TR: Second annual HST citizen search for Matthew Greene
Posted: Sun Nov 15, 2015 3:49 pm
Background
Matthew Greene, a climber and backpacker, went missing from Mammoth Lakes in July 2013, while doing day hikes in the Ritter Range. A formal search and rescue operation was never conducted, although some citizen search efforts have been done.
In September 2014, Maverick organized a HST citizen search for Matthew in the Minarets, Mt. Ritter, and Banner Peak. The report on that trip is here:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=11768
Although no sign of Matthew or his equipment has ever been found, we persist. Maverick - who stays in close touch with Matthew’s sister, and has invested significant personal time into independent investigation of the case in Mammoth Lakes – gathered five of us together for a second annual search. It is part of Mav’s ethic (and his huge heart) to assist the families of missing backpackers we’d never had the honor to meet in person.
Day Zero (Sept. 9)
Maverick is a nonstop prankster who kept me seriously entertained on the ride up to Mammoth Lakes. The mountains were a bit hazy owing to smoke from the Rough Fire, as well as a small fire in Tenaya Canyon, but it wasn’t as bad as we had expected. We pulled into New Shady Rest Campground and were presently joined by Jimr. I’ve only known these guys for a year – we first got acquainted at the HST meet-up at Wales Lake in July 2014 - but today was like a reunion with old friends. “What do you want to bet that Mav spends the evening poring over that laminated map?” Jim had predicted. Indeed, the first thing to come out was the map.
Coincidentally, Matthew Greene had been staying in Shady Rest Campground during July 2013, when he went missing. So Mav tracked down the woman who had served as camp host at that time. She said she remembered Matthew.
Pretty soon Markskor found us in the campground. After introducing us to some excellent Mexican take-out, Mark entertained us in his apartment. My favorite part was getting to check out his sketchbooks, and the many drawings hanging on his walls.
Day One (Sept. 10)
We roused ourselves before dawn. An early start was desired, so as to secure the same beautiful base camp location above Ediza that we had occupied in 2014. We swung by McDonald’s to ensure Jim’s first (but hardly last) coffee fix of the day. At Agnew Meadows, we hefted our packs and, lickety-split, Mav was a vanishingly small dot in the distance. True to form, he made the 8.5-ish miles to base camp in two hours.
At the river crossing Jim and I, moving at a more leisurely pace, noted one of the newly replaced signs for Matthew:
Both the Shadow Creek Trail and Lake Ediza were Grand Central Station for hikers – even on a weekday after Labor Day! Fortunately, the off-trail base camp behind Ediza offered a bit more solitude. To repeat what I wrote in last year’s report, our camp is a drop-dead gorgeous location in general, worthy of a Japanese garden:
The weather had a weird feel to it. It was unseasonably hot, but with some mild cloud cover, and a vague hint of smoke. There wasn’t time enough remaining in the day to do any searching, so today was about getting settled in and acclimatizing. I took the opportunity to ask for another lesson in negotiating Class 5 rock. The boys took me up to a rockface over a nice pool they had discovered the year prior. There I practiced proper handholds and descents facing the rock.
We returned to camp and then I went by myself to explore the upper meadows above Ediza toward the headwall formed by the Minarets. I found the lake up there that I had last visited in 1993. It had shrunk a bit in the intervening 22 years. But the whole area was still its usual extravaganza of red metamorphic rock, expansive meadow, and pretty streams.
Soon after I returned to camp, Mav recognized Jeremy’s approaching figure below, and called him up. Jeremy was a newcomer to the search (he hadn’t participated in 2014), and a very welcome addition indeed. Jeremy helped Maverick and HST make the ReConn form what it is today. He learned about the search via Supertopo. Jeremy has a sweet and amiable personality, and good rock climbing experience.
We enjoyed some beautiful alpenglow over Mt. Ritter:
Day 2 (Sept. 11)
Lisa: “Looks stable here.”
Jeremy: “What??”
Lisa: “Looks stable.”
Jeremy: “Sorry, can’t hear you over the rockfall.”
