National Park Deaths — Mysterious Stories Blog

William “Bill” Michael Ewasko, Disappeared 24th June 2010. Remains found February 8, 2022. Joshua Tree National Park, California

Updated February 2022

Bill Ewasko, 66, was last seen in Riverside County, California on June 24, 2010, after leaving his home in Marietta, a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, where he lived with his girlfriend. He was planning a solo hiking trip in Joshua Tree National Park that day and had packed a lunch, water and some snacks for his trip. He was supposed to return to his vehicle and call his girlfriend at 5.00 pm, but he never did. She reported him missing the next day, shortly after mid-day.

Ewasko's rented white 2007 Chrysler Sebring with the California license plate number 6CVF834 was found at the park on Keys View Road. An extensive search turned up no sign of him. Temperatures at the park that week reached close to 100°F (38°C).

Apart from a bandana, nothing was found during large official and unofficial searches in the years following. Then in February 2022, nearly 12 years after Bill went missing, remains were found by hikers in the northwestern corner of Joshua Tree, where the Bigfoot and Panorama Loop trails connect. The remains were found with a Wallet that included Ewasco’s ID. The location of the find was described as odd, with Tom Mahood, who had previously searched for Bill without success saying, "it's a really odd area for him to have been in, and I can't fathom what he was thinking."

What happened to Bill Ewasco that day in Joshua Tree remains unclear for now but given the age of the remains, the cause of death may never be confirmed.

Bill Ewasko’s trip to Joshua Tree National Park

Ewasko was an Army veteran who served in Vietnam and an experienced hiker who has visited Joshua Tree National Park on several previous occasions, and he was in good physical shape in 2010, with no medical problems. He was an avid jogger and a lover of the outdoors.

Bill flew to Los Angeles on Wednesday, June 23, 2010, for what would be his last trip to Joshua Tree. He spent the night at a friend’s vacant condominium before driving to Joshua Tree on the following day, June 24. Bill planned to spend a week in the area and fly home on July 1, with a further trip to Florida planned on his return.

On his way to the park the morning of June 24, Bill made two phone calls, reporting that he was on Interstate 10 near Palm Desert, a location subsequently verified by cell phone records. The first call was to the owner of Bill’s condo.

He left a rough itinerary behind with his girlfriend, Mary Winston, featuring multiple destinations, both inside and outside the park. His first hike, on Thursday, June 24, was meant to be a loop out and back from a remote historic site known as Carey’s Castle, an old miner’s hut built into the rocks. Carey’s Castle is so archaeologically fragile that, to discourage visitors, the National Park Service does not include it on official maps and is very isolated and remote. Certainly off the beaten track.

His second call that morning was to Mary and she said that he was in high spirits that morning, and though she was concerned about the danger of visiting such an isolated location and tried to dissuade him, Bill did not indicate any change of plans, only that he planned to be out of the park by 5 pm to get dinner at Pappy & Harriet’s in Pioneertown, and that he would call Mary when he was out of the park.

But 5 pm came and went with no phone call. Mary tried his cellphone several times, but it went to voice mail. She knew he might still be an area with poor cell reception. Later that evening, she tried to call someone at the park, but by then Joshua Tree headquarters had closed for the day.

The search for Bill Ewasco

The next morning at around 8 am, Winston finally spoke to Joshua Tree park rangers to report that Bill was missing in the Carey’s Castle area. Rangers headed to the trailhead, but Ewasko’s rented Chrysler Sebring was not there. The trail appeared to have had no visitors for at least a week. Ewasko had changed his plans for some reason.

Dave Pylman, the park’s deputy planning chief and a former executive director of Friends of Joshua Tree, a climbing-advocacy group, as well as a 19-year veteran of Joshua Tree Search and Rescue, was put in charge of routes, teams and search areas. At first, he said, Ewasko appeared to be a typical lost tourist: someone who goes out by himself, encounters a problem of some sort, fails to report back at a prearranged time and eventually finds his way back to known territory. The park sees nearly 50 such cases every year. Learning that Ewasko was a fit, accomplished hiker added to Pylman’s confidence that he would be found quickly and perhaps even “self-rescue” by finding his own way out. “The thing I remember the most,” Pylman said, “was the frustration of: How can this be? How can we have so much information about where he was going to go, or at least where he said he was going to go — why can’t we find him?”

