the result was only a couple of broken props and minor scrapes to the arm ends. In a second crash (see a pattern) I managed to fly it into desert sand at high speed, sideways (the upside was I learned how windy is too windy). Again, replace a couple of props and it’s ready to go. Its robustness has greatly exceeded my expectations.

Things I found that worked:

• The composite vibration isolation concept.
• Floating components using rubber washers.
• Kyosho  Zeal rocks!
• Color coding ESC wires for mindless connections.
• Multiple camera mounts.
• CHDK is REALLY useful.

Things that sorta suck:

• Doesn’t transport well enough. Maybe next version will have folding arms.
• Prop blast on dirt surfaces and delicate cameras don’t play well.
• I could have used thinner G-10 and perhaps Balsa instead of Poplar for the core.
• Need better wire management in the body. It’s a rat’s nest.

This is still very much a work in process with a lot left to do. But I thought I’d post an image of a size comparison between the Techpod and the bruised and battered Easy Star. The Techpod’s payload area is huge!

Size comparison between the not-quite-complete Techpod (left) and an EasyStar (right). Yeah, it’s close to double the wing span.

I was interested in experimenting with multirotor aircraft, but wasn’t sure if it was something that I’d want to get deeply into. They certainly have limitations as compared to fixed wing, especially when it comes to flight times. A 10 minute flight with a multirotor is doing pretty well. OTOH, they can get into places and do things a fixed wing can’t. So maybe. I figured my cheapest option would be a trirotor as that’s about the minimum number of motors you have have and be a multirotor aircraft.

I later read online that someone called trirotors the retards of the multirotor world (I’d rather just say they are “special”). The main reason for this is in the case of aircraft with 4, 6 (hex) or 8 (octo) rotors, turning is accomplished by slightly spinning up or winding down opposing motors. This works with an even number of motors but is problematic with three. To to pull off a turn with a trirotor the rear motor (yes, there is a definite rear to this thing) is actually on a pivot and is tilted left and right by a servo. This weird moving part can introduce complexity into the design of a trirotor and result in fragility in the inevitable crashes. The upside is that you can have an aircraft that flies like a bat outta hell. Now I did not know this latter part. I thought I was getting a somewhat docile trainer.

I eventually selected a kit called the Delrin Tricopter by FPVManuals. It’s an elegant design, with replaceable wooden arms. I mentioned replaceable, didn’t I? Good. I did it a lot. Turns out they end up being the weak point in crashes and are wonderful at absorbing impact.

All multirotors need some sort of computerized flight controller to keep them in the air. There would be no way to fly the damn things otherwise. Basic flight controllers have gyros and accelerometersn to keep the craft level and doing what the pilot wants it to do. More advanced flight controllers can have magnetic compasses for direction, barometers for altitude,  and GPS to find its way home and do completely autonomous flights. Since I was just dipping my toe in I cheaped out and got a KK2.0 flight controller from Hobbyking for $30. None of that fancy stuff, just enough smarts to level out of the aircraft when the pilot does something stupid. I also added a Swann HD sport camera (sorta a FauxPro) and a 5.8 GHz ImmersionRC video transmitter.

FPVManuals Delrin Tricopter kit, as embellished by moi.

I had a few problems with the trirotor. First, it flew like a friggin’ sports car and I was a beginning pilot. It is unseemly for a man of my age to be climbing trees to retrieve an expensive tricopter. But it was sorta fun and nobody was looking. Also, since it had only a basic flight controller, there was no “altitude hold” function to maintain a constant hover. If you nudged the throttle stick just a little too much, it shot off into the sky. It wanted to be free….or something. And this introduced the final problem. With such a small cross section, it was often difficult to tell which way the damn thing was pointed after it became a spot in the distance. My international orange paint job on its ass end was an attempt to improve this situation. It helped, but not enough.

I had been flying the thing only a couple weeks, slowly expanding my comfort zone, when I decided to fly it out a bit and higher, doing a large orbit of the lot I was flying it from. This was somewhat working out until it flew behind some Eucalyptus trees in the foreground and I momentarily lost sight of it. Well, I shouldn’t say momentarily, as that implies I caught sight of it again. I didn’t, it had gone on walkabout.

I panicked somewhat, knowing I had hundreds of dollars and many hours of work hovering somewhere high in the distance. To make matters worse, I had included my expensive HD camera on the trirotor for this flight. I “guessed” which direction it might have been pointing in and spun it around what felt like a proper amount to point it back to me, then pushed the nose forward. I was hoping it would move closer to me and I’d eventually hear the thing. No luck. I kept looking off to the west, the direction I had lats seen it, and manipulated the controls in a vain hope that it might move in my direction and I’d see or hear it. Finally after a few minutes I throttled it back and started looking.

Much of the area I was flying near is under the control of the Evil Empire, uh, I mean Irvine Company, and is a mixture of agricultural fields, avocado orchards and temporarily mothballed building pads. I knew if it had drifted into the dense orchards I’d never see it again, but if it went down into the fields or building pads I had a chance. So the trespassing commenced.

It took 45 minutes, but eventually I saw a piece of international orange leg sticking up out of the grass. It was almost a half mile away from its launch. Although it was in pieces, the actual damage was three broke wood arms, and two props. The camera had survived it all and was still running. The video was rather entertaining as the aircraft spins around in response to my efforts to figure out where it is. At one point I can be seen far below in the distance looking in the wrong direction. The final part is wonderfully grim as it rapidly descends, completely level, from several hundred feet. Here’s the video I posted on YouTube.

The result of the tricopter doing an uncontrolled descent from around 400′. One broke prop, two broke legs, pretty cheap! Lesson learned, don’t let the damn thing get out of eyesight.

So after that, I thought, “Damn…I need a quad…..Yeah, a quad, with GPS and a ‘return to launch’ function”. This multirotor stuff was actually a lot of fun and held out the ability to image a lot of interesting sites.

Note from Tom: This search trip and writeup is brought to you courtesy of Adam Marsland. It’s his second trip. Do 10 and you get a free, used water bottle. 

Date: 4/06/2013

Participants: Adam Marsland, Teresa Cowles

General search area: North side of Smith Water Canyon east and north of Covington Trailhead area.

Rationale for searching this area:

Previously unsearched area close to the cell phone ping range.

Since my first search of the area another possibility had occurred to me about Ewasko’s possible plans that could give him a reason to be on the largely ignored north side of Smith Water Canyon. From a cell phone ping standpoint, it’s one of the last unsearched areas that falls near the 10.6 mile radius.

