Steve Fossett search

I looked all around the forum for a Steve Fossett thread and didn't see one. I tried "Search" a couple of times, but it never loaded for me. So Dingo, whomever, please move this thread where it should go, lol.

Here's an AP article from today's San Jose Mercury (and I think it's one of the greatest newspapers in California and has been for a long time) which I think pretty well describes why they're having trouble finding Steve Fossett:

http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_6839086?nclick_check=1

Fossett coverage reveals a lonely state, unlike any other
By SCOTT SONNER Associated Press Writer
Article Launched: 09/08/2007 01:13:26 PM PDT


RENO, Nev.—This week's news reports about missing aviator Steve Fossett have been filled with references to the barren and empty landscape he was flying over when his plane disappeared.
But from outside Nevada, it's hard to fully appreciate just how expansive, how desolate the wide open spaces of the state can be.

Superimposed over a U.S. map, Nevada's 110,000 square miles would stretch from New York City, west to Pittsburgh and south to Myrtle Beach, S.C. Then remove nearly all the people.

While Nevada's population has been the fastest growing in the nation for most of the last three decades, it averaged just 18 people per square mile in 2000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That compares to a national average of 80 people per square mile and 1,134 in New Jersey, the nation's most densely populated state.

Even that doesn't tell the whole story. Some 2.3 million of Nevada's nearly 2.6 million residents live in just the two counties that include Las Vegas and Reno. Across the rest of Nevada, there are fewer than three people per square mile.

"There's just very, very few human beings out there," said Guy Rocha, Nevada's state archivist.

So much of the state is so desolate that the Web site of the Nevada Commission on Tourism urges visitors to carry plenty of water and gasoline when traveling to many of the destinations it lists. Cell phone coverage is spotty, and often nonexistent.

The area of northwest Nevada where the

search for Fossett is concentrated is considered one of the state's most barren regions and has been relatively unchanged for more than a century.
"I don't think the general public watching on TV really has too much of an idea of just how rugged and remote this area is," Rocha said.

Outside Reno, Las Vegas and the capital, Carson City, the nation's seventh-largest state is a vast emptiness.

The severe landscape that marks the overwhelming majority of Nevada is far different from the traditional travel brochures that feature the beaming lights of the Las Vegas strip or the forested ski resorts ringing Lake Tahoe.

Miles of high desert are broken up by hundreds of mostly barren, craggy mountain ranges rising 8,000 to 11,000 feet from dry lake beds and seas of sagebrush. The state has 300 named mountain ranges—more than any other state in the nation—and few roads outside its main cities and towns.

"In Nevada, there is a lot of 'middle of nowhere,'" said Chris Healy, a spokesman for the Nevada Division of Wildlife, which issues licenses to hunt deer, elk, antelope, bighorn sheep and mountain lions.

Rural Nevada is dotted with gold and silver mines, many abandoned a century ago. Irrigation allows limited farming and livestock grazing in some of the valleys, mostly on territory administered by the state's largest landholder—the federal government.

One leg of the California Trail, used by 19th century pioneers coming overland in wagon trains, passes through the Fossett search area. It runs from a former Pony Express post into the dry wasteland that stretches to the flanks of the eastern Sierra Nevada.

Few immigrants, however, dared to brave the barren route. One party that made it through in 1853 threatened to lynch its leader because of the deprivations it endured along the way.

"The route was described as 'strewn with wreckage of prairie schooners (covered wagons), oxen yoke and bleached animal bones,'" reads one historical marker.

Today, the most traveled part of the region is on the eastern edge of the search area bordering Walker Lake, where Highway 95 connects Reno to Las Vegas some 450 miles south.

The quality of the view is in the eye of the beholder.

"The mountains are pretty. It's scenic," said Healy, the wildlife official.

John Sullivan wasn't prepared for the isolation when he first made the drive to Las Vegas after moving to Reno 20 years ago from his native San Francisco.

"Boring. Just so monotonous," Sullivan said. "It's just dirt, sand and a couple three or four small towns you've got to drive through."

On the bright side, he said the trip to Las Vegas goes faster than the mileage might suggest because it's easy to get away with exceeding the speed limit.

"I made it in 5 1/2 hours once," he said.

Typically, the drive takes about eight hours.

I've been out there in the Nevada basin-and-range province lots of times and even just off of an interstate highway, it's a wilderness. A state highway, like Nevada State 50 and you are in a wilderness, even these days. In the 80s, when I toured on a bike, it was the back of beyond. For folks who have never driven the deserts of the US west, it's hard to describe how deserted things are.

