[pct-l] Up date on Lost Hikers

[Lonetrail at aol.com (Lonetrail@aol.com)]

Toll of Dead Hikers Hits 6 in Region's Icy Mountains
A man on Mt. San Jacinto is the latest victim.
Another was a Sierra Club leader missing for more than
a week. Searchers still looking for one man.

  GOBy Janet Wilson, Times Staff Writer
Two more high-mountain hikers have been found dead in
the Southland, including a man who set out Sunday on
his own up Mt. San Jacinto near the Palm Springs
aerial tramway, despite news reports about the dangers
of hiking icy areas alone.
The man, whose name was not immediately available
pending notification of relatives, phoned his
girlfriend about 9 p.m. Sunday to say he was in an icy
patch and would phone back in an hour. He never
called, and she phoned for help. With the aid of
helicopters, the Riverside County Mountain Rescue Unit
found the man's body deep in a ravine about 10:15 a.m.
Monday, 7,800 feet up the mountain.      
         
      
 On Sunday afternoon, another hiker found the frozen
body of Ronald Barbour, 69, of La Crescenta, a Sierra
Club leader and lifelong hiker. He had set out on his
own Jan. 16 for a three-day, 21-mile hiking and biking
marathon from Wrightwood to Cajon Pass.
His body was found about 4:30 p.m. on a side trail
near where he had parked his car, a San Bernardino
County sheriff's spokesman said. Barbour appears to
have fallen several hundred feet down an icy ravine
and struck his head on a log, according to relatives.
The latest finds bring the death toll in the new year
to six hikers in area mountains, none of them novices.
One hiker remains missing.