Impressions of area and findings:

The approach that we took to climbing the north slope of Smith Water was difficult, but conceivable without hiking sticks (which Bill didn’t have but we did, and blessed repeatedly). When we tried to get back down at a point further up the canyon, the terrain was so steep and rugged we gave up on it. There may be easier approaches further up the canyon, but I didn’t see any on this trip nor my previous one.

Up at the top of the canyon, it’s a completely different story. The terrain is not terribly uneven nor overgrown for fairly large stretches, visibility is far (you can see Joshua Tree village clearly from this vantage point), and extensive ground can be covered fairly easily. It’s even scenic (there is, however, little cover from the sun). If Bill did somehow get up to this point, with the terrain this vast and easy, it would have been tempting to try to walk out to the north (as per Tom’s theory in the notes for JT37).

With Ewasko still not found, there has been more and more speculation that he just walked out of the search area completely, perhaps disoriented from dehydration. If he somehow got up here, perhaps from further up Covington Flat Road where the approach is less steep, the amount of places he could have wound up are nearly endless.

Coverage level:

Only fair.  There were two of us, and we split up quite a bit and covered a lot of ground.  That said, we did not get as far north as we had thought/hoped and were both acutely aware that, as said above, if Bill did blunder into this area, he could be about anywhere.

Comments:

The north side of Smith Water, with a couple of exceptions, has not been searched at all, and for good reason: it’s very hard to think of any reason for Bill to make the ascent. But there is cell phone coverage on the north side at nearly the 10.6 mile radius point, and after thinking through the case again, I thought I had two (non mutually exclusive) theories that could conceivably put him in the area. If nothing else, we would further narrow the unsearched area (though, because we were further south than we realized, not as much as we had hoped).

The starting point to these ideas was the question: why was Bill at Juniper Flats trailhead in the first place? Given his late arrival relative to his morning cell phone calls, and his stated desire to visit Cary’s Castle, it seems likely that it was not his first choice of destinations. Looking at the map, and thinking through my own experiences as a drop-in hiker/tourist, I thought it was suggestive that there was a range of interesting destinations within theoretical range of the Juniper Flats trailhead…Juniper Flats itself, Quail Mountain, Stubbe Spring and lastly, Smith Water Canyon. Quail Mountain and Smith Water were each on different lists of possible locations for Bill to investigate. My instinct was (and even after today, still is) that Bill likely chose Juniper Flats because, with the day getting on, it offered him the most “bang for his buck” to see multiple things during his limited time in Joshua Tree.

With that in mind, it seemed very possible to me that he had not settled on an actual destination when he set out from the car, and that he was going to play it by ear. So what if he had gotten as far as Juniper Flats and then not gone up Quail at all (or only ventured a short way and decided against it)? The California Riding and Hiking Trail offered (relatively) easy terrain and a potential second destination, Smith Water, with a place to refill Ewasko’s dwindling water bottles. More or less the same as Tom Mahood’s theory, but without Ewasko having gone up Quail in the first place.

I e-mailed this idea to Tom Mahood and he immediately shot down the idea of Smith Water as a primary destination: it was a 10 mile hike at the height of summer and there were two MUCH easier entries to Smith Water Canyon; at Covington Trailhead and at Park Road north of Quail Spring. True, I responded; but the road to the former was clear on the other end of the park, requiring an exit and re-entry. No way was that going to happen on a limited time frame. And the Park Road entrance, while not as far, offered no secondary destinations other than Samuelson’s Rock, and a pretty uninspiring slog to Quail Spring (there’s also no official trailhead there).

Be all that as it may, Tom convinced me that there’s no way Bill would have set out for Smith Water as his set destination from the outset…but it still seemed conceivable to me that he might have struck out for it in a “we’ll see how far we get” way from the Juniper Flats area and, as I have frequently done, underestimated the time remaining to get there in proportion to the amount of time already invested in the trail. And there was another, perhaps more likely, possibility as theory number two…if Bill had started to suffer sunstroke and disorientation, it was easy enough to imagine him just wandering down California Riding and Hiking Trail — the path of least resistance (well, the only path) — without necessarily having a conscious plan.

Be that as it may, once at Smith Water, a coherent Bill would be expected to strike out to refill his water supplies. At that point, he could conceivably have climbed the north slope (a) to take a picture of the canyon in the presumably fading light (he was an amateur photographer), (b) for orienteering purposes, or (c) to get a cell call out for help, since at that point he may have been 10 miles out from the car. A serious injury at that point could possibly have left him in a situation where he could only crawl up, to ping the cell tower 2 1/2 days later.

OK…detail-wise, the scenarios that put a sane Bill on the north side of Smith Water are a bit flimsy. But the rest of the idea has a few compelling components that are hard to shake. The Riding and Hiking Trail is almost entirely in the dark of the cell tower, which explains the most puzzling part of the mystery, the cell phone that didn’t ping until Sunday (and that, apparently, died as soon as it was turned on). It is also the quickest way to Smith Water, and it seems clear that somehow, someway, he got there. It’s the most obvious route for a disoriented person to travel; but if he’s compos mentis, once Bill has traveled far enough down the trail, his rationale for going on to Smith Water to refill his bottles is the same as it would have been on the approach to Quail Mountain…and his path there much safer. As to the “sunstroked Bill” theory, I couldn’t think of a good reason why a not-totally-rational Ewasko would wander up Smith Water Canyon from the trail until I got there, then I saw why: it’s substantially cooler in the canyon.

So even if the guessing as to the “whys” isn’t all that convincing, the possibility of Bill simply hiking up the California Riding and Hiking Trail to Smith Water, and out of the search area almost from the get-go, and then hurts himself, remains the simplest and most direct scenario to explain the Sunday cell tower ping.

Tom, helpfully suggesting that “I could stand to be wrong a few times,” gave the trip his blessing and I was off, this time with an old hiking partner, Teresa Cowles, for extra safety backup and an extra pair of eyes. This proved to be invaluable as she repeatedly spotted things I missed all along the trail.

We set off from Covington Flats Trailhead and headed up Smith Water for about 3/4 of a mile. We failed to find any water in that segment. Our plan was to put ourselves in Bill’s shoes, look for water, and then from there look for a good northside vantage point for photo bug Bill to take a hypothetical I-came-this-far-might-as-well-get-a-snapshot-before-I-go sunset picture from. Not finding water put a crimp in that plan. We instead ascended at the first half-decent slope we could find after that point. It was fairly tough going at first but it gradually got less so. It was conceivable that someone without a pole could make it…and indeed, Teresa found an old Snapple can in the brush that indicated at least one other person had taken this route before us.

