Missing Bikepacker Found
 

First heard about this on Facebook when she went missing. Happy ending.

https://www.bikemag.com/news/missing...-in-california

THat's great news!

Keeps his cabin unlocked in the woods for emergency survival.

Hats off to Gutierrez... Great Man!

Great news. Great cabin owner.
His forethought saved her life.

Article/news video about this bikepacker:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/woman-foun...y?id=121888546

She seemed to have survived quite a long time by being quite self reliant, including taking care of injuries to both legs.
Her choice of bike, a Lectric XP 3.0 eBike, may or may not have been a factor, with maybe a range of 45 miles 70kms, but it seems that having a fall and then snowstorms becoming a factor were the kicker.
And yes, pretty darn lucky to have found that cabin to take shelter without her belongings.

Good news and appreciate the cabin owner.

Being found alive is a lot better than the alternative. She appears fairly resourceful along the way. At the same time, curious about some of the circumstances and her equipment/preparation.

Here is a longer video article: https://www.ktvu.com/news/tiffany-sl...evada-moutains
Looking at the map and other article:
1. She was last seen at China Peak Mountain Resort - near Huntington Lake
2. She left on road towards Lake Edison, crossing Kaiser Pass (elevation 9000ft) still closed due to snow with drifts 10-12 ft of snow
3. She crossed Lake Edison and then headed up the valley reaching Golden Lake on way to Rock Creek Lake, reaching elevations up to 11000ft
4. She left her e-bike at trailhead to Upper Hopkins Lake
5. Her equipment included a tent, two sleeping bags, a cell phone. Along the way, she lost both sleeping bags and her tent. She didn't have a GPS.
6. She planned a three day trip, had food for five days.
7. She was in an avalanche and 13 snowstorms, was knocked off the road at one point.
8. This article shows a picture of her ebike when reported missing - https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/artic...h-20325581.php

There are some things that stll confuse me:
- If the ebike has a range of 45 miles, how is it found 25+ miles from last point that likely to recharge
- What circumstances cause you to lose your tent and two sleeping bags

There was a different story about a woman on an e-bike getting stranded in Big Bend National Park. It was originally a debate about going beyond range of batteries, but might end up being a story about being unable to fix a flat tire - https://www.bikemag.com/news/story-o...urs-falls-flat

Zoinks! That's a lot of gear. Maybe the bags and tent were in the trailer and she lost it, possibly in the crash.

Ebike...45 miles maximum range. That was probably much much less in reality, due to steep hills and possibly having to plow through snow...based on my similar ebike. Sheesh, she's lucky to have survived.

Phones have GPS, and you can download maps first if you get out of cell service in remote areas.

Is it really bikepacking if you stay on roads with your ebike, as I assume she was doing? It also doesn't seem she sought much advice beforehand (milk crate, kids trailer, etc)

Some of the quotes in the news stories are a little...odd.

Yes, the great peaks of Fresno. They probably meant "near" Fresno.I want to know how her gardening and archery skills came into play! Also what animals she had to fight for her leeks! "Boiled" snow shows she must have kept her stove. Maybe she brought a big bunch of leeks with her, as experienced bikepackers do?

Does bikepacking need to be off road exclusively ?, or can it merely be the “style” of baggage she was using to carry her gear on a bike that might otherwise not have eyelets to mount racks and panniers, which would then have made it a bike tour ?.

Theres a LOT of unanswered questions, including under what circumstances you lose your tent and sleeping bag. Possibly as they were in the pack bags that were fastened to the bike, she had no way to carry them when she abandoned the bike, Seems you would understand those are pretty important to survival and you don’t leave those behind. I’ve read stranger stories of survival or not in the woods, including the story of Ginnie Largay who died on the Appalachian Trail, or near it, in Maine. That one really had me puzzled. We might never get answers to this story that make sense,

Yes. The overwhelming number of miles of the GDMBR are on roads, such as unpaved USFS roads. I call that “bikepacking”.

And leeks grow in the wild. One variety of wild leek is also known as “ramps”.

Can't help but think of the times I've had near misses, if the general public decided to analyze why I did this or that leading up to the incident. Self extracting with a broken neck, when I had a cell phone, wasn't smart. Doesn't add up, one might say. People may want more facts; there must be some other facts.

Hmmm. Wanna bet there is a book and movie in the near future?

You are drawing a distinction between bike packing and traveling by bicycle that (from context) I don't think the press coverage makes. The term was first used when she was missing and her location/route/road choice was unknown.

So I think articles use it as a synonym for what others in this group might call bike touring rather than some more precise terminology based on gear or type of road.

