[pct-l] Up date on Lost Hikers

[mardav at charter.net (Marion Davison)]

> BIG COMPLAINT DEPARTMENT: Damn if there isn't a ton of trash on the trail between
>   Morena and Mt Laguna! I started to pick up bits here and there at first, but if I picked up
>   everything, I'd have doubled my pack weight! I even saw a child's daypack in Long Canyon
>   near the ford.
>   It was in good condition, so I left it, thinking that the owner might be nearby. It was empty,
>   though...
>   We saw everything from EMPTY WATER CONTAINERS, wrappers, beer cans, even women's
>   underwear!!! No kidding! There was a bra hanging from a bush and a couple pairs of panties
>   with some shorts and what may have been the rest of her clothes on the trail just east of Yellow
>   Rose Spring (there was a fork in the trail just north of here, but I can't find it on any map).
>
>

I read an article in one of the Outdoor magazines about problems in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument (in Arizona on the Mexican border).  This park has become a funnel for "coyotes" to bring people across the border, and also a major trail for drug smugglers.  (Private landowners on either side of the park have become vigilantes, forcing the illegal trade onto public lands).  The rangers at OPCNM are understaffed and overwhelmed by the problem.  One ranger was murdered by drug runners last year.  The
article elaborated on the problem of trash left by the coyotes and their people as they traverse the park, and there were pictures of discarded water bottles, food wrappers, and clothing.  It sounds just like what you are describing.
    As soon as I heard the radio broadcast, I also wondered if the two dead men were illegals trying to traverse the desert.  That area is about 40 miles from the border.  It is not unusual for the combination of dehydration, exhaustion and exposure to do people in on a cold night in that area, especially if they are totally unequipped.  There have been stormy nights when a large number of people died in one night.  I have also read that the coyotes are not honest with their clients about what conditions to
expect, and generally abandon their clients if anything goes wrong.  Six (we assume) properly equipped, middle class American hikers have died in So. Cal since January 1, so I am not surprised to hear about this.  I think the border patrol and the border landowners find bodies fairly often;  we don't hear about it because the public (I.e. boy scouts) don't see them, so they aren't news.
Marion