Carey’s Castle was only one of several locations on Ewasko’s itinerary. Unfortunately, the list included sites as far-flung as the Salton Sea and Mount San Jacinto, each more than an hour’s drive from the park. Other Joshua trails also featured on his list. There was Keys View, an overlook with views of the San Andreas Fault, as well as the exposed summit of Quail Mountain, Joshua Tree’s highest point

Park Rangers quickly established that Ewasko’s National Parks pass had never been scanned at either park entrance. That wasn’t definitive proof of anything, if a long line of cars forms, members are often waved through, but it meant that there was no record of his visit. Had Ewasko even entered Joshua Tree National Park?

On Saturday, June 26, nearly two full days after Ewasko failed to show up, a sheriff’s deputy was dispatched to Bill’s borrowed condo where additional itineraries and maps were found. One of the itineraries had listed for that Thursday “Thousand Palms, Joshua Tree all day, Lost Horse Mountain” which added little to the information already at hand.

But later that day, a California Highway Patrol helicopter finally spotted his car at the Juniper Flats trailhead, nearly a 90-minute drive from the Carey’s Castle trailhead. By this time, he would have been exposed to late June temperatures in the mid-90s, with little or no food or water. Locating the car confirmed that Bill was inside the park and searchers relocated to Juniper Flats and explored areas including the top of Quail Mountain and south to Keys View.

Just before 7 pm., having received confirmation from the helicopter pilot that the license plate matched Ewasko’s, JTNP ranger Jimmy Pritchett was first to arrive at the scene and found no evidence other than a list of directions from the west entrance of the park to Juniper Flats on the passenger side and a set of footprints that looked fresh.

After being joined by another ranger and the CHP helicopter, Pritchett drove up Juniper Flats Road, an old jeep trail now closed to the public but often used by hikers heading for Quail Mountain, calling to Ewasko via a loudspeaker. When they failed to find Bill, Pritchett returned to the lot where he was soon joined by police from the neighboring county and volunteer searchers. Pritchett dropped off two teams of searchers to cover the California Riding and Hiking Trail, which runs roughly parallel to Juniper Flats Road and recrosses it near Juniper Flat, and Stubbe Springs Trail, a side loop trail. They were only able to cover part of the area before the light faded. Upon their return, several of the searchers pointed towards a nearby ridge and said that they could see lights. Pritchett looked but could not confirm this.

A ranger was left at the car through the night, and in the morning with Bill having failed to show up, a proper search got underway using park personnel and volunteer search and rescue at about 7:30 a.m. that morning, fanning out in the most likely areas in the vicinity of Bill’s car. The ridgeline where lights had been seen the previous night was searched, but nothing was found. Later that morning, however, searchers recovered a red bandana on the ridge near Quail Mountain. It would be the only possible sign of Ewasko found in the entire search.

Volunteers were already arriving from throughout Southern California, and an incident command post was created at Cap Rock. A sniffer dog was shown clothes found in Ewasko’s rental car, then brought on the trail in addition to helicopter searches Despite this, Bill remained missing.

Riverside County Sheriff’s Department was now an active partner in the search. Foot searchers and those on horseback were deployed. The tracking dog indicated Ewasko may have taken the California Riding and Hiking Trail up to the point where it intersects with Juniper Flats Road where the latter heads toward Quail Mountain, but apparently was able to track no further. Since this is a junction of all trails in the area, it offered no guidance as to where Bill might have gone next.

That evening, it was revealed that the previous morning, at about 6:30 a.m. on Sunday, Ewasko’s phone had pinged a cell tower in Yucca Valley, a city about 20 miles northwest of where his car was found. This raised hopes that he was still alive and rangers requisitioned a night helicopter with thermal imaging capability to search the area.

