Missing Mountain Biker in Carbon Canyon

7Mary3 said:
Just curious but do they trim down these trails or just let mother nature (drought) take care of it..doesn't look like fun trying to navigate through stuff like that.
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It doesn't need a drought. When the weather gets warm and no matter the weed dies in a matter of 2 weeks. Already, the green hills starting to get a yellowish-brown color. If you were to walk off the beaten path, the ground gets spongy because of the many seasons of week dying on top of the previous season.
 
BeckTrex said:
I was at 4 Corners on Saturday. I took the picture below showing the entrance to Raptor . As much as I like riding that trail I wasn't even tempted to ride through all that mustard. There were half a dozen riders sitting at the benches talking. On of the guys said that the volunteer crews will cut back the weeds to make the trails passable again, but not until it stops growing. It sounds like hard work, nobody wants to do it twice. View attachment 27800
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Impressive.
 
Squidler4 said:
I road Faultline to Raptor on March 10th. It was very overgrown and rutty due to the recent rains. The ruts wer 2-3' in some places. With the overgrowth it was hard to see the ruts until I was right up on them. I was riding the trail backwards (uphill) so speed wasnt an issue. If the conditions were the same and he was going downhill he could have easily hit a rut and endo'd. This photo isn't faultline but was a taken the same day on a nearby trail. The weeds were 6' tall.
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I saw his ride online. Speed was not an issue. He was climbing Faultline, not descending. Based on the information I saw, he was maybe .2 miles from Raptor when he went off trail for about 5 minutes before stopping before noon on Sunday. The maps, below, show the general location. These images do not show how overgrown the vegetation is in the areas surrounding the trails.

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Distinguished Guest said:
I saw his ride online. Speed was not an issue. He was climbing Faultline, not descending. Based on the information I saw, he was maybe .2 miles from Raptor when he went off trail for about 5 minutes before stopping before noon on Sunday. The maps, below, show the general location. These images do not show how overgrown the vegetation is in the areas surrounding the trails.

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Thanks for the clarification, @Distinguished Guest . Did you know him?

Welcome to the site... Sorry it's under these circumstances.
 
Distinguished Guest said:
I saw his ride online. Speed was not an issue. He was climbing Faultline, not descending. Based on the information I saw, he was maybe .2 miles from Raptor when he went off trail for about 5 minutes before stopping before noon on Sunday. The maps, below, show the general location. These images do not show how overgrown the vegetation is in the areas surrounding the trails.

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Wow.....completely off trail. I always go down Faultline, so I don't know what Raptor is like the rest of the way down. Wonder why he was that far off trail. :cautious::(
 
Interesting...how did you get this? Do you follow him in Strava or know the family? Looks like a 25% descent right before the end and looking at the google map he was quite far off any trail shown on the map. For anyone familiar with that trail are there unmarked trail options there that don't show up on Google Maps that he might have taken?
 
TwoWheel Eric said:
Interesting...how did you get this? Do you follow him in Strava or know the family? Looks like a 25% descent right before the end and looking at the google map he was quite far off any trail shown on the map. For anyone familiar with that trail are there unmarked trail options there that don't show up on Google Maps that he might have taken?
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Using the link for his athlete profile, saw what segment he rode (got a PR on), went to that segment in strava and found his activity under the leader board.

Take a look at the elapsed time! 53 hours! His gps or phone was on the whole time. What a sad occurrence, may he rest in peace and his family heal from this tragedy.
 
Thanks for the additional details on Strava, I didn't know you could look it up in that way. So the straight line to Long Beach must have been the helo transport?

Very eery seeing GPS tracks and knowing that his life ended there. Yes, sad and mysterious at the same time. Let's hope he did not die in pain and agony. Perhaps the coroner's report, if it's made public, might shed a little more light on the situation.
 
mtnbikej said:
Wow.....completely off trail. I always go down Faultline, so I don't know what Raptor is like the rest of the way down. Wonder why he was that far off trail. :cautious::(
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Raptor dumps you out at the top of the campsites just above from where the ranger station/old farm house is. It's worth checking out once... turns into single track less than a 1/4 mile after faultline trail head. Last time I rode it, the singletrack was hard to make out in spots. It definitely is a road less traveled.
 
Distinguished Guest said:
I saw his ride online. Speed was not an issue. He was climbing Faultline, not descending. Based on the information I saw, he was maybe .2 miles from Raptor when he went off trail for about 5 minutes before stopping before noon on Sunday. The maps, below, show the general location. These images do not show how overgrown the vegetation is in the areas surrounding the trails.