The lay of the topography kept pushing us back towards the first big ridge east of the Covington trailhead, which I knew Tom had already searched thoroughly, so we attempted to move back to the north, with my goal being to keep going up until my phone (which is Verizon) pinged the cell tower. This was the same thing I tried on my previous trip, and like the previous trip, it did not happen until we were very high up, pretty much at a height of land from which we had a view of the lower lands to the north and east and Joshua Tree village beyond.

At this point, it was hard to know how to proceed, because if Bill had gotten to this spot, we wouldn’t know what condition he was in, why he was there, or what he proposed to do next. So we basically let the terrain guide us, keeping an eye for rock outcroppings and such (not nearly as many of these up here as on the south side of Smith Water). For the most part, the going was not difficult until we started to head north and east back towards Smith Water Canyon, where the terrain got too steep and rough to safely go further, at which point we turned west and then north, the idea being that if Bill had gotten up here for some reason, the terrain was easy enough that it probably would have compelled him to try to walk out to Joshua Tree. The thing is, it never really “felt” like Bill had been in the area (not like the first trip where at one point I felt like I was really close) but moreover, if he had wandered up here, he could be ANYWHERE. The amount of places that haven’t been searched that he could have walked to in this area, with relative ease, were vast.

We did find a few things, most significantly several parts of a skeleton near the point where we turned back from trying to descend back down into Smith Water. The vertebrae were large enough to be human. We bushwhacked around until we found the skull. I’m not sure what it was, but it had antlers, so I’m guessing it’s not Bill. We did find another bone early on, on the first ascent, but it was small and almost certainly from a critter.

There was slightly more sense of human passage than on my first trip to Smith Water; we were surprised to find footprints, including an eerily well defined (and isolated) male bootprint in a remote spot, not far from where the large animal skeleton was. Looking at Tom’s website, this may be a remnant of his only search in this area; it looks like he may have gone down this wash. We also found a Gatorade can, nearly entirely buried, in one of the flatter areas on the north end of our coverage area. But basically, nothing that could be linked to Bill.

My gut sense is that Bill isn’t to be found here, but I certainly can’t rule it out on the basis of today’s search. If he did wander up here somehow (and as I said the approaches are daunting, but the going is quite easy once you’re up), he could have gone for miles and miles and it’s no wonder he hasn’t been found. On that basis, this area may warrant further investigation, as per Tom’s notes on JT 37.

I took video of the trip, with me narrating increasingly less and less coherently as the day ground on, which I will put up as soon as one of us gets around to editing it.

GPS mileage for this trip: 6.6 miles

Cumulative GPS mileage to date: 676.7 miles

GPS tracks for this trip in Google Earth kml format

GPS tracks for this trip in Garmin gdb format

GPS tracks for this trip in gpx format

JT 50 tracks in blue, original search tracks in black, tracks since then in red and Mike Melson and company’s local tracks in green. The 10.6 mile Serin cell tower radius is the green dashed line.

I beat the living shit out of this thing.

The Multiplex Easy Star makes an excellent trainer for someone who has no idea what they are doing. I can attest that it can fly directly into the faces of large rocks and recover with generous applications of strapping tape and Goop adhesive.

Eventually all learning curves get less steep and I began to spend more time flying the thing than crashing it. I added a Skylark Tiny onscreen display (OSD) with GPS to give me the distance and altitude of the plane at any time in my FPV goggles. That way even if I can’t see it with my eye, I always know where “home” is and can fly back. That’s the theory so far, anyway. The OSD also shows how much battery life I have left, the current power consumption and the ground speed.

It carries a 2200 maH, 11.1 volt lithium poly battery, which provides 30 – 40 minutes of flying, depending on how aggressive I fly it.  Seems like a long time as I’m pretty beat by the time it lands. The battery also powers the FPV camera and transmitter. I’ve had it up to 2,000′ above ground, and I’m sure it can go a lot higher if I push it.

It’s a dirt-simple plane to fly, as it has only two control surfaces, the rudder and elevator. There are no ailerons. To turn the plane uses only the rudder and sort of wallows around. Sloppy, but it’s easy for us morons and it works. However ultimately I wanted something with ailerons to get comfortable with in anticipation of the Techpod. So I got myself a Bixler 1.1, which is sort of an Easy Star clone, but with ailerons. But the Easy Star served me very well.

This is the cumulative result of 45 minutes of crashing perpetrated by someone who actually knows how to fly real aircraft but is new to R/C. This frigging hand-eye coordination stuff is hard! Makes for a nice lawn dart though.

After copious amounts of Goop and strapping tape, the EZ Star as it finally evolved (survived?). It’s one battered aircraft.

That’s a ReadyMadeRC FPV camera on the nose and behind it is the GPS antenna for the Skylark Tiny OSD. At the upper right is a Castle ESC for the motor. And yes, the nose pretty much IS strapping tape. But it flies just fine.

The motor is a Himax HC2815-2000 (275 watts!) turning a 5.5″ propeller. The transmitter is one of my favorites, a 600 mW 5.8 GHz ImmersionRC unit. Note the antenna cable dives into the fuselage. I mounted the antenna on the bottom for better coverage.

Here’s the bottom of the fuselage showing the antenna protected by lots of strapping tape. It’s pretty safe there as the tail of the plane usually crashes last.

For most FPV flying, I’ve found Fat Shark FPV goggles to work OK. The model I have, the Predator (who thinks of these testosterone laden names??) has an integrated 5.8 GHz receiver, and when coupled with a right hand circularly polarized (RHCP) antenna can minimize the geekiness of the look when using it. I said minimize, but not eliminate. But as a backup to the goggles and also to allow for a better antenna, I wanted to make a full fledged ground station (GS). It also allows others to watch the video from the aircraft and the flight data displayed via the onscreen display.

I had an old plastic case that had been lingering in the garage for years, and I found a neat 9″ LCD monitor on eBay for $35. I already had a very nice ImmersionRC 5.8 GHz receiver and antennas, so I was ready to go. Amazon was the source of both a cheap tripod ($12) and also an extension mast. Power to the GS is provided by a 11.1 volt 3300 maH battery that will run the thing for at least six hours.

I have the choice of using either an omnidirectional antenna, which is equally sensitive in all directions, or a flat plate antenna which will go seriously far in the direction it’s pointed (and if it’s not in the right direction you’d better fix it fast). I’ve found with the 600 mW 5.8 GHz ImmersionRC transmitter I use, I get just over one mile with the omni antenna before the pictures starts getting bad. I don’t know yet how far the flat plate antenna goes as it probably exceeds the distance of the control link to the aircraft, and to find that out would be a bad day.