On Tuesday two water bottles that were hidden under a log in the search area were discovered. A scent dog indicated a high probability that both the bottles and the bandana were Tom’s. Unfortunately, another hiker would come forward later to claim the bottles casting the scent dog’s alert to the bandana in doubt as well.

There was only one known visitor to Juniper Flats Trailhead the day Bill disappeared, a hiker named Greg Mendoza. At the time of his arrival in the park at around 10:20 am, there was no one else at the trailhead, however upon his return between 5.30 and 6.00 pm, he sawEwasko’s car parked parallel and next to the curb on the north side of the parking area, instead of in one of the diagonally drawn designated parking spots. He also saw a single line of fresh boot tracks going up the old Juniper Flats road.

This means that Bill’s car arrived at the parking lot no earlier than 10:20 am, leaving, at minimum, a nearly 2 ½ hour gap from his last phone call. It should have only taken Bill about half that time to reach Juniper Flats trailhead and it is not known where Bill was for the extra hour or so.

On July 5, 2010, the official search was called off, 11 days after Bill was reported missing to Rangers as the money had been exhausted. It was assumed that without food and water and with the extremes of the desert climate he could not survive.

But after the official search ended, the unofficial search continued, including Tom Mahood, a former search and rescue worker based in California. He is responsible for the discovery of the Death Valley Germans (Egbert Rimkus, Georg Weber, Cornelia Meyer, Max Meyer). After more than a year of hiking in the Death Valley area, on November 12, 2009, Mahood and another searcher found the remains of the German family who disappeared in Death Valley 13 years earlier on 23 July 1996.

His website is www.otherhand.org

Unofficial searches

The Ewasko search thread hosted by the Mount San Jacinto Outdoor Recreation forum. There, hikers have collectively posted many hundreds of times about Ewasko since May 2012. Since the official search was called off, more than 1,000 miles of hiking routes have been searched, with new attempts continuing to this day. The search for Bill Ewasko is one of the most geographically extensive amateur missing-person searches in U.S. history.

Mike Melson became interested in the disappearance in the spring of 2012. A computer scientist by training, he had more than a decade’s work with law enforcement to track cellphone data and had developed a proprietary forensics program called CellHawk capable of turning raw cellular information into usable search maps. He ran a faith-based volunteer search-and-rescue service called Trinity Search and Recovery.

Most cellphones “ping” radio towers on a regular basis when they are used for a call, message or to access the internet The ping can be used to estimate the distance from a tower and hence to triangulate the location of the cell user.

Melson had been following the story of the Ewasko disappearance off and on, both through word of mouth in the search-and-rescue community and through Tom Mahood’s blog. Although Mahood participated in the official search for Bill Ewasko, helping to clear the region around Quail Mountain, the case became an obsession and he has become determined to find Bill. Mahood has published many posts on his blog about Ewasko’s disappearance.

Mahood had cellphone records which showed that at 6:50 a.m. on Sunday, June 27, 2010, three days after Ewasko last spoke with Mary Winston, his phone communicated with a Verizon tower just outside the park’s northwestern edge, above the town of Yucca Valley. This was the first time The phone hadn’t registered with any towers since the morning of his disappearance, suggesting that his phone had been turned off until that moment to conserve battery life or he had no service. According to this data, Ewasko’s phone was 10.6 miles away from the tower, which placed him so far beyond the official search area that, when rescuers first learned of the ping in 2010, many simply did not believe the data. Some believed that the signal was distorted by early-morning thermal effects as the sun rose, throwing off Ewasko’s real position or that the rocky landscape of Joshua Tree distorted the signal’s accuracy. Others suggested that the ping had been deliberately staged to mask the true reasons for Ewasko’s disappearance.

Had Ewasko finally reached a high-enough point where he was confident he could get a clear signal but his battery had given up on him?

