The Search for Steve Fossett
Day 4, search video posted on YouTube:
Adventure Science Crew / 18.07.2008
July 17th
Today the search was northeast of Bridgeport California, a continuation of Tuesday’s search.
Today was an interesting day. We finished off the northern edge of the terrain along Hwy 128. We basically travelled all the deep canyons and slopes along the edge, obviously focusing on the most wooded sections. It was very difficult travelling up steep and loose scree slopes, as well as through very dense alder thickets along the creek bed. Most of us got sliced and diced by the thorns in these creek beds, but nothing that would slow us down.
Today was probably the hottest day yet, and we could really feel the dry air as we burned through our water. Derek recorded 40 degrees celsius on his Suunto watch. Most of us finished over 4 litres during 8.5 hours of searching. The feet were definitely sore by the end of the day and Gary is winning the blister contest, with some big nasty ones to his credit.
We worked well as a team today and covered some great area. As with all previous days, we found interesting debris, although nothing as exciting as the airplane door that we found yesterday and reported to the county sheriff’s office. Silver helium balloons seem to be a common item to find. We had a helicopter follow our search area earlier in the day and witnessed first hand some of the light aircraft that fly the 128 corridor, with some of the planes actually flying below us!
I am pleased about the difficult terrain that we have covered so far, but still hopeful that we will find the wreckage. The team is still focused and looking forward to another 2 days of searching.
The team went into Bridgeport tonight for a team dinner, which we all thoroughly enjoyed.
So we are down to the final days now and still motivated and ready to push ourselves despite the sore feet, cut legs, and general fatigue that catches up with you after 5 days of difficult trekking.
SleepMonsters
