The Yuba County Five: 'An American Dyatlov Pass' Incident (1978)

[henry]

does it state that weiher was wearing the tennis shoes when found ?

 

[EnolaGaia]

... Am I right in thinking that some seem to believe that Weiher, as he was found, would likely not have been able to tuck himself into the bunk (wrapped in the blanket he was found in) on his own? It would seem far more likely if that was the case that Mathias changed footwear with him in that cabin and maybe even stayed with him until he died. After which he must have left, never to be seen again.

Yes - the various accounts consistently mention Weiher was wrapped / covered in a manner he could not have accomplished by himself.

He was wrapped in sheets, not blankets.* At least one account stated it was a single sheet, while another claimed there were as many as 8 sheets swaddling him. 'Swaddle' seems to be the proper descriptor. He was covered from his feet all the way up to / around his head. The sheet(s) had been wrapped and tucked in such a fashion as to indicate someone else must have done it.

* Recall that 3 Forest Service blankets were found a quarter-mile northwest of the bunkhouse, along with a flashlight. My theory was that they were abandoned during an aborted break-out attempt. The bunkhouse had a 3-tier bunk set, and Weiher was found on the bottom bunk.

I'm baffled by the care evident in swaddling Weiher with sheets, even though there was heavy clothing strewn around the trailer that would have helped keep him warm.

Multiple accounts refer to the covering sheets using the phrase 'like a shroud'. This seems to have been the basis for commonly speculating the last person(s) to leave the bunkhouse did so only after Weiher had died.

 

[EnolaGaia]

does it state that weiher was wearing the tennis shoes when found ?

Yes.

 

[henry]

which source ?

 

[EnolaGaia]

which source ?

Belay that ... I think I misspoke ...

The Washington Post and StrangeOutdoors accounts only state Mathias' tennis shoes were found in the trailer - not that they were on Weiher's feet. A commentator on the Charley Project site characterizes them as having been swapped, but I don't see why he / she thought that.

Weiher's shoes, though, were missing. They've been variously described as leather shoes or leather boots.

That does it - I'm getting punchy ... It's past 0600 here, and I've been up all night. Off to bed ...

 

[EnolaGaia]

But one last thing ... One of the local newspaper items published after the bodies were found stated that Madruga's car keys were found with his body. I'd suspected he'd have hung onto them, but I hadn't seen a source that mentioned they'd been found.

 

[CuriousIdent]

Belay that ... I think I misspoke ...

The Washington Post and StrangeOutdoors accounts only state Mathias' tennis shoes were found in the trailer - not that they were on Weiher's feet. A commentator on the Charley Project site characterizes them as having been swapped, but I don't see why he / she thought that.

Weiher's shoes, though, were missing. They've been variously described as leather shoes or leather boots.

Reading back over that, it actually sounds more likely to me that the exchange of shoes may have occurred after Weiher's death. The tennis shoes then discarded by Mathias. There would be no real need to put the shoes back on Weiher if he was already dead.

Not a pleasant thought. But all the same...

 

[henry]

they were found in the trailer but not stated that weihers feet were shod far as i can tell

 

[EnolaGaia]

... Schors claimed to have seen the silhouette of a woman with a child. Is it implausible that Mathias could have... knocked somebody up, who his family simply weren't aware of?

In the newspaper photos Weiher had medium-long hair in something of a 'Fro, and he may have been mistaken for a female if seen backlit in silhouette.

The 'woman-with-baby' bit is a component of the two-vehicle sighting or vision, which we now know Schons himself was questioning as possibly spurious as soon as the following day (Saturday).

As I mentioned earlier, there's no reason to assume Madruga's was the first / only vehicle to have come on the scene. If there had been a woman present, she may have been with a party who retreated.

There's yet another possibility ... If Schons really did see two vehicles - a pickup behind a car - the woman could have arrived in the pickup (which retreated), and the second vehicle left behind could have been Madruga's car.

Schons claimed however many people he saw left in a single vehicle. This may have been a retrospectively-applied spurious conclusion or story component based on recalling (however (in-)accurately ...) two vehicles and later walking past a single empty car on his way back down to the lodge.

This would require Schons to have been mistaken about the time of the two-vehicle sighting, which I've already mentioned was a near certainty if the guys had left Chico around 2200.

 

[EnolaGaia]

they were found in the trailer but not stated that weihers feet were shod far as i can tell

I finally found a statement about Weiher's shod / unshod state when found ...