Melson drove to Joshua Tree in-person to explore Covington Flats, one of several possible sites where Ewasko’s ping might have originated. His goal was to learn if the ping’s suggested 10.6-mile radius could have been accurate. After performing signal tests throughout Covington Flats, however, Melson found that his numerous attempts to mark a specific distance from the Verizon tower revealed large margins of error. According to Melson’s measurements, Ewasko’s phone could have been anywhere from a quarter-mile farther away to very nearly at the base of the tower itself, due to reflections off mountains and rocks. The Riverside Sheriff’s Department stated that the original cell data no longer existed and the 10.6-mile number apparently came from a single technician and could have been a clerical error.

Theories on the Bill Ewasco disappearance

The “I Just Disappear Blog” has a good summary of what may have happened to Bill Ewasko, including perhaps he intended to disappear or was a victim of foul play.

I just disappear Blog Link

Tom Mahood investigations

In May 2016, Tom Mahood summarised the disappearance and search.

Ewasco Thoughts

I last did a posting with my current thoughts way back in January of 2013 after “only” 43 search attempts. Based upon all these individual missions identifying where Bill wasn’t, the physical realities of the topography, the cellular coverage and the system’s distance measuring reliability (assumed to be high), I came up with a theory of what Bill may have done the day of his hike.

To briefly recap, my thoughts at the time were that Bill undertook a hike to Quail Mountain via its southerly face route reaching the crest of Quail Ridge very low on water. Since he would have likely known of the existence of water in Smith Water Canyon, about two miles away and much closer than his vehicle, he began a cross country diversion to Smith Water Canyon.

Had he reached the bottom of Smith Water Canyon he obviously would have been found, therefore he “obviously” experienced some sort of accident on his descent into the canyon preventing him from reaching the bottom. This is close to the 10.6 mile Serin Tower radius. It was my expectation Bill would be found in the rugged terrain of the southerly slopes of Smith Water Canyon. This theory fit what was known at the time very well and directed many of my (and other’s) search attempts since. The only negative the theory turned out to have was that it has been proved wrong. A minor thing, but still a problem. Extensive searching of all reasonable areas of the southerly slopes failed to turn up any trace of Bill.

After studying a number of lost person incidents I’ve developed two beliefs. The first is that people seldom act randomly, they do what makes sense to them at the time at the specific location they are at. This is why lost people usually travel downhill as it’s easier.

The second belief I’ve developed is that subjects who aren’t immediately found by SAR personnel usually do something unexpected or unanticipated by searchers. This usually manifests itself by the lost subject covering more ground than the searchers expected and thus leaving the search area. Or the subject heads in an unexpected direction for reasons unknown to the searchers. But again, it makes sense to the subject at the time.

This may have been occurring with multiple iterations in the Ewasko case. As the search ramped up on Saturday morning, June 26th, it appeared it was merely a missing hiker somewhere between the Juniper Flats trailhead and Quail Mountain. Yet initial searchers, who would have quickly found a subject in this situation, found no trace.

Then on the morning of Sunday, June 27 a cell ping was recorded, which if accurate, suggested Ewasko had traveled well beyond Quail Mountain, something completely unexpected. The view from the upper reaches of Quail Mountain is vast, and it’s hard to be lost when much of the park and its roads are visible. In response, searchers were quickly put into the areas of the cell ping as soon as the info was known, but the first searchers didn’t arrive into Smith Water Canyon until the morning of Tuesday the 29th, the fifth day after Bill began his hike. But hey and follow on searchers found no trace.

After the official search ended and I and my co-conspirators came on the scene, we started filling in the blanks of the original search effort, as clearly that’s where we’d find Bill. We assumed he did something a bit unexpected and ended up in an unsearched area so we set about clearing them. We gave no great weight to the cell ping distance since it made little sense to us for him to be there and most SAR members know of incidences where cellular location information is wildly wrong. It wasn’t until we had cleared much of the unsearched area between the trailhead and Quail Mountain that we began to consider the cell ping more carefully. And from what limited data we could uncover, it appeared Verizon’s reported distance of 10.6 miles was likely accurate. That would put him in the vicinity of Smith Water Canyon. How could that be the case?