The complete ground station in a small plastic case and a packed $12 Amazon tripod.

The case holds the monitor and provides storage for the receiver, cables and antennas. There is space reserved for a future DVR to record transmissions.

Ground station set up with omnidirectional circularly polarized antenna on top of the receiver on the mast.

Closeup of the omni antenna on top of the Immersion RC 5.8 GHz receiver.

Ground station using directional plate antenna for substantially greater gain. However it must be pointed in the general direction of the aircraft.

Closeup of the 13 dBi gain antenna.

We are all getting quite sick of Smith Water Canyon in Joshua Tree as part of our ongoing search for Bill Ewasko. In an inspiration of self-preservation, Patrick McCurdy suggested to me that as a break maybe we should do the Stubbe Springs Loop hike, as we had never been there. And oh, by the way there’s a rumor of an old mine in the area. He knows I’m easily distracted by shiny things and had me at “rumor”. And rumor is usually more interesting than fact. (For Patrick’s account of the trip, see here)

In all the times we had been out in that area we never got around to actually doing the loop. Maybe because it was longish, on the order of 13 miles. But I had more than a little curiosity about the place as it had been covered pretty well on the original search for Bill Ewasko. The search notes reported the dogs showed an interest in the vicinity, a foul stench being noted, so a lot of time was spent going over it in detail. It was ultimately determined the likely source of both the dog’s interest and stench was a Big Horn Sheep carcass in the vicinity.

Patrick had heard something of the existence of an old mine near Tandy Point, supposedly known as the Tandy Mine. Internet searching turned up nothing but it was as good an excuse as any to wander around cross country through the desert. We dragged Pete Carlson’s ass along because a 13 mile hike through the desert is the sort of warm up thing he does before breakfast. Besides, we conned him into driving so it would be much more pleasant than our usual trucks.

We left the Juniper Flats trailhead around 9 AM and headed out on the California Riding and Hiking Trail. We quickly noticed there was a lot of charring in the low hills to the south, something new since the last time I had been through the area. It looked to be a pretty substantial brush fire.

Just before reaching the trail junction and turnoff to Juniper Flats, we hung a sharp left and started up cross country toward Tandy Point. Tandy Point was a peak originally listed in the first (1946) Hundred Peaks Section of the Sierra Club. However after the first group went up it, it was removed from the list as it was simply too flat a climb and unworthy of being included on the list. Not climb-worthy. However for me, the flatter the thing the more attractive. Perhaps that’s why I never joined the Sierra Club?

Anyway, the climb was short and pleasant, passing through an unburned area. We kept a lookout for any sort of mine or prospect, but failed to notice anything. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, we simply didn’t see it. We didn’t spend any extra time looking though. So go look for it! If you don’t find it, blame Patrick. I do.

As we approached the high point on the ridge we started looking for the Tandy benchmark. This turned out to be a little difficult as the highest point wasn’t especially pronounced and there were two other unnamed benchmarks in close proximity. But we finally found Pete unknowingly standing on it. Lesson learned: When you’re looking for something, look under Pete.

Patrick on Tandy Point. “I just KNOW there’s a mine out there somewhere….”

The benchmark on Tandy Point. Proof we were there (unless we lifted the image off the Innerwebz)

The view from the top was very nice both towards Palm Desert in the west and east towards the Juniper Flats area. We were surprised to find a small register at the peak with only a couple of names in recent years. Well, maybe not surprised. Who in their right minds would come up here?

A panorama of Juniper Flat from Tandy Point. That’s Quail Mountain and the Quail ridge toward the left side of the image.

We could see Stubbe Spring off in the distance to the west and well below us, so we started on down. We didn’t head exactly for the spring as we wanted to intercept the trail from the Juniper Flat junction and see what it was like. There was a comment by one of the Ewasko search teams that someone on that trail could conceivably get confused were it crosses a wash and inadvertently continue the wrong way on down a wash. So we wanted to see what the trail was like.

Stubbe Spring from Tandy Point. It’s that brushy area in the middle of the picture.

Turned out the trail was very good and the likelihood of taking a wrong turn seemed low. We followed it to the area of Stubbe Spring and noticed the park service had posted trail guide markers guiding you right past the spring without noting it. But there was nothing that said keep out so we continued over to the spring. We quickly found it perhaps would have been wise to post a keep out sign!

Looking back at Tandy Point from Stubbe Spring. It’s that little blip on the saddle in the center of the picture. Yeah, I know, it’s that impressive in real life, too.

The spring appears to be a seepage on the westerly slope of a narrow ravine, continuing down to its bottom, which is fairly lush with vegetation. We saw no evidence of open water. What we did see was Big Horn Sheep skeletons….lots of them. We counted at least four within a hundred foot area in the canyon bottom of various ages. Some still reeked a bit. There could have been more in the brush but we became less eager to explore.

The vegetation on the far side of Stubbe Spring. The ravine of death is below.

Now a Big Horn is a big animal, something not likely to be taken down by a coyote. The only thing we could think of capable of the job was a mountain lion. Hello kitty! It looked like Stubbe Spring was something of a mountain lion kill area, their local minimart. It quickly became apparent this was not a smart place to be if you were a solo hiker. And while this area has been designated as day use only by the park, camping anywhere near here would be about the last thing I’d want to do, since it could be the last thing I’d do.

One of the multiple sets of Big Horn Sheep remains at Stubbe Spring. Ah the desert is such an inviting place…..

We continued up the slope to the west looking for a guzzler listed on the topo map of the area. What we found was a pile of old lumber, some cammo netting and a couple of rusty folding chairs. I’ve never seen a wooden guzzler but perhaps that’s what it used to be. Who am I to question the USGS? I’m guessing the chairs and netting were left over from some sort of Big Horn Sheep census project. But hey it was a place to sit in the middle of nowhere.

Truly mountain lion bait. Pete and Patrick on the chairs in the middle of nowhere. The remnants of what is supposedly a guzzler are in the foreground.

Time was passing and we weren’t getting any closer to getting out of there, so eventually we left the ravine of death and started back on the loop. Pete wanted to see the Fan Canyon Overlook so we diverted to there for a peek. It was pretty impressive.

Looking westerly off the Fan Canyon Overlook.