It's in one of the (poorly imaged) newspaper articles on the site I mentioned in post 107. An article from a New Mexico paper quotes a sheriff's deputy as saying Weiher's shoes were "off and missing" when his body was found.

 

[EnolaGaia]

Reading back over that, it actually sounds more likely to me that the exchange of shoes may have occurred after Weiher's death. The tennis shoes then discarded by Mathias. There would be no real need to put the shoes back on Weiher if he was already dead.

Not a pleasant thought. But all the same...

I agree with you in the hypothetical case where Weiher is already dead.

However, there's another reason Weiher's feet may have been unshod. He had severe frostbite that had progressed to gangrene. His shoes may have been removed because of swelling and / or pain while he was still alive.

 

[EnolaGaia]

One of the local newspaper items published after the bodies were found stated that Madruga's car keys were found with his body. I'd suspected he'd have hung onto them, but I hadn't seen a source that mentioned they'd been found.

Additional factoids ...

One of the reasons Madruga's mother assumed there had to have been foul play was the state of Madruga's prized Mercury when it was discovered.

It was unlocked, and one window was rolled down. I'm not sure from the news articles whether the window was partially or completely rolled down. If I recall correctly, one source specified the rolled-down window was on the passenger side.

Madruga's mother was adamant that he'd never have walked away from his car leaving it unlocked or any of the windows down.

To the extent these facts may be clue-worthy, they suggest:

- Madruga himself was distracted or in an agitated state when he left the car behind, and / or ...
- The car was unlocked and a window down because someone (at least initially) remained in or at his car.

 

[EnolaGaia]

Now for some visual aiding ...

It appears to me the distances cited for the guys' hiking have been greatly exaggerated. The various news stories provide a bewildering array of disparately-delineated and estimated distances, which often conflict with each other.

The most commonly cited distance figure is 19 miles (plus or minus) from the abandoned car to the bunkhouse.

I don't think so ...

I've sketched up a graphic illustrating the area of the incident. It's excerpted from Google Maps, and I've included the scale indicator in effect when this sub-image was extracted.

Rogers Cow Camp is the area where the car was abandoned. The camp area is located at / near a crossroads known as Merrimac. The center point of the box is the approximate location of the actual campsite.

Assuming the 'boys' followed the Sno-Cat tracks from the car abandonment site farther up the main road, then off on who-knows-which combination of side tracks leading to the bunkhouse site, it's difficult to confirm they would have been walking for anything like 19 miles.

Here's the map ... Judge for yourself ...

 

[JamesWhitehead]

The distance seems about a third of that cited. Maps do tend to highlight main routes which may be less clearly signposted on the ground.

Was this entirely a wilderness area or would the boys have encountered/avoided other settlements on these routes?

Do we know which route the Sno-Cat took to the bunkhouse?

 

[EnolaGaia]

The distance seems about a third of that cited. Maps do tend to highlight main routes which may be less clearly signposted on the ground.

Yep - it does seem the oft-cited 19 miles figure is 'way off ... What you see in the graphic are all the passable roads / tracks there are. The Oroville-Quincy Highway ('Main Road' above ... ) is now a two-lane paved highway. In 1978 it was still graveled.

Was this entirely a wilderness area or would the boys have encountered/avoided other settlements on these routes?

It's a remote area within the Plumas National Forest. There are pockets of private land here and there, but even now (40 years later) it's relatively undeveloped. It was even less developed back then.

Do we know which route the Sno-Cat took to the bunkhouse?

No. All we know is that the Sno-Cat passed the point where the cars were abandoned and made its way to the work camp where the bunkhouse (cabin-trailer) was parked.

The objective was to check the work camp site and clear snow off the structures (including the bunkhouse trailer) because the area was generally or occasionally closed during the winter.

If you look at the side tracks leading off the main road and leading to the work camp site, it would seem the most direct route would have been to branch off on the first side track encountered and continue to the camp on those lesser pathways.

Main road versus side track wouldn't make much difference to a tracked Sno-Cat in deep snow.

 

[genex17]

Just plugging the two locations into Google gives me 19.4 mi and they were 28 miles from East Oroville where that road begins. For some reason they chose to hike 19 miles instead of turning the car around. Merrimac is already 4000 ft and going further uphill not dressed for the climate made it worse.

Anyways a tip of the hat to EnolaGaia for the previous map. It makes the whole trek a lot easier to visualize.

 

[EnolaGaia]

Just plugging the two locations into Google gives me 19.4 mi and they were 28 miles from East Oroville where that road begins. For some reason they chose to hike 19 miles instead of turning the car around. Merrimac is already 4000 ft and going further uphill not dressed for the climate made it worse.