A lot of pondering and trying to get into Bill’s head lead to what I posted in January of 2013. It all fit so well I was really certain we’d find him on the southerly Smith Water slopes. I will confess that in a wonderful display of hubris I even named one of our first search plans for the area “Endgame”. Nope, not even close. It was yet another failure of imagination.

The more search coverage of the southerly Smith Water slopes increased the more perplexed and disheartened I became. I couldn’t come up with any reason Bill could have made that ping and not be found on the southerly slopes. After enough searches in that area, it became clear that either Bill had taken shelter in a crevice and we had walked right by him (unlikely due to expected scattering of his possession by animals) or my thinking was flat out wrong (likely).

By January of 2013 (JT44) this resolved as the primary area of interest assuming an accident on descent into Smith Water and never reaching the bottom.

By May of 2016 the area of interest had been searched very well, tracks in red, suggesting an accident on descent might not be the correct scenario.

About the only place we (and anyone else) haven’t searched were the northerly slopes of Smith Water Canyon mostly because it makes no sense at all. Clearly no one would make the grueling descent into Smith Water then start up the other side, would they? And while the 10.6 mile distance is closer to the northerly slopes than the searched southerly ones, their orientation is not line of sight to the cell tower so it shouldn’t be “pingable” from there.

You would think I should be used to being wrong by now. If one gives high weight to the accuracy of the cell ping distance there is a scenario which fits pretty much all that is known about the case and explains why no trace has yet been found. If the scenario is correct, the search area is likely constrained to a few hundred acres, in a location no one has ever thought to look. And by definition, missing people are always found in the last place someone thinks to look.

So, you know….maybe.

Before I lay out what I think happened and where Bill has ended up I’d like to touch on a couple things. First, everyone who approaches this case gives different weightings to the few hard bits of evidence available. Evidence like where his car was, where he would have been hiking, accuracy of the cell ping, where he’s known to not be, things like that. So two people looking at the same evidence may come to very different conclusions depending on how important they think each data point is. Ultimately, none of it matters unless Bill is found. Frankly, I’d much prefer someone other than I find Bill, and if laying my thoughts out here makes that happen, then great! Oh, and for the record I don’t think foul play, a staged disappearance or suicide have levels of probability worth considering.

Secondly, I assume that friends and family of Bill occasionally visit this website to check for updates and see if any progress is being made. With that in mind I’ve always tried to be respectful and circumspect in putting out any theories of how Bill may have met his end. After all, a man died and until he’s found speculation on how that specifically happened is usually cringeworthy. So I haven’t, publicly….until now. I think what a man of Bill’s reported determination may have attempted in his last hours could have a great deal to do with why he’s not been yet found. My thinking is that he attempted something that none of us have yet thought of in our wildest imaginings, and possibly came close to pulling it off.

So here’s the sequence of events I think seem to best fit what is known to date:

Around 7 AM on Thursday June 24, Bill makes a cell call to David Rosso, the owner of the condo he was staying at, saying he was headed for Joshua Tree that day. Around 8 AM that same morning Bill makes a call to Mary Winston in Georgia. He mentioned he was westbound on I-10 near Monterrey, enroute to JTNP.

Later cell records confirm both calls, and the tower in use during the second call is consistent with Bill’s stated location. After the second call, no subsequent cell tower pings were recorded by Verizon’s system which means Bill turned off his cell phone. This suggests some understanding of the importance of battery conservation.

Based upon Bill’s stated location, with normal driving and no detours, he should have ended up at the Juniper Flats trailhead around 9:15 AM. For unknown reasons his card wasn’t recorded at the western park entrance station despite its opening around 8 AM. It is possible he was waved through without scanning.