We left the overlook and headed north through the hills to rejoin the California Riding and Hiking Trail. In May of 2012 for JT36 I had checked out this area and it was very nice, covered with junipers. Sadly this same area was really hard hit by the fire and it was scorched and bare. It still smelled burnt.

After hitting the main trail it was the usual long slog back to the trailhead. I’ve done that damn trail enough times to have grown to dislike it as it seems far too long. We made it back to the vehicle around 3 PM, having covered about 13 miles. That was 13 miles in 6 stinkin’ hours, including stopping a few times to not find mines and eat. We all decided this was far too fast a pace for a hike (even Pete!) but none of us wanted to be the one who said, “Uh, guys, could we take a break?” I suspect it was because it’s been a while since we actually used this thing called a “trail” at Joshua Tree and didn’t know how to react to all that smoothy goodness.

Our GPS tracks for the Stubbe Spring Loop hike.

Note from Tom: This search trip and writeup is brought to you courtesy of Adam Marsland who has done a much better of job it than I would have! He’s even prepared an accompanying video, available here, which shows the terrain of the upper SE Smith Water slopes better than all the pictures I’ve done.

Date: 3/01/2013

Participants: Adam Marsland

General search area: The previously-unsearched three high hills overlooking the east side of the mouth of Smith Water Canyon, plus the rocky areas up to the top of the ridgeline that are the most likely source of the cell ping.

Rationale for searching this area:

The hills at the mouth of Smith Water are the only extensive part of the “Smith Water Exclusion Zone” that has never been searched, and the highest point falls almost exactly at the 10.6 mile radius mark. It seemed possible to me that given the positioning of the mountains, a sliver of coverage might be found at the top of the highest of these three hills.

Impressions of area and findings:

I was unable to get a cell phone connection at the highest point of the three knolls, nor on any of the others (though I got 1-2 bars). I searched the area fairly thoroughly, including covering many of the rocky areas on facing Smith Water. While there are conceivably a couple of spots Bill could be hiding, there aren’t many, and it’s hard to find a rationale to put him up in that area when there are easier ways down. The secondary search area, which went up to the top of the ridgeline south of that area, and includes the most likely origin area of the cell ping (the only part of the Serin Drive coverage that falls in the Smith Water area), I feel holds much more promise.

Coverage level:

In the areas I was focused on in and around Smith Water, I would say excellent. While it’s possible I missed Bill, I’d be very surprised if that turned out to be the case. I was particularly careful to search all the outcroppings on the way up and down the rocky steep face that rises up from that area.

Comments:
I happened across Tom’s website a few weeks ago (the German tourist case had always fascinated me) and immediately became obsessed with the Bill Ewasko mystery. I pored over the available facts and thought I had found a hole in the search: the aforementioned three hills on the south side at the mouth of Smith Water. Not only had they never been searched, but the highest point was almost exactly at 10.6 miles from the tower. It was possible, I reasoned, that there might be a sliver of cell reception at the very highest spot.

I e-mailed Tom my thoughts and he pointed out, quite reasonably, that there was no logical reason for Bill to be up there since at that point there are more obvious easy ways down to Smith Water. I argued that it seemed likely to me that Bill had gotten to that area in a low light situation, and might have climbed the hills in hopes of finding a more direct way down to Smith Water (since the easiest way down, to the north and back around those hills, would take require a substantial backtrack on Bill’s part). At any rate, it was the only place that fit the criteria to me. Tom suggested I go have a look for myself and, after carefully getting to know the area and buying some hiking gear (one part of which, a walking stick, proved to be absolutely essential), I set out for Joshua Tree.

I left from Park Road at the old road trace to Quail Springs at 8:30 a.m. After following the road a ways I veered off to poke around the foot of the mountain just west of Samuelson’s Rock. I tested out the cell phone in Quail Wash and was able to get off a few text messages. Then I set out for my primary destinations, taking the more difficult route of climbing to the top of hill A, down into the saddle, then the higher hill B, then to C, keeping at all times to the more rocky Smith Water side of the hills to make sure I did not overlook any outcroppings. At each height of land I tried to get a cell call out. I had bars, but no go. When I got to the highest point on the southernmost of the three hills, I felt satisfied that my theory didn’t hold water. There were not that many places for Bill to be hiding, I’d searched pretty carefully, and the phone part of it didn’t seem to check out. I even looked around the rocks at the head of the cliff going down into Smith Water, but found nothing.

I then started moving my way up the steep hillside to the south of the area, aiming towards where I remembered the cell splash area to be, but trying to stay away from obvious hiking routes and instead going for more rocky terrain that might conceal a body and/or provide shelter for a lost hiker. There was an intriguing cliff area about 3/4 of the way to the top which was extremely steep and had water plants, hinting at a spring. There was at least one spot that would have made a terrific shelter. But I found no evidence any human had been there (all told, I had to have found 8 or 10 such places. The only one that showed any sign of human presence was a rock towards the bottom of the hill that looked like it had been swept out for someone to sit under. I attributed this to one of the later search parties).

I took my phone out of airplane mode to see when it would snap to life, and where the cell coverage actually kicked in. I got a snippet of 3G first, maybe 100 feet below the crest of the ridge, then at the top of the ridge I was able to receive but not send a text message. I was finally able to send a message maybe 100 feet to the north of that point. In this area at the top of the ridge, with the cell coverage popping in and out, I got a very strong sense that this might be the right area to look. Unlike the brutal terrain surrounding it, the area is relatively flat, pleasant, and there are many outcroppings under which to take shelter. I looked around very extensively but found nothing, though I had the sense that a little further back from the ridgeline it might be different. At that point I started picking my way back down a different part of the rocky slopes, and then back up and out of the area, taking a look around the edges of the mountains and under bushes as I headed back.

I think the flat, temperate area at the crest of the ridge that falls within the likely ping zone bears more searching. It is the closest spot to the 10.6 mile radius (excluding extremely unlikely areas like Quail Wash) where there is confirmed cell coverage, but it is spotty enough that it is easy to imagine a scenario where only 10 seconds get out. Moreover, it is a much more pleasant environment than any that surrounds it, and it’s on high and easily visible ground. If I were injured and lost and out two and a half days, I would be inclined to stay put and await helicopter rescue than to risk a descent into Smith Water. Tom reasonably points out it’s hard to find a non-pingable route that gets Ewasko there, and that the need for water would probably have overridden all other considerations. He’s right; I just had a strong feeling when I was there that it was the right spot to be searching, and it hasn’t been looked at as extensively as the areas to the north and west.

