+1 Bingo

Falcon, if you leave deer carcass in the woods and come back in six months, you'll be lucky if you find the skull. This far out, broken branches might stick out if they are in a systematic pattern, but prints and soft plants, no chance.

I've taken off my pack and left it someplace that was visible to me many times before going off to get water or take a picture or take a leak. If he got injured say, 50, 60 yard away from where he stashed his fleece and wallet, it is possible they aren't going to find anything at this point except maybe some clothing.

Reading the article, I didn't really get a good feel for the immediate area. I might also look up in trees- for all we know, he tried to climb a tree to get a better feel for where he was, slipped, and got hung up. *shrugs* Lovely thought. Pure speculation and what-iffery, but not outside the realm of conceivability.

Your right ironraven, I wasn't thinking of how long it has been since he was lost. Plus I've left things as well in a certain area only to find out I had to search real good to find it because I never marked my travel path very good.

We know nothing about the terrain here - most likely Fossett died on impact. Wiley Post, right?

Given it's near Mammoth Lakes, I'd assume it's pretty much like the rest of the Sierra Nevada range: lots of granite, pine trees, not too bad of undergrowth. Probably high 70s in the day, 50s at night (in the summer). Good skiing in winter Look at my avatar pic for the terrain (it's Mt Whitney, about 50ish miles south of Mammoth)

But, yeah, the specifics we don't really know.

I was up in that area in July. It's unbelievably steep in spots. Here's a link to a photo if anyone is interested: http://picasaweb.google.com/jim.barbour/MammothLakesCAJuly2008#5228917876269839218 The general area where the items were found is in the far distance on the right hand side of the photo. This area has all sorts of nooks and crannies; there's no one point from which one could get a really comprehensive view of the area (save perhaps from an aircraft). Mt. Ritter, which is only a couple of miles from where the items were found, is over 13,000' in elevation and still has glaciers to this day (yes, glaciers in California).

Just to give you an idea of the steepness, the Eastern Sierra goes from 14,500' at Mt. Whitney to 3700' at nearby Lone Pine (the gateway to Whitney) in the space of perhaps ten (or fewer) air miles.

Mt hypothesis is that Fosset was flying his plane low down the small canyons and river beds. For some reason he flew into one of the steep walls of one of them. The impact caused the near vertical face to collapse on top of the wreckage concealing it from the searchers.

Terrain collapsing over a wreck is in without precedent. It happened to a plane that flew into a mountain in the Andes where part of a glacier covered it. It has, until recently, when parts started to come out of the bottom of the glacier, been a mystery what happen to the plane.

The Fosset crash site, deep in a steep walled canyon and covered by a rockfall, is well concealed. At some later date rains came and the canyon experienced a flash flood and washed the fleece and wallet out of the wreckage and downstream. The flood waters, channeled withing the canyon initially, spread out as it hit flatter terrain leaving the wallet and fleece in an are without any obvious stream bed. So, to the hiker, they appeared on flat terrain without any clue of how they got there.

Who knows? Could be. I think it's still best to wait for more details. This article states that the items were found east of Minaret Mine: http://www.ksrw.sierrawave.net/site/content/view/1355/48/

Minaret Mine is at point "A" on this map: http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=37.67479,-119...t%20Ritter%20CA For those of you who have been out there before, I've marked a couple of well known landmarks, the Minarets (Point "B") and Mt. Ritter (Point "C"). If I recall correctly, the Minaret Mine hasn't been worked recently (they were active in the 30's).

The search area, now that some of Steve Fossets personal possesions have been found, looks very difficult indeed.

Assuming that Steve Fossets aircraft wreckage is nearby, perhaps the following location might be of interest.

37.687282N 119.187700W on Google Earth.

Is there a wing sticking out of the snow on the side of Mount Ritter?