I rose at 6:25 for our first actual search day. It warmed up quickly. Jim cooks up something in the camp kitchen while the rising sun lights up the Minarets:
Because Matthew had all of his snow and ice gear with him when he disappeared, our search this year was concentrated on routes up Mt. Ritter that involve snow crossings. This meant that each day, we would be climbing up to a different glacier and examining the runout area beneath it. Late season is the strategic time to do this, as this is when snowmelt and shifting rock is most likely to have unearthed previously hidden pieces of Matthew's equipment. Today our objective was to search Norman Clyde’s “Clyde Variation” route that eventually hooks up with Mt. Ritter’s Southeast Glacier from the south. (Vaca Russ and I had explored the Clyde Variation in 2014.)
As we ascended the use trail above Ediza, two women packing up camp asked us where we were going. “Are you with HST, by any chance?” one of them asked. It was Shhsgirl (Christine) and her friend, doing a section of the Sierra High Route. Christine’s enthusiasm is contagious. After chatting happily, we took a group photo:
Because it was autumn – heavy into rockfall season – we all wore climbing helmets. (Actually, I wore my bicycle helmet, for which I got razzed, of course.) Halfway to the glacier, we took a rest on a rise overlooking Cecile Lake. A hazy smoke was visible to the south, but it wasn’t terrible:
At the top of the approach to the Clyde Glacier, we took a different, more westerly route than Russ and I had pursued the year before. The moraine below the glacier was exactly as I had remembered it: Loose, unstable, and horrible. Mav and I went one way, Jim and Jeremy the other. I started a talus slide, and then further along, got in a fight with a boulder that gave me two painful bruises on my shins. We rounded the corner in time to see Jim skedaddling out of the path of a house-sized boulder above him that he said had been sliding.
Once we got over the worst rockpile of the moraine, the Clyde Glacier itself was somewhat more pleasurable to search, although rockfall was frequent and we were very deliberate and careful. The glacier had shrunk dramatically from its size in September 2014. The large crevasse at the top had disappeared. I was pleased that we had both more time and more people at our disposal this year. We were able to more thoroughly explore all the corners of the glacier and its outlet to our satisfaction.
We did not actually make it as far as the Southeast Glacier today. The col above the Clyde Glacier looked rough and exposed; and we had reached turnaround time.
(to be continued)
Matthew Greene, a climber and backpacker, went missing from Mammoth Lakes in July 2013, while doing day hikes in the Ritter Range. A formal search and rescue operation was never conducted, although some citizen search efforts have been done.
In September 2014, Maverick organized a HST citizen search for Matthew in the Minarets, Mt. Ritter, and Banner Peak. The report on that trip is here:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=11768
Although no sign of Matthew or his equipment has ever been found, we persist. Maverick - who stays in close touch with Matthew’s sister, and has invested significant personal time into independent investigation of the case in Mammoth Lakes – gathered five of us together for a second annual search. It is part of Mav’s ethic (and his huge heart) to assist the families of missing backpackers we’d never had the honor to meet in person.
Day Zero (Sept. 9)
Maverick is a nonstop prankster who kept me seriously entertained on the ride up to Mammoth Lakes. The mountains were a bit hazy owing to smoke from the Rough Fire, as well as a small fire in Tenaya Canyon, but it wasn’t as bad as we had expected. We pulled into New Shady Rest Campground and were presently joined by Jimr. I’ve only known these guys for a year – we first got acquainted at the HST meet-up at Wales Lake in July 2014 - but today was like a reunion with old friends. “What do you want to bet that Mav spends the evening poring over that laminated map?” Jim had predicted. Indeed, the first thing to come out was the map.
Coincidentally, Matthew Greene had been staying in Shady Rest Campground during July 2013, when he went missing. So Mav tracked down the woman who had served as camp host at that time. She said she remembered Matthew.
Pretty soon Markskor found us in the campground. After introducing us to some excellent Mexican take-out, Mark entertained us in his apartment. My favorite part was getting to check out his sketchbooks, and the many drawings hanging on his walls.
Day One (Sept. 10)
We roused ourselves before dawn. An early start was desired, so as to secure the same beautiful base camp location above Ediza that we had occupied in 2014. We swung by McDonald’s to ensure Jim’s first (but hardly last) coffee fix of the day. At Agnew Meadows, we hefted our packs and, lickety-split, Mav was a vanishingly small dot in the distance. True to form, he made the 8.5-ish miles to base camp in two hours.