And when in a plane, I can see how you have backcountry beneath you.

I am going to predict Steve crashed into the side of a ravine and that although they think he was flying aroung the Lee Vining area on Monday morning (people in the area say a plane like his was seen flying around there at the "right time") I think he went back and flew farther north or northwest than they had to assume in starting the search and rescue effort.

Like many bloggers I've read, some of whom are pilots, I predict a strong, sudden canyon/ravine wind got him. I think maybe he crashed into the side of a ravine, rather than into the bottom of one. A lot of the basins up there in Nevada run north/south, so if Steve hit on the east or west side of a deep one, he may be, like 200, 300 feet up on the side of a slope. I'll guess he was struck dead on impact.

I come from a town with California coastal mountains nearby and a well-known small plane airport. Lots of times, when the little planes would crash into a hillside/canyonside, they went in on an angle, the crash would shear off one wing and destroy the cockpit and the whole front end. The outside wing usually stayed on the body of the plane, but the back end and tail would often break off and sometimes slide down the slope far away from the rest of the wreck. Wrecks were sometimes found because they saw the tail by itself on some mountainside, then the searchers could follow up and find the hidden-by-terrain main part of the wreck.

Anyway, I hope Steve Fossett makes it, but after this lenght of time and knowing how Nevada is made of canyons and mountains (basin, range, basin, range) I'll bet he's on some lonely backcountry slope, and he died on impact. Devil wind gust, small plane, not his plane, that's like having a driving emergency when you're borrowed someone else's car. You're a good driver, but you get surprised and it may not handle as you think...or need.

And with bright sun in the Nevada, if Steve is crashed on an east facing slope or a west one, well, the search plane folks have to have their faces to the sun or they see shadows, so, if he's sort of hidden by the conture of the slope or things upon it, they may have to be there at just the right time of day to get a visual on him. And, if it was a fast crash, well, the little plane may be so torn up, crumpled or big sections thrown and slid here and there, they may be missing the "seeing" of him with visuals or equipment.

For me, no conspiracy here...just a heck of a fast, unlucky way for a pilot to be killed, even a good pilot. I hope they find him soon. A lot of people decry him because he was so rich, but still, heck of a way to lose someone, so hard on the family and friends to be wondering and hoping.

American Animals

Interesting.....taxidermy is making a fad sweep in upscale US living because of an elitist "faux hunting lodge" trend in expensive decorating.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/scienc...ticle305061.ece


Yet Halloween costumes for dogs are selling like "hotcakes".
http://www.nbc4.tv/halloween/10173915/detail.html

Conflicted society?

Mary

Hawaii Quake

Best wishes to everyone in this big quake in Hawaii. Must have been rough folks, may everyone be okay and may recovery be speedy and thorough.

Mary

http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/earth...S00010000000001

US October Baseball + 2

Hi Everyone!

I know I'm starting this thread a day early, but it's almost baseball post-season time and I am so happy. Last night, the team I love, the Los Angeles Dodgers, got themselves a tie playoff spot when they beat their archrivals, the San Francisco Giants in San Francisco. It was a lovely game that ended whth the Dodgers going ahead from 2-2 on a nice hit by Olmedo Seinz and then, a wild pitch!

Here's the Dodgers official website:

http://losangeles.dodgers.mlb.com/NASApp/m...dex.jsp?c_id=la

I know...the National League West is probably the least notable in baseball right now. But many of you know what it is like to love a particular organization and follow them through the decades, as I have done with the Dodgers. Every baseball club has remarkable, admirable things about it, colorful history and many fine members and wonderful, memorable moments. So, feel free to talk about baseball here.

But whomever we see in the League Playoffs and then, at the end of October, in the World Series, I am there, I am enjoying it and I'll bet many of you will be, too.

There's no game like baseball and October baseball is sheer delight.

Love,
Mary

Wishes for Ben

Hey friends,

Kindly post your warm wishes here for Ben and Lucy.

Ben has, for about a month now, been toughing out a painful condition that seems to be a serious, marked sciatica (inflamation of the large nerves of the hip and leg). He's been dutifully resting and trying to make the situation better. This evening, the discomfort became so intense that Lucy called for an ambulance and we've just seen him off to the hospital for an emergency look-see.

Like the good fellow he is, he asked me to drop you folks a line and let you know that he'll be back when things subside.

Again, I know that Lucy and Ben would love to hear from you, so let's show them our support here.

Much love to everyone,
Mary (sg)