Bill’s precise arrival time at the Juniper Flats trailhead isn’t known. A hiker arriving at the trailhead at 10:20 AM saw no other vehicles, but saw Bill’s car when he returned from his hike around 5:30 PM. So all that can be said is Bill arrived sometime after 10:20 AM. His whereabouts between 8 AM and 10:20 AM are unclear but could be attributed to his stopping and taking pictures as he liked to do in Joshua Tree.

Bill departed the trailhead with apparently only two, 12 ounce bottles of water in his possession sometime after 10:20 AM, proceeding along the old road to Juniper Flats. Given such a small amount of water it may be that he was planning only a short walk along a relatively flat trail, and was going to eventually turn back. The flatness and pleasantness of that trail can easily lure someone forward. After approximately 5 miles and 2 to 2 1/2 hours he would have reached Juniper Flats with Quail Mountain looming directly in front.

From this point to the top of Quail Mountain there are no marked/signed trails, only cross country routes some of which have been published. However with the mountain directly in front, the frontal approach looks easiest. But while it looks simple, it’s a 900′ climb in 1.3 miles to reach the top of the ridgeline Quail Mountain is a part of. But from the vantage of Juniper Flats it doesn’t look bad.

I think Bill would likely have used most or all of his water supply upon reaching this point at Juniper Flats. Even so, he may have been tempted to push further on to just reach the top of the ridge because it appears so close (I have made these sort of questionable decisions many times myself). And it would provide a grand view. He could turn around any time if he got too thirsty or too hot.

The climb itself is somewhat seductive. The crest never seems very far away, yet is a considerable climb. If Bill was determined enough (and by most accounts he was) he could make the crest and still barely safely return to his parked car where there were nine bottles of water waiting. Along the way he may have dropped the bandanna that was found by searchers at the base of the cross country climb route.

Reaching the lowest saddle on the ridgeline, an obvious destination, would have taken about another hour. He was now 3 to 3 1/2 hours in and 5.3 miles from his vehicle. On a hot June day, that’s a considerable distance.

Given the temperatures, he may have begun to experience initial symptoms of dehydration and realized he could be in a small predicament by overextending himself. Continuing on to Quail Mountain, a few hundred feet higher and another half mile away would now seem unwise (Bill’s signature was never found on the peak’s register). At this point I think Bill did something none of the initial searchers could have foreseen.

From this ridge saddle there is a wonderful view to the northwest and towards Smith Water Canyon. It appears very close and if checked on a map it’s only 1.5 miles to the rim of the canyon. Although it is a cross country route, from this viewpoint it appears rather reasonable. From the visible rim it is yet another mile downhill to the canyon bottom of Smith Water with a simple route clear on any topo map.

Bill had some knowledge of Smith Water Canyon, as it was found listed as a possible place to visit on another itinerary found in his condo. And if he knew enough to consider a hike there, he also surely read that water flows in Smith Water year round.

I believe Bill considered the 5.3 miles back to the car against the 2.5 miles to the water of Smith Water Canyon and chose to head cross country to Smith Water. After descending to the canyon bottom he would be able drink what he wanted, refill his bottles, hike out of Smith Water to the west where it intersects the California Riding and Hiking Trail, and return on that trail to his parked vehicle. It would make for a long day and he would miss his dinner schedule at Pappy and Harriet’s in Pioneertown but it could be an epic adventure. I should point out that one of the symptoms of dehydration is confusion and impaired judgment (Sadly, I can speak from personal experience on this). So Bill set off for Smith Water Canyon and the water he expected to find. To him, and the knowledge he had available, it made more sense than returning to his vehicle.

Unfortunately, there were at least two things Bill didn’t know about this route. First, it’s a lot rougher than it looks, with much rock hopping involved. Second, while it might be somewhat cool and breezy on the ridge crest, descending into the lower, intervening terrain, takes you out of the wind and it gets hotter. A lot hotter. It would have taken him at least an hour to cover the 1.5 miles to the canyon rim, maybe double that as dehydration symptoms increased across the rugged terrain. But at this point it was too late to return, the best option would be to continue. But he had absolutely no margin for error. One more mistake or bad decision could put him in a situation he wouldn’t be able to get out of.