GPS mileage for this trip: 9.5 miles

Cumulative GPS mileage to date: 670.1 miles

GPS tracks for this trip in Google Earth kml format

GPS tracks for this trip in Garmin gdb format

GPS tracks for this trip in gpx format

The overall route of JT49 in blue, original search tracks in black, searching since then in red, the Serin cell tower 10.6 mile radius in dashed green and the Serin 11.1 mile radius in dotted purple.

A close up of the southeastern slopes of the mouth of Smith Water Canyon with JT49 in blue, original search tracks in black, searching since then in red, the Serin cell tower 10.6 mile radius in dashed green and the Serin 11.1 mile radius in dotted purple.

Date: 2/27/2013

Participants: Tom Mahood

General search area: Upper Covington Flats at the 10.6 mile Serin tower radius, between the trailhead road and the large canyon to the southwest.

Rationale for searching this area:

It’s flat and it’s not Smith Water.

Actually I needed a break from the Smith Water area to think about things and this seemed like a pleasant alternative. As far as I know it’s never been searched, by air or on the ground. I haven’t any ideas for a scenario that could put Bill there, and there is no direct Serin coverage, but it’s at 10.6 miles. And it’s not Smith Water.

Impressions of area and findings:

The area covered was generally between the dirt access road to the Upper Covington Flats trailhead and a very large canyon to the west. Northerly of the area the terrain is quite open due to an earlier burn and seems unlikely to have any hiding places. The area searched is a forest of junipers, many possibly providing cover.

As mentioned, there’s a very large and deep canyon to the west. At the edge of this canyon, the Palm Springs and Palm Desert area is plainly visible, and a cell phone in this vicinity could ping a great many cell towers.

There was no evidence of recent human activity, and I’d speculate this area gets little visitation.

I did come across something odd, a pile of sticks. It was not a natural deposit, and had plainly been collected and stacked. Yet I could find no evidence of any campsite or other ground disturbance. There were a number of very large junipers nearby, capable of providing good shelter. I carefully checked beneath them all but could find nothing non-natural. I am at a loss to explain what the sticks were for. I will concede it’s a sad commentary on the state of things when the most interesting item I have to report is a pile of stinkin’ sticks.

Coverage level:

I’d estimate my coverage to be 80% within 75 feet of my travel path at a minimum, and in some areas a much wider swath.

Comments:
I focused on the area slightly nearer the Serin cell tower than the 10.6 mile radius. My thinking here was that since there was no direct line of sight to the Serin tower, if there was a connection from this area it would have had to have been via a reflection. If that’s the case, the true distance to the Serin tower would have been less than 10.6 miles, with the additional length of a reflection increasing it to 10.6 miles.

In my wanderings through obscure areas of Joshua Tree National Park, I have been repeatedly surprised by the amount of human footprints I’ve found in places I wouldn’t expect people to be hiking. This tells me the backcountry gets a respectable amount of visitation. Yet in 2 1/2 years, a hiker has yet to come across Bill. This suggests to me he’s in an area where no one really goes.

Bill had almost three days of possible travel before the search really kicked into high gear, yet in all that time he apparently hit neither any of the roads bounding the area or the trails. And on Sunday morning he was presumably 10.6 miles from the Serin cell tower.

The only locale these facts can combine to make any sense remains the Smith Water Canyon area. Now this displeases me to no end because I’ve really grown to dislike the lousy place. But after all the places I’ve been in the area, it’s the one spot where I think someone could get stuck and not be found.

So unless I can come up with anything better, I still think the Smith Water Canyon area remains the area of highest probability, perhaps in a spot not obviously visible.

GPS mileage for this trip: 7.4 miles

Cumulative GPS mileage to date: 660.6 miles

GPS tracks for this trip in Google Earth kml format

GPS tracks for this trip in Garmin gdb format

GPS tracks for this trip in gpx format

The JT48 search tracks in blue with earlier search tracks in red. The pile of sticks is marked in the upper center of the tracks. The 10.6 mile Serin tower radius is the green dashed line and the 11.1 mile radius the purple dotted line.

Looking northerly from the JT48 search area showing the open burned area. The Upper Covington access road is barely visible passing through the upper center of the picture.

Looking southerly into Upper Covington Flat showing the typical juniper coverage. At the left edge of the picture is the drop off to the Coachella Valley.

Looking westerly from the edge of the search area. Palm Springs is clearly visible to the lower left of San Jacinto Peak. Excellent cell coverage near the westerly edge of the search area.

The pile of sticks in context. 

A closer look at the pile of sticks. They were collected and placed upon a small bush. This isn’t the remains of a dead shrub that grew at this spot. There was nothing found inside the pile.

Date: 2/14/2013

Participants: Tom Mahood

General search area: The southerly slopes of the mouth of Smith Water Canyon and the adjacent southerly canyon rim, and area westerly of Quail Springs.

Rationale for searching this area:

Explained in way too much detail here: Current Bill Ewasko thoughts, January 2013.

Impressions of area and findings:

I think the area still holds some promise, but the unexplored areas are rapidly filling in with tracks.

Coverage level:

I moved rather slowly and carefully on this trip, more so better than usual. I’d estimate my coverage to be 80% within 75 feet of my travel path at a minimum, and in some areas a much wider swath. There weren’t any nooks and crannies along or near my route that weren’t checked.

Comments:

After Myth and company’s JT46 effort, I realized there was a significantly smaller area left to check. So I worked out a route to fill in the blanks, suitable for a solo trip. I also wanted to check an area beyond the 11.1 mile Serin Tower distance since I was going to be in the neighborhood. Finally, I was interested in having a look down the chute Patrick and I had spotted on our JT44 trip, when we reconnoitered the southerly slopes of Smith Water. I wouldn’t make the decision whether or not to descend until I actually saw the thing and assessed what it was like.

Climbing up past Quail Springs was pleasant but damn steep. A short distance to the west of Quail Springs, and well above it, the terrain flattens out considerably and becomes reasonable. Or maybe that was just a relative sensation. I don’t know, but it was an improvement. I’ve been in that area enough now to start recognizing landmarks from previous trips. While this in itself is sad, I realized that even though there are gaps on the map of GPS tracks, in many cases I could see over to previous paths.

I slowly worked up and westerly along my preplanned GPS route. I mentioned slowly, didn’t I? Yeah, it was taking a while. There were still a lots of snow patches in the shade, which made looking for anything non-earthtone difficult. But I finally got to my high point, a saddle along the edge of the canyon from which the descent began into Smith Water. Somewhere down below was the top of the chute, my immediate destination.