At the river crossing Jim and I, moving at a more leisurely pace, noted one of the newly replaced signs for Matthew:
Both the Shadow Creek Trail and Lake Ediza were Grand Central Station for hikers – even on a weekday after Labor Day! Fortunately, the off-trail base camp behind Ediza offered a bit more solitude. To repeat what I wrote in last year’s report, our camp is a drop-dead gorgeous location in general, worthy of a Japanese garden:
The weather had a weird feel to it. It was unseasonably hot, but with some mild cloud cover, and a vague hint of smoke. There wasn’t time enough remaining in the day to do any searching, so today was about getting settled in and acclimatizing. I took the opportunity to ask for another lesson in negotiating Class 5 rock. The boys took me up to a rockface over a nice pool they had discovered the year prior. There I practiced proper handholds and descents facing the rock.
We returned to camp and then I went by myself to explore the upper meadows above Ediza toward the headwall formed by the Minarets. I found the lake up there that I had last visited in 1993. It had shrunk a bit in the intervening 22 years. But the whole area was still its usual extravaganza of red metamorphic rock, expansive meadow, and pretty streams.
Soon after I returned to camp, Mav recognized Jeremy’s approaching figure below, and called him up. Jeremy was a newcomer to the search (he hadn’t participated in 2014), and a very welcome addition indeed. Jeremy helped Maverick and HST make the ReConn form what it is today. He learned about the search via Supertopo. Jeremy has a sweet and amiable personality, and good rock climbing experience.
We enjoyed some beautiful alpenglow over Mt. Ritter:
Day 2 (Sept. 11)
Lisa: “Looks stable here.”
Jeremy: “What??”
Lisa: “Looks stable.”
Jeremy: “Sorry, can’t hear you over the rockfall.”
I rose at 6:25 for our first actual search day. It warmed up quickly. Jim cooks up something in the camp kitchen while the rising sun lights up the Minarets:
Because Matthew had all of his snow and ice gear with him when he disappeared, our search this year was concentrated on routes up Mt. Ritter that involve snow crossings. This meant that each day, we would be climbing up to a different glacier and examining the runout area beneath it. Late season is the strategic time to do this, as this is when snowmelt and shifting rock is most likely to have unearthed previously hidden pieces of Matthew's equipment. Today our objective was to search Norman Clyde’s “Clyde Variation” route that eventually hooks up with Mt. Ritter’s Southeast Glacier from the south. (Vaca Russ and I had explored the Clyde Variation in 2014.)
As we ascended the use trail above Ediza, two women packing up camp asked us where we were going. “Are you with HST, by any chance?” one of them asked. It was Shhsgirl (Christine) and her friend, doing a section of the Sierra High Route. Christine’s enthusiasm is contagious. After chatting happily, we took a group photo:
Because it was autumn – heavy into rockfall season – we all wore climbing helmets. (Actually, I wore my bicycle helmet, for which I got razzed, of course.) Halfway to the glacier, we took a rest on a rise overlooking Cecile Lake. A hazy smoke was visible to the south, but it wasn’t terrible:
At the top of the approach to the Clyde Glacier, we took a different, more westerly route than Russ and I had pursued the year before. The moraine below the glacier was exactly as I had remembered it: Loose, unstable, and horrible. Mav and I went one way, Jim and Jeremy the other. I started a talus slide, and then further along, got in a fight with a boulder that gave me two painful bruises on my shins. We rounded the corner in time to see Jim skedaddling out of the path of a house-sized boulder above him that he said had been sliding.
Once we got over the worst rockpile of the moraine, the Clyde Glacier itself was somewhat more pleasurable to search, although rockfall was frequent and we were very deliberate and careful. The glacier had shrunk dramatically from its size in September 2014. The large crevasse at the top had disappeared. I was pleased that we had both more time and more people at our disposal this year. We were able to more thoroughly explore all the corners of the glacier and its outlet to our satisfaction.
We did not actually make it as far as the Southeast Glacier today. The col above the Clyde Glacier looked rough and exposed; and we had reached turnaround time.
(to be continued)