Originally Posted by 200miler

The area where he was found, between the Mesquite Springs campsite and Scotty's Castle Rd., is on the alluvial fan [4-5% gradient] that is pretty much wide open. There is sparse scrub brush [less than 4' high]. The very peculiar part of this is that it took searchers - several Inyo County & CA state organizations - the better part of 8 days to find the body. There was some anecdotal commentary in another thread that suggested that Mr. Kohler had suffered some sort of medical event PRIOR to his bike trip. As for dangerous things in DV, the noted critters are all defensive in nature; they don't attack unless you encroach on their territory. There is no more "danger" in DV than there is on ANY highway/roadway that a cyclist would use.

As for the actual cause of death, autopsy results won't be available until sometime next week.
YMMV
-dg