As I started down I was surprised how easy the descent was at this location. Steep, but open soil which allowed for easy sliding. If it were a jumbled boulder field it would have been different, but this was….OK.

I rather quickly reached the GPS point which marked the top of the chute I was interested in, and I cautiously peered down it. Yeah, it looked like a pretty bad descent but I couldn’t get a clear view of the whole thing. Then I moved just a little westerly and it was a different story. I was on a spine between the chute and another chute I had previously gone down. And the spine looked feasible.

I was faced with an interesting decision. If I returned the general way I came up, via Quail Springs, I’d have to make a substantial climb back up before I began a long, steep rocky descent. But I could see Smith Water Canyon right below and it looked so….close (Yeah, I know, this is where people get themselves into trouble). And I also knew there was a grove of meat eating bushes in the canyon below that I’d have to pass through on the way out of the canyon.

Ultimately gravity won out and I headed down. This was two pole terrain, so out came my second hiking pole for the descent. As I went down I traversed the spine between the two chutes, focusing on the one on my right. I was able to get right into it in several spots. It turned out the spine wasn’t too bad and there was again a lot of open soil. Someone with an injured leg could have possibly slid down it. By the time I reached the bottom I had completely cleared the chute and found nothing. From there it was a very long slog back to the vehicle.

It has been said that there is no sadder sight in the world than to see a beautiful theory killed by brutal fact. I think the idea that Bill’s in the southeast area of Smith Water is an extremely beautiful theory. It feels just right and every clue we have fits. But despite repeated trips into that area, and pretty good ground coverage, Bill eludes us. Are there still unchecked areas there? Sure, but we’ve covered a great portion of it, especially the obvious routes someone travelling cross country might have chosen.

I shall ponder on this problem a while.

GPS mileage for this trip: 11.3 miles

Cumulative GPS mileage to date: 653.2 miles

GPS tracks for this trip in Google Earth kml format

GPS tracks for this trip in Garmin gdb format

GPS tracks for this trip in gpx format

The overall track for JT47. Clockwise travel, with the climb near Quail Springs and the descent down the chute into Smith Water Canyon. Why do I keep coming up with these ideas??

A closer look at the SE Smith Water area. As usual, the blue line is my current track, black lines are the original search, red lines other searches since then, and the Serin 10.6 and 11.1 mile radii in green dash and purple dot, respectively.

Looking westerly towards the day’s fun, on the way in.

Click on this picture for a REAL BIG image of the JT47 search area. Bigger than you need.

A view looking westerly the planned climb out of the flats into the search area. Quail Springs, which is dry, is at the bottom center of the bowl.

Typical terrain of the upper area before the drop off into Smith Water. The drop begins just to the left to the far right tree. The terrain up here isn’t too bad at all….once you get here.

Looking down the chute into Smith Water. Those who have been in the canyon will recognize the dry waterfall and the meat eating bushes off on the left side of the picture.

The image of the southerly slopes of Smith Water Canyon updated. The light blue line is my descent down the chute for JT47. Red lines are previous search tracks and the black lines are from the original search. The yellow line is the 11.1 mile Serin tower radius and the very light blue line is the 10.6 mile radius.

Date: 2/9-10/2013

Participants: We have a couple of easily seduced guest searchers this time, Myth of the Mt. San Jacinto Forum and saint-like spouse (I believe “saint-like” is a euphemism for ever suffering).

General search area: The area between Quail Mountain and the mouth of Smith Water Canyon and also the southerly slopes of the mouth of Smith Water Canyon and the adjacent southerly canyon rim.

Rationale for searching this area:

Explained in way too much detail here: Current Bill Ewasko thoughts, January 2013.

Impressions of area and findings:

See Myth’s full trip report and some photos here for details

Coverage level:

See Myth’s full trip report and some photos here for details

Comments:

It always feels good when I can talk someone else into searching out there so I don’t have to do it! This was a really ambitious route (i.e., pretty crazy)  and covered a lot of area sane people wouldn’t and shouldn’t.

Seriously this sort of thing is precisely why I went to the effort of posting all the data and GPS tracks online. The more people looking around out there (who know what they are doing!), the sooner Bill will be found.

My thanks to Myth and spouse for the effort. Hopefully you have learned any lessons from this adventure and can be conned into more pointless efforts..

Note: Although this was an overnight trip I combined the two daily GPS tracks into one single track for ease.

GPS mileage for this trip: 17.5 miles

Cumulative GPS mileage to date: 641.9 miles

GPS tracks for this trip in Google Earth kml format

GPS tracks for this trip in Garmin gdb format

GPS tracks for this trip in gpx format

This is the entire route done over two days. Camping was in a canyon between Quail Mountain and Smith Water Canyon.

A more detailed view of the JT46 route between Quail Mountain and Smith Water Canyon. JT46 is in blue, the Serin cell tower 10.6 mile radius in a green dash and the Serin 11.1 mile radius in a purplish dot. Yeah, I know, it’s a busy map. 

A closeup of the southeast Smith Water area. JT46 is in blue, the Serin cell tower 10.6 mile radius in a green dash and the Serin 11.1 mile radius in a purplish dot.

For a variety of reasons my RC and FPV experience to date has been an impressive string of airframe carnage. I have a very nice Delrin Tricopter by FPVManuals. At least it was very nice until I began flying it. Its beautifully cut landing struts were toast by the second flight. I apparently have a real talent for destruction. If anyone ever comes up with a demolition derby for multirotors…..well, I’m there.

After doing in the original struts it was off to Home Depot to look for replacement ideas. I needed something to keep the tricopter off the ground and hopefully protect it from my alleged flying. I considered just locking it in the closet on the top shelf but that didn’t seem like much fun. And I didn’t want to spend much money (I’d probably break it anyway) and I didn’t want to do much work (I’m lazy).

What follows is a neat, cheap and ugly method of easy struts that will absorb a tremendous amount of energy. It provides a dual rate of impact absorption, some of which is adjustable.

Yeah, I said they’re ugly, but they work!

A closer look at the ugly

Here’s what you need for each strut:

• 1/2″ diameter PVC slip fit T coupler
• About a 3″ to 5″ length of 1/2″ diameter PVC pipe (the length depends on how long you want your struts)
• Insulated foam T fitting for 1/2″ copper pipe
• 3 zipties

The only thing a little unusual in the items above is the foam T fitting. It’s a closed cell foam covering intended to insulate copper pipes. This particular item is slit with self-sealing tape so it can be placed over a copper T and then the tape removed. Here’s what I got (and it was only $2.11!):

I didn’t see this at Lowes, but was at Home Depot. It’s probably available at a lot of hardware stores.