View attachment 27836

View attachment 27835
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My full assumption of what happened.
He must have fallen while climbing faultline. He fell over and tumbled far enough off trail to get disoriented. Started bushwhacking his way to where he thought the trail was. He then either got bit by a rattler or attacked by a mt. lion. OR the trauma that he caused when he fell caught up to him and he passed out. Eventually dying!

I hope I am wrong on all counts. R.I.P. Sokha Pho!
 
Redman said:
My full assumption of what happened.
He must have fallen while climbing faultline. He fell over and tumbled far enough off trail to get disoriented. Started bushwhacking his way to where he thought the trail was. He then either got bit by a rattler or attacked by a mt. lion. OR the trauma that he caused when he fell caught up to him and he passed out. Eventually dying!

I hope I am wrong on all counts. R.I.P. Sokha Pho!
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From the GPS data he appeared to leave Faultline to follow a water runoff path (or other natural terrain feature) that is clear from the Google Earth images. Given how overgrown and undertraveled Faultline/Raptor have been, he may have reached a point where the off trail path looked more like a trail than the overgrown weeds in front of him. He appeared to follow this path back parallel to Faultline before a taking a short, quick descent. Once you are off path in vegetation, there is no guarantee that there will be level ground below you as you traverse the weeds. He could have fallen unexpectedly not realizing how far he was off path. There are numerous ways to injure yourself in a fall, including head and spine trauma and handlebar lacerations. After the apparent fall, his movements appear sporadic. He was possibly severely injured and in the weeds with no clear path out.

I believe the straight line on the GPS is the phone battery running out and then getting charged a few days later at someone's home.

All this, of course, is speculation. He could have turned off Strava to make a call for help. He was on a 4 hour ride, so his battery may have been depleted at that time. He may have encountered someone or something. He may have had a physical issue such as a heart attack. Until we get more information, I will go with the simple explanation of wandering off trail after 4 hours of riding on hot Sunday afternoon and taking an unexpected fall in a remote location.
 
Cisco Roots said:
Here's his Strava activity for that day....

https://www.strava.com/activities/958136446#23453306284
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Looks like he went all the way to the Chino Hills entrance, what's more, he went all the way to Soquel Canyon ave, to a little park nearby and came back the same way through the CHSP entrance. This time, he went up to Upper Bane but instead of riding the Upper Bane trail, he took a right at the Y crossroad and went down to Sidewinder trail, that trail is practically gone because of the weeds, I can't imagine how bad it must have been for him to take that trail. At the end of Sidewinder he made a right on Upper Aliso trail which is less than 2 mile to Faultline trail, at this point I believe his plan was to connect with the Raptor Trail, but instead of making a right on Raptor to four corners, he was looking for Raptor to take a left, why? Was he so tired that he just wanted to go back to Bane trail and maybe go back up to Southridge, a trail that he is familiar with?

For those that remember my first report when I first join this site, the one where I was dared to ride my bike from my house in Eastvale to my son's house in La Habra, well, that route is the same one this poor soul took as a final ride. This is a route that goes against rider's path, most of the way is going uphill. I haven't gone in that direction since.
 
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Bernie Martin said:
Has anyone heard the final word/results on cause of death?
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From a post on MTBr:

"Spoke to the trail maintenance staff yesterday. There are two guys who work on clearing roads and trails during the week. Their priorities are fire roads first and single tracks last. They said they will get to clearing Raptor, Faultline, Bovinian, etc. within the next three months. Repairing South Ridge in not on their project list right now due to other priorities and staffing/budget issues. They believe North Ridge will need to get rerouted. In other words, forget seeing this open soon.

The word the Park was given as cause of death was a heart attack. Perhaps this explains why Sokha left the park wandering on the other side returning to forge through overgrown sections of trails...eventually going off trail. He could not think clearly.

RIP Sokha."
 
mtnbikej said:
From a post on MTBr:

"Spoke to the trail maintenance staff yesterday. There are two guys who work on clearing roads and trails during the week. Their priorities are fire roads first and single tracks last. They said they will get to clearing Raptor, Faultline, Bovinian, etc. within the next three months. Repairing South Ridge in not on their project list right now due to other priorities and staffing/budget issues. They believe North Ridge will need to get rerouted. In other words, forget seeing this open soon.

The word the Park was given as cause of death was a heart attack. Perhaps this explains why Sokha left the park wandering on the other side returning to forge through overgrown sections of trails...eventually going off trail. He could not think clearly.

RIP Sokha."
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Heart attack? then how can his head injuries be explained? He dropped in an area that is not considered treacherous. If he indeed had head injuries, then he got it somewhere else.
 
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