We know since that she traveled first on roads still closed because snow drifts had not yet been plowed over the 9000ft pass. She eventually abandoned the ebike at a trailhead that doesn't appear to be on much of a road. She traveled on foot further and higher into the Sierra and was found back down the valley by Edison Lake.

As for pre-olympian in archery, I took it from context as a statement of athletic condition and not that a bow and arrow was being used on her trip.

In the interview it indicated that at one point she did have enough cell service to ask her phone for directions. It couldn't tell her a route but could tell her she was ~20 miles from a Starbucks (that Starbucks was on eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountains meaning she would have to cross over drainage from where she was to other side of the mountains).

So I'm not sure how much of an issue no cell service played as much as that she had traveled on roads the online map knew to be closed. (Almost the opposite issue where sometimes travelers got into trouble following GPS instructions on roads closed for the season - hence there is a reason for GPS to not route people along closed roads).

That’s how I took it. I also took it as “fluff”. After all, how often do you read about someone who is so proficient at archery? And archery is one of those “obscure” Olympic sports.

E-bikes usually advertise an estimated range. For example, I have a retro-fit that claims a battery range of 30-70 miles. 70 miles would happen only under IDEAL conditions ... I'd need to be carrying minimal added weight, be riding fairly flat roads at the lowest assist level & maybe have a tailwind. My battery is only slightly smaller than Tiffany's. I usually get around 35 miles UNLOADED here in the mountains of NH.

Not sure that battery range had anything to do with this rider's incident, but looking at the map of its mountainous location and her load, she would certainly get the minimum range. Map shows where the pavement ends. Sounds like Tiffany may have traveleled further before the avalanche and then ditched the bike before backtracking to the cabin on Lake Edison?

Article said her bike had a range "up to 45 miles". But add 3600+ feet over Kaiser Pass? She'd be lucky to get much more than 25 miles before running out of gas unless she topped over her battery at Mono Hot Springs (still snowed in?) requiring a lengthy stop. No mention if she was carrying a spare or had the optional larger battery.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...1936b76541.png

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...d7d02f9e73.png
any of us with any setup would have had issues pushing a bike through unopened snowbound roads, but a heavy E-bike with all this stuff would have posed significant extra challenges.

Twenty years ago, I drove the family up to Mono Hot Springs well after the snow had melted. The road in is extremely difficult, steep, and in many places, a single lane with traffic in two directions and very few pullouts along a very steep incline. If you fall, you die. I had a guy in a pickup coming at us at 40 mph, apparently completely unaware of the situation, and I was leaning on the minivan horn to try to alert him to what would have likely been a fatal impact (that would knock us down a 1000 ft slope). The camping there was very primitive, and past Shaver lake, I doubt there would be any place to charge an ebike. There is no way I would take any bike on that road (and never went back by car).

I think I read she was from Atlanta, and doing this trip before starting med school?

Must have been 21 years ago. The kid who learned to walk on that trip just graduated college.

I think it's fair to say that all of us have made bad judgment calls when young that could have had serious consequences.
Touch wood.

I suspect that there are a lot of people who think California is all warm sunshine, beaches, bikini volleyball, surfing and Sunkist commercial material. Winter storms in May in the High Sierra are not uncommon (although I doubt she really encountered 13 of them).

Anyway, I am glad she is alive. I was worried she was a victim of foul play or an accident when I first heard the story.

I use downloaded maps, with GPS, with the cell service turned off. Works well. It shows my position on the map, and I can navigate, manually, from there.

Agreed. I think we plan ahead using either downloaded or offline maps - so there are ways to do this.

In her interviews she indicated she had gotten lost. Her parents took the lesson as "in the future she will always be sure to have a GPS" though I differ with that learning because there are also ways to apply existing phone for location and offline/downloaded maps.

In any case, also agree with @djb that we've done our own share of foolish things, so I'm not going to be too judgmental.

This video (not mine) gives an idea for what it is like in the summer...

Correct.

Hell. We got snowed on crossing the North Cascades Highway at the end of May, and that tops out at only 5,200’.

Being from Atlanta, she probably considered flurries a “storm”. :D It wasn’t that long ago that a few inches paralyzed the city.

I still have questions about them growing in what is basically winter up there, and her finding them under meters of snow.

I consider myself a pre-Olympian at all their competitions, having never done them.

My theory is that she saw the Hunger Games films, with Katniss's awesome archery skills a key to her survival.

I understood it to be food she found in the unlocked cabin. I can't recall where I read it, but it makes more sense. My guess is that after 3 weeks, she was probably a bit incoherent.