Details about the disappearance and tragic death of actor Julian Sands on the slopes of California’s Mount Baldy are emerging as the hikers who found his body share for the first time what they encountered on their June 24 ascent, roughly six months after the “Warlock” star went missing.
“It was surreal,” hiker Bill Dwyer told the Los Angeles Times.
As BizPac Review reported, Sands, an experienced hiker, went missing on Friday the 13th of January in the treacherous Baldy Bowl area of the San Gabriel mountains.
Efforts to locate the actor were hampered from the beginning, as California was hit with storm after deadly storm.
Avalanche risk forces authorities to close Mt. Baldy where actor Julian Sands went missing https://t.co/iaXXEg8LQW pic.twitter.com/nhaxt49TjL
— BizPac Review (@BIZPACReview) March 5, 2023
When, in June, a group of local hikers started up the mountain via a sparsely traveled canyon, the organizer, who asked to remain anonymous, said a nagging thought entered her mind: “I hope we don’t find a dead body today.”
Just a week prior to their hike, authorities had conducted yet another search for Sands, with 80 people on the ground and helicopters overhead, to no avail, according to the Times. The hikers “also knew that the last-known ping from Sands’ cellphone put him on an icy ridge beneath the summit, where an inadvertent step could have sent him sliding uncontrollably into the remote canyon they were about to climb.”
Three hours into their hike, the organizer’s fears came to fruition.
One of the hikers spotted a boot. A few yards up the hill they discovered its mate. Next, they found trekking poles. Then they saw the bones and, nearby, a pile of dark winter clothes.
Checking the pockets, they found a wallet with a driver’s license, and the identity was confirmed. They had found the beloved British actor.
The hikers, not wishing to add any grief to the already mourning Sands family, have avoided the press until now, and were careful about the details they shared with the Times, “but they wanted to help educate fellow hikers about the dangers of climbing in winter without a full set of safety gear.”
It’s hard to imagine that Sands would have gone up the mountain in the winter unprepared.
As BizPac reported, Sands’ best friend, actor John Malkovich, said following his disappearance that Sands knew what he was doing.
“I haven’t really talked about what happened with Jules,” he told The Guardian in March. “But, in a way, it’s a choice, because he was an inveterate mountain climber/hiker. He was always tramping off to Kilimanjaro, or Antarctica, or the Andes, or the Alps – a very experienced climber who’d been through very hairy experiences.”
But, notes the Times, even experienced hikers often misjudge Mt. Baldy:
For many Angelenos, especially those who have climbed to Mt. Baldy’s 10,000-foot summit in the summer in tennis shoes and shorts, it’s almost inconceivable that someone could simply disappear up there for five months. But the mountain’s sheer familiarity — millions of people live within an hour of the trailhead — can create a false sense of security, especially in winter.
Since 2020, there have been well over 100 searches for missing hikers and at least seven confirmed fatalities, making Baldy one of the deadliest mountains in the United States.
When authorities searched Goode Canyon in June, they ran out of daylight before they could make it to where Sands was ultimately found days later.
“It was just one of those things,” Newlin said. “If they had gone another 600 feet farther down, they might have found him.”
Perhaps, but perhaps not. According to the hikers, his remains blended into the surrounding landscape.
According to the group’s organizer, the rugged trail is, “Full of wildflowers and waterfalls, it’s perfect for people who don’t like trails, like me.”
The exact details of how Sands died remain a mystery. The full autopsy report has yet to be released, and the cause of his death, due to the condition of his remains, is listed as “undetermined,” according to the Sheriff’s Department.
Reports the Times:
If Sands got lost or survived an initial fall without serious injury, trying to climb out of Goode Canyon — up steep walls covered in snow and ice — would have been an exhausting ordeal. If he were seriously injured, escape might have been impossible.
It’s also unclear how Sands’ remains came to rest in that flat spot. The bones were scattered, probably by wild animals, according to the hikers. But it’s also possible his body had been pushed down the mountain by avalanches or flowed downhill with melting snow.
What the hikers found most disturbing is what they didn’t see.
They didn’t, for example, find a backpack, which would have held the gear he needed for such a hike.
And Sands “was dressed like a ninja,” one of the hikers said — all in black, with no bright orange, red, or yellow to make him easier to spot from the air.
A set of microspikes — “small metal cleats, about a quarter of an inch long” — were strapped to Sands’ shoes. For the amount of snow and ice and the steep incline of the terrain, they were “no substitute for crampons, long heavy spikes that attach to sturdy mountaineering boots and dig deep into snow and ice to prevent potentially fatal falls,” according to the Times.
“I was a little shocked to see the microspikes,” Dwyer said. “They were just the wrong tools for the job at hand.”
Also absent from the items found were a helmet and an ice ax, which Sands could have used to stop himself from falling.
He did have his cell phone with him. It was found perched “on a rock beneath a tree,” however there is no reception on most of Mt. Baldy, including in the area where Sands was found. Sands didn’t appear to have any other way to summon help, though devices that could have potentially saved him are readily available.
“After finding the remains,” the Times notes, “Dwyer used his Garmin InReach — a $400 pocket-size satellite-messaging device — to send an SOS with their exact location to authorities. They responded in eight minutes.”
Had Sands had the proper gear with him, the hikers say, his odds of surviving may have been greatly improved.
“Can you imagine the despair, the isolation?” the group’s organizer mused. “Hearing the helicopters, knowing people are looking for you, but having no way to signal to them. I still have nightmares about that.”
DONATE TO BIZPAC REVIEW
Please help us! If you are fed up with letting radical big tech execs, phony fact-checkers, tyrannical liberals and a lying mainstream media have unprecedented power over your news please consider making a donation to BPR to help us fight them. Now is the time. Truth has never been more critical!
Melissa Fine is the former executive editor of Casino Player, Strictly Slots, and Poker
Digest magazines. She is a UCLA graduate, news junkie, and dedicated Stargate SG-
1 fan. Melissa currently lives with her dog and two cats in a tiny town in the Sierra
Nevada foothills.
Comment
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.
BPR INSIDER COMMENTS
Scroll down for non-member comments or join our insider conversations by becoming a member. We'd love to have you!
