This week’s search was the first to cover the hill slope as it dropped from the benches below the landing to the creek. Being very steep, I’ve used the Lidar imagery of the area to guide the effort on the hillside.
I’ve been wrestling with whether that bottle is probative to this case or just random woods trash. I’ve settled on at least using it to prioritize where on the hill slope to search, so that I have a starting point for this section of the work. The hill is steep; steep enough that in sections you can stand, reach out and just about touch the hillside. I found a narrow line that descended the hill at an angle, and used that to get to the base instead of roping up.
I started at the cliff out before it dropped to the creek. The edge was abrupt and not easily seen, and given the 10 foot drop to the rocks below, going slow was called for.
I grid searched the bench first, clearing out the branches and other large debris before going through the leaf litter on the floor. My plan was to clear the shallow bench, then work up the hill, going through debris traps and drainage funnels. The bench took about 2 hours to clear. The debris on the forest floor was much deeper than further up the hill. This makes sense if you consider that debris from above drifts down the hill with the movement of water and gravity.
The bench was relatively free of man-made items, except for a hub cap and a length of drag line from the last time this area was logged (approx 1977-1982). I did find a few “river teeth”, which are the cores of knots left behind once the larger tree decomposes.
After finishing this section of the bench, I began working my way up the hill via the drainage chutes above the bench. My hope is that if the bottle is probative to this case, remains may be drifting down via the chutes, or caught up in debris traps on the hill.
It was slow going, working up the hill on my hands and knees, clearing the shallow funnels made by the rain. I paid particular attention to bases of ferns, the collections of debris around tree trunks and any sort of terrain feature that caught debris within it.
There is a type of fungi that grows here that always “throws me” during these searches. It looks vaguely like molars, and seeing a row of the fungi get uncovered when clearing debris stops me almost every time.
I spent about 2 hours working the hill side. I went up and down two drainage funnels and the debris traps near them. A large trap was formed by a tree that went over. Judging by the bark on the trunk, and the relative lack of new growth in the hole left by the root ball, it had gone over fairly recently. I still gave it a good once over, just in case.
After clearing the funnels and traps up to the upper bench, I descended, got my pack and walked up to leave. Standing at the top, looking back to the creek, I finished the day’s search the way I’ve finished all of them, with a silent prayer to Karen and Rodney.
The Search for Karen Jean Lee and Rodney L. Grissom 