The Mystery Of The Death Valley Germans

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Wyatt Burp

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In 1996 a Death Valley National Park ranger in a helicopter spotted an abandoned mini van deep in the park where even the best 4X4 should not have been. The car proved to be a rental reported stolen a few years prior. A German family rented it and no one heard from them since. Many years after the extensive but futile search, a search and rescue guy decided to look into it in his spare time. Here's his story about how he solved the mystery through his S&R skills and mainly amateur psychological analysis thinking far outside the box of conventional wisdom. It was pretty long but impossible for me to put down. And very tragic. He's very unpretentious and is non judgmental of the wrong decisions made.

The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans

Here is an amazing video of a guy visiting the exact locations of where this all happened and especially ended. His photography, Google Earth info, and explanation of it all is great. you get to see the harshness of the area.
Death Valley Germans Incident. Their Path and Death Site Visit. - YouTube
 
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A fascinating, sad story. Too easy for people to get themselves over their head and in a dangerous situation without realizing it. I would commend the determination of this man to solve the mystery of what happened and where the unfortunate travelers ended up. At least some closure finally came for the families.
 
Very interesting read, Thanks for posting.

I lived in Bishop from 1978 to 1985 did a lot of exploring in DV. Back then, once a year the Navy opened up the NWTC for a chucker hunt. I got to go one year and after one day I was worn out and needed to get a new pair of boots, that volcanic rock is rough on them. Shot three chucker and only found one of them, once they land in the rocks they are almost impossible to find. Also I don't think we ever put a foot down that had not been trampled by the burros. Death Valley and the high desert is not a place to go off the beaten track, there is a good reason it is called Death Valley.
 
Good read. I don't blame the Inyo SO for cold-shouldering the guy after he removed the woman's stuff from the scene and emailed photos to his buddies. Of course it leaked.

Sounds like a great effort, though. I'm sure there were more pressing matters than recovering bones that had been in the desert for 14 years, but they gave it their all.
 
Like others have said it was an interesting, intriguing read. Kudos to those for their sleuthing and gum shoeing.

Alternative theory; think they could have flagged down the Red Ghost and hopped a camel ride?
 
A very interesting read. I was particularly interested because when I was a kid I went camping in Death Valley a couple of times with my Dad, best as I can recall around 1968-1970, I think during Christmas breaks from school (but maybe not). That was back when it was a National Monument, with fewer restrictions. I was fascinated by the geology, history and mining-era artifacts. It also had a vibe that was kind of spooky yet captivating. I've often thought about going back over the years, but never got around to it. After reading this article I'm determined to go back soon.
 
Having spent part of my LE career in SAR, I found this to be a riveting account. While the principles are the same, the area where I worked, the northern division of the Los Padres National Forest and environs, has no comparison in size, remoteness, and hostility of environment to Death Valley NP.

At one point the author makes brief reference to instances where people stage a disappearance or accident to make it appear they have been killed. We did have a few such instances because we had an attractive venue for such for such opportunities; the cliffs of Big Sur off CA S/R 1. But these were easy to detect. If a person is ejected from a vehicle going over the side, there will be evidence of the person(s) having been in the vehicle as it went over. Even if a body ends up in the surf, there will be traumatic evidence of contact with the cliff face after ejection. By the same token, if someone just pushed a car over, wanting us to believe they had been in the car went it went over, the lack of any evidence that would indicate vehicle occupancy was an obvious indicator that no one had been in it.

Since we had military assistance (Army, Navy, and if necessary, USCG out of San Francisco), it was a simple matter to have someone dangle from the helicopter hoist (often me because I enjoyed it) and do a very thorough search of the cliff all the way down to water level. The only thing that did give me pause would be when I was being hoisted back in, and I would look up at the belly of the chopper, I sometimes would see rivet holes in body panels with no rivets. That too, with reference to my earlier comment, is riveting.

One thing Death Valley appears not to have, which we had way too much of, was the damned poison oak.

Thank you Wyatt Burp for posting this.
 
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Many people are totally unprepared for how rugged, empty and isolated many large areas of the country are.

There are many parts of Montana where on could get totally lost and have a hard time getting out of. While GPS does a good job of location around here some of the roads shown are not meant for cars or even regular suvs especially in bad weather. Huge areas in the eastern part become impassable with a good rain. The soil being mostly bentonite clay it makes Gumbo mud, it will fill your tire treads, lumps will land on your hood windshield and roof, weighting your rig down, filling your wheel wells till you can't turn and the ranches are often many miles apart. People seldom get lost long enough to perish though. One young woman my wife graduated died in a bad child birth because they could not get her to town and Dr using a 4x4.
 
sigp220.45 said:
Good read. I don't blame the Inyo SO for cold-shouldering the guy after he removed the woman's stuff from the scene and emailed photos to his buddies. Of course it leaked.

Sounds like a great effort, though. I'm sure there were more pressing matters than recovering bones that had been in the desert for 14 years, but they gave it their all.
Click to expand...

I think all the author was guilty of was not understanding that people with an Internet connection cannot help running their mouths (fingers, computer mouse, whatever). Poor choice of buddies. The Inyo SO should have just said "don't be so dumb" and moved on.

Mind you, I think some of the attitude is rolled down from Sacramento. It is evident to me that the CA government has been trying to depopulate the desert areas for some time. They don't like the independent thinkers down there.

At times they have been assisted (unwittingly on occasion) by the federal government declaring more locations as "wilderness". Now, I have nothing against that in principle to protect species and environment, but when other agendas start getting slipped in, ah-ah, nope.
 
We have parts of our county that are very rugged. SAR gets regular calls to address people who have no business whatsoever being where they are. Most of the are from the west side of the state, and have no clue at all about how isolated and rugged it can be.

We had a fugitive search here a few years ago, in an area bigger than the city of Seattle. Took a month or more to find him. The topo lines were right on top of each other with the map blown up on a 6X6 (foot) screen. I've been on coroner calls where the decedent had to be brought out on a horse.
 
Here's a super detailed video on it in the exact locations and also images in the extreme via Google Earth. This is amazing. If you liked the story you must watch this. Perfect photography the places where the tragedy happened right down to him pointing where each item of evidence was finally found.

Death Valley Germans Incident. Their Path and Death Site Visit. - YouTube
 
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Some bones were found near/in Rocky Mountain National Park last year.It's a very popular place with a bazillion visitors every year. They were determined to have belonged to a young German who had been attending CSU. He had headed out on an overnight skiing jaunt one spring but no one really knew the exact route he had planned to take,just the general area.His car was found within a few days of him going missing near Cameron Pass.His bones were found just outside the park by a hunter and it appears that he had been caught in a small avalanche and dragged down into an Aspen grove. He had been missing since the early '80s.
Skeletal Remains Found On West Side Of Rocky Mountain National Park Believed To Be Those Of Rudi Moder - Rocky Mountain National Park (U.S. National Park Service)
 
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