OMG, the paranoid people in this thread might have a reason to be paranoid. I'm currently reading up on the case of the German tourists who disappeared in Death Valley in 1996, by someone who did a search and found them more than a decade later, and:
" As we set down, I could see Les talking with an Inyo Sheriff’s Officer. Les had been filling him in on all we had done, as well as how we had figured it out. The investigator did ask Les where he was in July of 1996. Apparently he just looks suspicious. Whatever Les told him must had satisfied him, as I was really only asked for my contact info and that was it."
https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/68bdq6/death_valley_germans_did_they_ever_find_the/...and I just found out about the Death Valley Germans from a reddit thread about Christopher McCandless, the guy who starved to death in a bus in the wild. Staying indoors is beginning to look better and better, or don't take so many risks as the dead people did I guess.
The German family drove across the desert in not in a four wheels for the terrain but a normal car, and they were wearing day shoess and didn't bring much water along - they didn't think the car would break down, they didn't turn back when it was starting to break down.
Christopher McCandless set out in April, was going to return around June but was blocked off by the swollen river - he starved to death in August and his body was found in September by a moose hunter. He was probably already losing weight before June - I read that a lot of suvivors actually lose weight while 'living off the wild' so it's not actually sustainable.