Yet clearly he still felt confident. I state this because upon reaching any portion of the Smith Water Canyon rim he would have been in an area of excellent cell phone coverage. He could have called for help if he needed it, and he did not. In his mind it wasn’t an emergency…..yet. As happens with many people, I don’t think he realized he was now in a survival situation.

Reaching the pleasant flat area that is the obvious saddle on the Smith Water rim, I suspect Bill felt his chances were excellent. It was only a mile, all downhill, to the bottom with water. And if he took the fairly obvious route descending a very pronounced side canyon, it wasn’t really awful (such things are relative in Smith Water Canyon). But then, at some point, at least half way down, things went seriously wrong.

I think Bill took some sort of stumble, perhaps aggravated by dehydration, and suffered an incapacitating ambulatory injury. By this I mean something curtailing his ability to cover considerable ground. Worse than a simple sprain, but along the lines of a broken leg or ankle. Not at all hard to do in this area.

Taking out his cell phone and powering it up to call for help, he would have found no service. It only is available at the upper parts of the side canyon, not that he could have known that. This suggests whatever accident occurred, it was in the lower half of the descent to the Smith Water Canyon bottom.

While a cell signal could have been a salvation, he had a much more urgent need for water, which he knew existed at the bottom of Smith Water. Thus he would have been forced to continue on, possibly crawling and covering ground very slowly. I can only speculate how long it would have taken Bill to reach the canyon bottom.

Here’s the thing about Smith Water Canyon…..There IS water there year round, but you have to know where to look. Guidebooks written before our multiyear drought make it sound like there’s much more water then there actually is, especially in summer months.

The side canyon I’m assuming Bill descended via terminates in the middle of Smith Water Canyon, in sort of a central “bowl”. There are two areas of very pronounced vegetation in Smith Water Canyon, both pretty visible from the higher slopes of the canyon (and in Google Earth). They are dense groves of Acacias (I think) and are obvious markers for water. Bill’s most probable route into Smith Water would have put him in the central bowl, roughly midway between the two groves.

A broken leg or ankle would likely have Bill crawling at this point, but getting to either area of vegetation would appear possible to him. But if he tried heading for the nearer, westerly Acacia grove he’d quickly find his way blocked by a dry waterfall before reaching the grove. I personally find climbing up its slick slope pretty puckery with two good legs and it might be completely impossible with a broken ankle, effectively shutting the door to the westerly grove. OK then……let’s crawl off to the easterly grove instead.

Based upon the totality of the information and searching to date, I feel this is Bill’s likely overall path, and that he ended up inside or very near to the magenta oval in the upper left.

Annnnnd…..Here’s the problem. As far as I’ve ever seen, there’s no surface water in the easterly Acacia grove. In Summer, I’ve only seen water in the westerly grove, above the dry waterfall. But Bill wouldn’t have known this and could have used the bulk of what physical resources were remaining to him crawling to the easterly grove (As an aside, someone crawling in the sandy bottom of Smith Water would have left a completely different track signature from that of a hiker, which could explain why the initial search teams didn’t report seeing any tracks when they arrived in Smith Water several days later….They wouldn’t have expected a crawler).

So Bill’s in the bottom of Smith Water, reaches the easterly Acacia grove and finds no water. He’s been out of water for days, is likely in shock and with serious injuries. The nearest salvation, Park Road, is 3.5 miles away, invisible to Bill and impossible to reach in his dire condition. He may suspect people are searching for him by now, but he’s far from any destination he’d been planning for and has no reason to expect anyone to search where he is. He has to know that at this point he likely has only hours left to him.

But if he’s still got a bit of his wits about him he might realize he has a clever “Hail Mary” chance…..get high enough up in the canyon to get a cell signal out. By any normal standard it’s not a good option, but this is far from normal and it’s realistically his only option. And by all accounts I’ve heard, Bill wasn’t the sort of guy to sit in the shade and wait for death to come. He’d go out fighting to the last.

