All of this could easily indicate that Sanford decided to take this user trail and then attempt to go around the lake.

Then maybe he got lost or had a medical emergency and died somewhere near the Southshore.

I’m just surprised that nothing was found given all of the resources that were put into this area.

I mean, if I had to guess, I would think that Sanford may have died somewhere in this region.

Based on the surrounding terrain, it makes the most sense.

This whole area is walled in by steep ridges, and we know that Sanford’s goal was to get around the lake.

I just don’t understand why he wasn’t found.

It’s not a particularly wooded area.

It’s really quite open, especially the marshy section.

They had ground searchers of all kinds in this area and plenty of air support.

Nobody saw his clothing or anything, which you might expect that a white shirt would stand out among all this, but it didn’t.

They found nothing, and the dogs never really hid on anything.

So, that’s not the outcome I would have expected.

The one confounding element in all of this is the discovery of the jacket with the Cliff Bar wrappers in it.

Obviously, what stands out there is that Sanford’s family said that if he brought any food, it would have been Cliff Bars and a Power Raid.

The campers did not see him wearing a red jacket like this, but they did see him carrying a cinch pack.

This jacket is pretty thin and lightweight, and it could potentially fit in whatever bag Sanford was carrying.

Now, that’s not hard evidence of anything because a lot of people eat cliff bars and the jacket is a big question mark, but this is still notable.

When I visited Marian Lake, I wasn’t sure on the exact location where the jacket was found, but now obviously I am.

It was apparently discovered relatively nearby at Downing Creek Falls.

The big problem here is that it doesn’t make much sense based on the terrain.

It would undoubtedly be extremely difficult to hike from the south end of Marian Lake to Downing Creek Falls.

There’s ridges, uneven terrain, brush, and who knows what else.

I just can’t imagine that Sanford would be able to get there.

On the other hand, I do wonder how a jacket like this could wind up wrapped around a stump or a tree out in the woods.

Sure, there are probably an infinite number of possibilities for that, but it’s not the kind of jacket you would think someone would just forget.

This thing is bright red and easily seen.

Why tie it around a tree? I don’t know.

It could all just be a strange coincidence with the location and the cliff bar wrappers.

Like I said, this is hard evidence of nothing.

Ultimately, I do wonder to what extent poor planning played a role in this disappearance.

This trip was a bit of a mess based on the timeline we have.

For one, we already established that Sanford didn’t know the area very well and was likely using a handdrawn map.

You should always have a good map and a GPS with you in addition to already knowing your route of travel.

Beyond that, his time frame for completing the hike was a bit iffy.

Sanford’s employee, Lucy, said that he left his shop somewhere around 1:30 to 2:00 pm on June 23rd.

It’s about a 2hour and 20 minute drive to the road that leads to the trail head.

We know that Sanford stopped at the golf club along the way to drop off a painting.

So, I would imagine that the whole drive took him somewhere in the realm of two and a half to three hours.

Once he got to Maran Forks, he would still have to drive up that gravel road which leads to the trail head.

While it is a reasonably nice road, it is still slow going.

I had guessed that when Sanford got to the actual trail head parking lot, the time was somewhere around 5:00 pm This would make sense since the campers who saw Sanford said they encountered him somewhere around 7 to 7:30 pm Sanford had probably only gone about 2 and 1/2 miles up the trail at that point if he hadn’t taken any detours to a waterfall.

The sun would set in about an hour and a half, and Sanford was only prepared for a day hike.

If he really planned on doing eight miles of hiking, I would estimate that it would take a man of his age at least 5 hours to complete.

And I feel I’m being overly generous there considering Sanford might have only been going a mile an hour based on the timeline.

There is of course the possibility that Sanford took the detour to Gatch and Marian Falls where he stopped to take some photos.

If he did that, then he was probably making pretty good time and 8 miles and 5 hours would make more sense.

Either way, there was no scenario where Sanford was making it back to the trail head before dark.

Yet, here Sanford was.

It was 7:30 in the evening.

He was miles from the trail head.

He asked for directions from a group of campers.

They told him the trail doesn’t go around the lake and he decided to continue on anyway.

Something about that just doesn’t make sense to me.

if he planned to do a bit of bushwhacking to get around the lake, nobody in their right mind would begin to do that kind of thing at sunset unprepared and in an area they are unfamiliar with.

I just don’t get what Sanford was thinking when he decided to continue on down the Mento Pass Trail at 7:30 pm It took him somewhere around 2 and 1/2 hours to get to his current position.

it would take the same amount of time to go back and he would almost certainly be hiking in the dark, but he decides to keep going further on down the trail.

It just doesn’t add up.

Now, you could make the argument that people make bad decisions all the time while hiking and it sometimes leads to their death.

That’s a perfectly valid argument, but to me, this seems unusually negligent.

Sanford completely lost cell reception around 4:30 pm, which makes sense because I had no reception anywhere on the trail or even in the Maran Forks area.

I don’t believe that Sanford’s phone was actually off.

I think he had just lost reception in the mountains when they tried to ping it.

If he did turn the phone off, that would be a bit odd.

Anyway, I think Sanford would have been aware of the time.

He had lived a long life.

I’m sure he had been hiking quite a bit.

When the sun is setting and inclement weather is coming in, you generally don’t continue down a mystery trail which you have no idea where it leads.

What does this all mean? I don’t really know.

Maybe Sanford just made a really bad decision.

It’s entirely possible.

In the end, whatever he did, he disappeared so completely that even a large search operation couldn’t find him.

It seems so obvious that he must be somewhere in this area south of the lake.

But nothing has been found there.

So either the searchers just missed something in this area or Sanford continued on down the trail farther than anyone ever expected and eventually died somewhere off trail deeper in the wilderness.

The only thing we know is that Sanford’s remains must still be out there.

But almost a decade later, we have found nothing that positively ties his presence to this region.

And so this mystery endures.

Let me know what you think happened here in the comments below.

And until next time, thanks for watching.

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