I don't think that's the route the Sno-Cat took, and it wasn't the route to which I was referring.

The route which Google Maps (naively) gave you requires making the entire trip on secondary tracks / paths, down into the Feather River gorge, and back uphill on the other side.

The route I was referring to was to continue on the so-called Oroville-Quincy Highway ('Main Road') and turn off toward the Daniel Zink Campground. This would be the most direct route if the Sno-Cat's true objective was the Zink site.

I haven't seen anything in any of the accounts (other than the mysterious claim of a 19-odd mile distance) to indicate the Sno-Cat went that way.

By inserting an intermediate waypoint at Palmetto (along the main road) I forced Google Maps to trace the route I intended, and it was calculated to span 11.7 miles - only 60% as far as that other routing.

 

[genex17]

Ok. 11.7 miles. Still wonder why they did not go back instead of forging further and higher with light clothing? At least their car would have heat and it would have been a safer 28 miles back. Well yeah there were things going on mentally, so no point asking.

Anyway, I'll remember your routing trick.

 

[EnolaGaia]

Ok. 11.7 miles. Still wonder why they did not go back instead of forging further and higher with light clothing? At least their car would have heat and it would have been a safer 28 miles back. Well yeah there were things going on mentally, so no point asking. ...

I wondered about that. I finally concluded it wasn't all that surprising. Here's why I thought that ...

Madruga was the driver. He was very proud of his car. For reasons we still can't specify with any certainty, he was driving up that road late at night in progressively poor conditions. There were any number of reasons why he should be feeling stressed, such as:

- He was in a driving situation he'd probably never experienced before.
- It was getting harder and harder to drive carefully and avoid damaging his prized car.
- As the driver, he probably felt responsible for his friends.
- They were already late getting home.
- He was one of the ones who'd been looking forward to the next day's tournament game with great enthusiasm.
- It was looking as if the next day's much-anticipated adventure might be in jeopardy.
- There was the chance he was going to be in trouble whenever they finally got home.
- They finally came to the place where Schons' stuck VW sat immediately ahead.
- Now that we know(?) the snow was 10" deep it means he was hearing dragging sounds from below, and ...
- His wheels started spinning - maybe for the first time.*

* There were signs the Mercury had spun its wheels at the point it stopped, though it wasn't stuck. No account mentions signs of slipping, fishtailing, or wheel-spinning prior to that. I suspect it either started spinning as he came to a stop or once he stopped and tried to get moving again.

This isn't a big surprise. One of the cardinal rules for driving in deep snow is to never back off and lose your momentum. I suspect Madruga slowed when he saw Schons' car ahead, got a little spin going, and that was that ...

As I understand it, there was substantial snow (perhaps drifts) to either side of the road. Schons' car at least partially blocked the way forward. There didn't seem to be any place to turn around.

The idea of putting it in reverse and backing down the way he'd come under those conditions probably scared the hell out of him. I've been in situations like that, with one or more passengers and no room to maneuver. The most expedient way out is to deliberately power-slide in place to break traction and have the passengers (outside) turn the car around as if it were on a turntable. It requires faith, skill, and a certain measure of cavalier foolhardiness. No offense to Madruga's memory intended, but I seriously doubt he (along with the others) had any of those requisite assets on hand.

I can assure you attempting to back one's way out of such a situation is far more risky and daunting.

I wholly agree that their abandoning their vehicle was a baffling move. Schons was in worse shape, but he still had the good sense to shelter in his car with the engine running for heat until he ran out of gas.

The very fact they'd ridden to that stopping point indicates they were under the delusional impression the way forward was the way 'out' of what I believe they already realized was a predicament. Given that, I'm not that surprised they proceeded onward.

I am still baffled as to why they elected to leave their car and set out on foot. Leaving the car seems stranger to me than the direction they chose to walk.

It may be that some of Schons' account - crying for help and / or getting out of his car to yell and get their attention - was factual. If so, there's always the chance that either his calls for help and / or his probably frantic actions outside his car freaked the 'boys' out. I have little doubt they were already stressed out. It wouldn't have taken much to push them over into outright panic.

One can go even farther out on a speculative limb and consider there may have been a second vehicle that pulled up behind Madruga's car (per Schons' tentative two-vehicle story). That later party perhaps spoke with the 'boys' and backed away assuming Madruga would follow suit. He couldn't, so he didn't.