All the parts for a strut. The yellow stuff in the splits of the foam T is the two sided tape to seal the gap after putting it on a copper pipe T.

Take a saw and cut off the upper half of the 1/2″ PVC slip connector.

Here’s another view of what you get after you slice the top half off. It doesn’t have to be exact, you just want to create a cradle for the multirotor arm.

Now drill four holes in the cut fitting, one in each corner. The diameter of the holes should be large enough that the zip tie will pass through it.

Next, you want to make sure the arm will seat well into the cradle. One way is to simply put a strip of foam tape or weather strip into the bottom.

Another way is to file or mill a flat spot your arm can rest in. Since I have 10 mm arms, I decided to do this. The key is to make it generally fit whatever arm shape you have.

Another view of my shaping. You really don’t have to go this nuts.

Now add your short piece of 1/2″ PVC pipe. If you can get the thinner wall Schedule 120 pipe it’s lighter, but Schedule 40 is fine too. It might be a tight enough fit that you don’t even need to glue it, but I would.

The foam T slipped on. Its sliding resistance on the pipe (part of its dampening) can be adjusted by how tight you pull the zip tie. Note I’ve removed the liner for the two sided tape on the stem but left it on the bottom.

And finally, zip tie it around whatever arm you have. I like to mark the pipe at the top of the foam T with a black marker pen so I can see if it’s compressed after one of my so-called landings. It helps me to quickly level the airframe again.

Landing energy (or in my case crashing energy) is absorbed in two ways. First, most of the strut structure is made of friggin’ squishy foam. If it’s not as squishy as you’d like, you can cut swiss-cheesey holes in it to make it softer yet. As described, I leave the bottom edges unsealed by the two sided tape since with the unsealed slit  there I think it deforms better. After the foam has done all it can to save your ass, the PVC pipe begins to slip under the zip tie giving a couple of inches more of travel. If  you exceed that, the PVC pipe will punch a neat, round hole in the bottom of the foam T in a final burst of energy absorption. Don’t ask how I know that.

So that’s it. The cost for each of these struts is less than $3. I weighed one and it came in at 34 grams. If you have very rotor large arms you could do the same this but use a 3/4″ PVC  T.

As a parting thought I’ll add that these closed cell foam Ts are highly buoyant.  Zip tie a couple more pieces of closed cell foam to them and you have yourself pontoons. But given my record, it’s not something I’m planning on trying.

Date: 1/17/2013

Participants: Paul Caraher, Pete Carlson, Tom Mahood and Patrick McCurdy (All who should know better by now. Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different outcome)

General search area: The southerly slopes of the mouth of Smith Water Canyon and the adjacent southerly canyon rim.

Rationale for searching this area:

Explained in way too much detail here: Current Bill Ewasko thoughts, January 2013.

Impressions of area and findings:
Ascending into the area westerly out of Quail Wash was generally pretty reasonable. The descent back down into Smith Water Canyon was a bit more treacherous. The upper areas contained significant rock breakdown making descent difficult. I’d describe the upper Smith Water area as “globally treacherous but locally manageable” in that there was almost always a safe route down if one looked carefully, but from a distance it appeared as an “Oh crap!” environment. There are far more ravines, chutes and other hiding places than either topo maps or Google Earth suggest.

Coverage level:
In one word….mediocre. The rocky terrain really made it hard to see any large areas. In many ways it was reminiscent of the upper part of Johnnie Lang Canyon which is a jumble of rocks. Our planned search area covered approximately 200 acres however my sense upon completing the area is that we may have covered 50% of it at best. But we did cover a number of obvious routes.

Comments:
After a fairly pleasant ascent out of the Quail Wash area, the four of us met up where I had found the plastic bottle six weeks earlier on JT42. The consensus seemed to be that it might have been a Gatorade or similar bottle, probably not related to Bill. When checking the Verizon cell coverage at that point, we saw a solid signal, about 2 bars. The cell coverage map shows it as a very fringe area, so our measurement implies the cell splash map could be a little conservative, with the actual coverage area being a bit larger.

We generally held to within the 11.1 mile radius of the Serin Drive cell tower under the assumption that was the maximum plausible limit for a record of 10.6 miles. However in the upper areas we did poke a bit beyond as the area looked worth checking out.

In addition to the usual assortment of lost and dead mylar balloons, we each came upon separate Big Horn Sheep skeletons. Every few trips to the more remote areas we might come upon one, but never four in a single trip. There must be something about this area.

I updated the panorama I took on JT44 of the southerly slopes of Smith Water Canyon with the tracks we made this time. As before, the JT45 search tracks were added with a draw program by hand while comparing the image against a perspective view in Google Earth showing the tracks. They are not 100% accurate but reasonably close and gives a good idea of the areas covered, at least on the canyon slopes.

GPS mileage for this trip: 37.2 miles

Cumulative GPS mileage to date: 624.4 miles

GPS tracks for this trip in Google Earth kml format

GPS tracks for this trip in Garmin gdb format

GPS tracks for this trip in gpx format

The tracks for this trip, JT45 are shown in dark blue. Tracks made by the original searchers are in black and those made since are in red. The light blue line is the 10.6 mile radius to the Serin Drive cell tower and the orange line is the 11.1 mile radius.

A view of the southerly slopes of Smith Water Canyon showing our approximate JT45 tracks in darker blue. The red lines are our previous tracks, the black lines those of the original searchers, the yellow line the 11.1 Serin cell tower radius and the light blue line the 10.6 mile Serin radius. I’m running out of colors.

This was taken on the ascent, generally looking west. We have already split up and are all headed for the area in the upper left where the Bottle Bush is. The highest rocky knob is where the Serin tower cell coverage is. Our descent routes we in the central shady area and just beyond the far ridgeline to the saddle.

At the Bottle Bush. Pete shunning his GPS and looking at the map, Paul wondering how he got talked into this and me, staring off into space wondering how I’m going to talk these guys into it again. The bottle bush is just in front of Paul to the right of the yucca. (by P. McCurdy)

This was the Big Horn Sheep I came upon. Each of us, while searching separately, came upon different skeletal remains of Big Horn Sheep. Is this not a healthy place for Big Horns?

So after cheating death on the slopes of Smith Water, and safely back down on the flats, Pete walks into a Cholla. He claims it was because he was looking at the evil GPS I made him carry instead of looking at the ground. In any case it was a welcome source of entertainment. (by P. McCurdy)

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