So he starts crawling up the canyon walls from the area of the easterly Acacia grove. How high he could have crawled it’s hard to say, but I’d guess something less than a few hundred feet. He actually might have been more mobile vertically than laterally as it’s possible to gain a lot of feet vertically for not much horizontal distance. At some point his phone connects briefly. But in the end the effort proves too much and he succumbs somewhere up the slope.

So based upon the totality of the clues to date, and all the places we now know Bill isn’t, I think Bill ended up somewhere on the steep side slopes of Smith Water Canyon. Logically this would have happened either above the easterly Acacia grove or slightly easterly from it (assuming he started for Park Road and realized he couldn’t make it).

I think it's likely that after reaching the end of the easterly Acacia grove and finding no water, Bill may have attempted to ascend the side canyon walls in an attempt to acquire a cell phone signal. The light blue line is the 10.6 mile radius from the Serin Drive cell tower.

I think it’s likely that after reaching the end of the easterly Acacia grove and finding no water, Bill may have attempted to ascend the side canyon walls in an attempt to acquire a cell phone signal. The light blue line is the 10.6 mile radius from the Serin Drive cell tower.

Which side of the canyon, southerly or northerly? I lean toward northerly slopes as we’ve been along some of the southerly slopes more than a few times but haven’t seen anything. Also, no one has yet searched the northerly slopes as there’s been no reason to think he would have gone up that side. It’s clearly nonsensical he’d cross Smith Water and head up the north side. Probably not even the helicopter searchers examined that area closely, because again, there’s no reason for him to be there.

There is no direct cell phone line of sight from these northerly slopes to the Serin tower, BUT it could bounce off the very well cell-covered southerly Smith Water slopes and provide a poor, brief connection consistent with what was recorded. The ping distance, when figuring in the bounce path length, comes out about right. In fact the path length is better for the northerly slopes than most places on the southerly slopes.

So my thinking at this point is that Bill will be found near the easterly mouth of Smith Water Canyon at some elevation above the canyon bottom, and very close to the Serin tower 10.6 mile radius. Due to that amount of search coverage completed on the southerly slopes I think the probability is higher he’s on the unsearched northerly side slopes.

I think Bill will be found somewhere within the purple shaded area. Previous search tracks are shown in red and black, and the Serin Tower 10.6 mile radius in light blue.If Bill's on the southerly slopes it would have to be lower than the green area of very good cell coverage but in an overlooked spot.

I think Bill will be found somewhere within the purple shaded area. Previous search tracks are shown in red and black, and the Serin Tower 10.6 mile radius in light blue.If Bill’s on the southerly slopes it would have to be lower than the green area of very good cell coverage but in an overlooked spot.

Discovery of Bill Ewasco remains

After nearly 12 years, hikers at Joshua Tree National Park finally found Ewasko’s remains on Tuesday, February 8, 2022, in the northwestern corner of the Joshua Tree Park adjacent to the Panorama Loop Trail and where the Bigfoot and Panorama Loop trails connect.

According to Park Superintendent, David A. Smith, the remains were old and were being investigated as a homicide by the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department. Smith said, "I think that any unnatural death is investigated as a homicide if there is no other evidence. They are looking at any evidence they found at the site to determine who the person is.”

High Desert radio station K107.7, KCDZ, reported that a wallet was found with the remains with the name of Bill Ewasko, but the station did not say how it learned that.

Mara Rodriguez of the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department said the Specialized Investigations Division recovered human remains and the investigation were ongoing, "We have no confirmation of who the deceased is and will not be releasing any information about the identity until our Coroner's Division has completed their process and the next of kin has been notified.”

Tom Mahood said that he had researched the GPS tracking of the sheriff's helicopter that responded to the report of remains found and he said if the remains are confirmed to be Ewasko's, "it's a really odd area for him to have been in, and I can't fathom what he was thinking. I always said, he'll eventually be found in someplace no one ever thought he would be. While we now know the conclusion, we may likely never know any details unless Bill left behind any surviving notes as to his predicament."

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