The Sno-Cat tracks led on, and they followed them all the way to Daniel Zink Campground.

Yes, this is all speculative. However, it's my current working hypothesis because it's the only storyline template that seems to accommodate the few reliable facts.

Desperately dogged action leading into a deadly dead end.

 

[genex17]

First off Enola, I did want to give you proper credit for getting on this story like a bloodhound. One thing was the varying and even later news accounts. The distances involved, and even things like the reporters' own speculations.
The "missing keys" are no long missing.

One other thing, cold weather can stall out a vehicle, or at least the kind common back in the 60s and 70s. Who knows if the car quit on them and they were forced to trek out?

But I go along with your take on decisions being made in unfamiliar and hostile conditions. We had a rainstorm pass through last night and as they tend to progress east into the Sierras, Winter warnings are issued even for the major highways and passes. I forgot entirely about snowchains. The Highway Patrol has been known to require them at certain elevations.

So this link will show how wild things can get at the upper elevations.

https://www.visitrenotahoe.com/plan...-trip-in-the-sierra-nevada-range-this-winter/

 

[EnolaGaia]

First off Enola, I did want to give you proper credit for getting on this story like a bloodhound. One thing was the varying and even later news accounts. The distances involved, and even things like the reporters' own speculations.
The "missing keys" are no long missing.

Thanks ...

If I get interested in a story I like to dig deep into it, whether or not I get to a solid conclusion ...

All too often, much of the mystery surrounding a story like this derives from twisting it all out of shape via poor attention to facts, glossing or errors induced during recycling, etc. Sometimes the most pesky mystery is how the narrative got so bent out of shape.

One other thing, cold weather can stall out a vehicle, or at least the kind common back in the 60s and 70s. Who knows if the car quit on them and they were forced to trek out?

There's one specific factoid relevant to this notion in the sketchy evidence ... When Madruga's car was found, the keys were missing. The ranger(s) / cop(s) on the scene hot-wired it, and it started up immediately. In other words, they checked whether the Mercury was disabled and demonstrated to their satisfaction it wasn't.

Of course, this doesn't rule out the possibility that Madruga had stalled it out (e.g., flooded the engine) on Friday night, and the 'boys' didn't understand the stoppage was transient if they'd only known what to do.

 

[EnolaGaia]

... At least their car would have heat and it would have been a safer 28 miles back. ...

I've wondered about whether they could have lingered on the road for a while before leaving the car. The most important factor would be heat, and this would depend on the fuel available (as it did for Schons).

One of the accounts (don't remember which one - I think it's one of the ones accessible via the link in post 107) made the only mention of the guys' last known sighting in their hometown. They were seen getting gas at circa 1800 - presumably on their way out of town toward Chico.

As a speculative experiment, let me run some numbers to see whether there could have been unaccounted-for fuel consumption that may be attributed to running the car while parked so as to keep warm.

Here's what we know:

- Fuel tank capacity on a '69 Montego = 20.1 US gallons (all models)
- Fuel load remaining when the car was eventually found = "a quarter tank" (let's say 5 gallons)
- MINIMUM / WORST combined fuel economy rating for a '69 Montego (all models except the top-of-the-line 400 and 429 cubic inch V-8's) = circa 12 mpg.

(I excluded the 400 / 429 - equipped models because they were the most expensive, and because I don't have any reason to suspect Madruga was a performance fan.)

For the sake of this speculative what-if, let's say Madruga filled up on his way out of town and had all 20 gallons to burn.

This means he'd used circa 15 gallons by the time the car was abandoned.

Here are some crude / notional Google Maps distance estimates:

Let's call the notional over-the-road distance for known movements 105 miles.
Notional fuel consumption for 105 miles traveled @ 12 mpg = 8.75 (let's say 9.0) gallons.

If Madruga had filled up, and these pessimistic presumptions are reasonable, they'd have used 9.0 gallons for travel and left circa 5.0 gallons abandoned - i.e., a total of 14 gallons accounted for.

This would leave circa 6.0 gallons unaccounted for ...

Side trip(s)? Burned off for heat during the night after stopping? Madruga didn't fill it up on his way out of town?

I don't know, and I make no specific claims in that regard. My point is that it's conceivable (with a fill-up) that they could have had a few gallons available to burn for heat and still leave a quarter-tank behind.

What would have been necessary for them to have started with a full tank, eventually stopped the car, never idled it for heat, and left a quarter-tank after traveling 105 (known) miles?

That would be circa 15 gallons expended to travel circa 105 miles - i.e., circa 7.0 mpg.

7.0 mpg is on the order of 25% worse than the worst combined mpg rating (9.3 mpg) for the thirstiest '69 Montegos - the models with the big-ass 429 (7.0L) V-8.

Owing to the ambiguities in Schons' testimony and no idea when he (Schons) eventually gave up and began his hike (discovering the Montego empty), there's no reasonable basis for sketching the boundary conditions for how long the guys may have remained with the car before heading off on foot.

I'm not saying the guys had to have lingered before hiking away. I'm only saying it's within the realm of possibility if they'd started out with a full fuel tank.

 

[henry]

if the conditions prevented them driving further, with possibly even another vehicle behind them, why didnt they properly check out the running vw with heart attack victim inside ?

 

[Maviself]

First off Enola, I did want to give you proper credit for getting on this story like a bloodhound.

I agree, thank you! You have carried out a serious amount of investigation here and it is absolutely fascinating.

 

[EnolaGaia]

if the conditions prevented them driving further, with possibly even another vehicle behind them, why didnt they properly check out the running vw with heart attack victim inside ?

I don't know. Maybe they did check, but didn't see Schons inside. Schons supposedly claimed (depending on which source one uses ... ) he was lying down. Stock VW Beetle seats (at least in the US market) didn't fully recline. However, it was possible to swap out the OEM 'arms' connecting the upper and lower seat units to get fully-reclinable front seats. Such full-reclinable conversion parts were even offered as dealer-installed options as early as the 1960's.

Even if he'd not converted his front seats so as to fully recline ... If Schons had moved into the back seat to lie down it's possible nobody saw him back there.

He never mentioned anyone shining a light directly into his car, and he never claimed anyone he supposedly saw was closer than circa 20 feet from his car.

Schons claimed to have (a) called out for help from inside his VW and / or (b) stepped out of his car to gesture and call for help. All versions agree that none of the other people ever responded in any way. The ambiguities regarding what actions he actually took, plus the odd lack of any acknowledgment / response, is one of the reasons I suspect he could have dreamed / hallucinated those incidents. He was in worse shape than later regurgitated accounts would mention, and he spent hours lying in a snowbound car with the engine running. Between his medical woes and potential CO poisoning, delirium is not outside the realm of possibilities.

 

[henry]

it doesnt add up that these 5, in trouble with their vehicle, would not have thoroughly investigated another vehicle, with the engine running !

 

[maximus otter]

...I suspect he could have dreamed / hallucinated those incidents. He was in worse shape than later regurgitated accounts would mention, and he spent hours lying in a snowbound car with the engine running. Between his medical woes and potential CO poisoning, delirium is not outside the realm of possibilities.

Schon claimed that he drove way up into the mountains "...checking the snow line, because he wanted to bring his wife and daughter up that weekend...", as mentioned in this post.

In the same post it's recorded that he'd stopped for "a drink" at the Mountain House.

Who drives up into mountains on a snowy February night to "check the snow line", then falls asleep in a car stuck in snow? Couldn't he check a weather forecast? 'Phone the Mountain House? Look out of a window and think, "If it's that bad here, what must it be like hundreds/thousands of feet higher? Brrr..."

My reading? Schon had "a drink", then several more "a drinks", then decided to drive home. If he made the mistake of turning the wrong way out of the Mountain House, or it was suggested to him by a fellow patron or staff member that the road that way was more likely to be negotiable, then perhaps we have the first stage of the mystery explained: Were the missing men given the same incorrect info?

maximus otter

 

[EnolaGaia]

I think Schons' motivation was uncertainty about the notoriously variable / varying conditions one encounters in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. There was no snow in the lowlands (he came from Sacramento), and the news / weather outlets focused on the populated lowlands rather than the relatively remote upper elevations.

I originally interpreted references to 'checking the snow line' to mean just that - taking a look to see how far up into the mountains one had to go to hit a completely snowy landscape (and wise-to-avoid road conditions). He got stuck at a completely snowy place where the snow was 10" deep - well into / beyond the snow line.

Another, perhaps more tangible, reason for inspecting the landscape was to check where the Forest Service had closed areas and roads. This was the pre-Internet era - you couldn't simply access a Forest Service website to see the current closings. There was no emphasis on pumping out public information about closings in such outlying areas.

Schons was supposedly checking because he had (or had access to ... ) a cabin somewhere up there. I've never seen any specification for where his cabin was located.

 

[henry]

whichever way you look at it, his story is freakish

 

[henry]

id go so far as to say untrue