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Vandals sought for rash of mountain crimes |
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Saturday, 06 September 2008 |
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By Mike Bodine
Register Staff
9-4-2008 Petty criminals have apparently targeted the local mountains, destroying property and the mountain community’s sense of security.
Over the Labor Day weekend, vehicle and cabin windows were destroyed at points in the Sierra from Bishop to Big Pine, while in early August, a high-altitude laboratory was ravaged in the White Mountains, all for no apparent reason.
In the White Mountain incident, unknown individuals traveled all the way to the top of the third highest peak in California just to bust windows and vandalize a historic scientific center.
White Mountain Research Station’s Summit Lab, located at the top of White Mountain Peak, 14,250 feet above sea level, was ransacked sometime between Aug. 3 and 7, John Smiley, associate director for WMRS, said Wednesday.
The Summit Lab was built in the 1950s and is the fourth highest elevation research facility in the world.
The popular hike to the summit is usually an all-day event, starting at the locked gate 1.5 miles below the Barcroft Station and then another seven miles of trail, one way from the station, at an average elevation of more than 13,000 feet.
Reports of the damage first came in from a group of students led by Joe and Lynn Mederios of Sierra College in Truckee, according to Barcroft Station manager Dori Cann. The group arrived at the peak and discovered the Summit Lab’s east windows broken out. The windows are usually shuttered up, but a broken shutter had been taken down for repairs. The exposed window was carefully busted clean to allow scratch-free entry.
“They seemed to break everything you could break in five minutes,” Smiley said.
Once inside, the Sierra College group discovered the vandals had busted out the rest of the 18 windows, smashed light bulbs, tipped over mouse-proof lockers containing survival provisions, and destroyed several wood cabinets as well as an oven door. An antique pair of snowshoes were also broken in two.Perhaps the most scary, Smiley said, were the two bunk-beds and batteries doused with 10 gallons of gasoline.
Because of its remoteness, a fire would totally destroy the lab and rebuilding would be nearly impossible, Smiley explained. There are more construction regulations and bureaucratic hurdles to jump through now than when the lab was originally constructed.
Smiley estimated the damage at about $1,000 including labor and the gasoline to travel the nearly 80 miles round-trip from Bishop to the lab.
Vandals did not disrupt any of the really expensive equipment such as weather instruments and the related Internet connection systems.
“Maybe they (the vandals) were cagey enough not to pull the Internet stuff because then we’d know when they did it,” Smiley said. The disconnecting of the Internet would have been recorded along with the other data from the weather stations.
Smiley said he was unsure who, or why, someone would do something like this. He said that a group with a message or protest would make itself known, but this has not been the case so far.
Inyo National Forest rangers worked with the Mono County Sheriff’s Department to take fingerprints and gather evidence.
There are also unconfirmed reports of damage to the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest Visitor Center at Schulman Grove around the same time. INF was unavailable for comment at the time of this article.
The wave of mischief continued on the other side of the Owens Valley with vandalized vehicles near popular hiker destinations.
Although details are still coming into the Inyo County Sheriff’s Department, initial reports indicate approximately 24 vehicles were damaged in the South Lake/Bishop Creek area and Big Pine Creek areas between Saturday, Aug. 30 and Tuesday, Sept. 2. There was also one reported residential burglary in the Big Pine Creek area, Investigator Dennis Gray said Wednesday morning.
At 8:30 a.m. Saturday morning, the Sheriff’s Department received a call that a cabin with a busted window in Big Pine Canyon had possibly been broken into. The cabin, owned by Jack Killian of Los Angeles, is conveniently located next to the road about 1.5 miles down from the Big Pine Creek hiker parking lot.
Killian said Wednesday that this was the first time he had ever had any of these sorts of problems with the cabin. Killian said he doesn’t understand what went on inside his cabin, but his TV, VCR, closet full of guns and basket full of change were not disturbed.
“We had just celebrated our 20th anniversary (of owning the cabin) and we feel so bad that something like this happened,” Killian said. Killian said he later gathered up the items in the cabin for safekeeping.
At 8:30 a.m. Sunday, the Sheriff’s Department reported that the windows of 16 vehicles were destroyed at the Big Pine Creek hiker parking lot.
Kathy Huffman of Glacier Lodge in Big Pine Canyon said she first got a call Saturday night from a party looking for a campsite when they saw the windows busted out of cars. She said she went out there later the next morning to find the windshield of almost every car in the hiker parking lot destroyed.
At 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, sheriff’s personnel were called out on a different matter to the South Lake trailhead when officers were flagged down en route by two motorists reporting broken windshields to their cars. Officers located a total of eight cars with damaged windshields between Parcher’s Resort, where overflow hiker parking is available, and the trailhead parking lot.
Greg Allen of Rainbow Pack Station near South Lake said he saw four damaged cars along the side of State Route 168. He said some cars belonged to overnight hikers, but two cars belonged to summer cabin residents.
Allen said he wasn’t sure if the two cars with flat tires in the South Lake parking lot were related. He did say one Volvo in the parking lot had its windshield and four other windows smashed. He wasn’t aware of any related theft with the vandalism.
Gray said some “large instrument” was used to bust out windshields and side windows near South Lake and the hiker parking lot at Big Pine Creek was ravaged.
Gray also confirmed that the incidents were related but he said he didn’t think the incidents were intentionally targeting hikers because some of the vehicles damaged near South Lake were on the side of the road and not necessarily belonging to hikers.
Speculation from mountaineering Web site forums is citing the recent controversial legislation to rename North Palisade as a possible motivation for the vandalism. Some are calling the Big Pine Creek hiker parking lot, the most popular route to approach the Palisades, as “ground zero” for the debate. The other reasonable approach to North Palisade is from the South Lake trailhead.
Other speculation centers around opposition to new wilderness designation, one group doing damage to another group it perceives as doing something wrong. Some say it’s the ghost of legendary Sierra mountaineer, Norman Clyde, “seeking revenge for changing the name of one of his most beloved mountains.”
The public is encouraged to report any information about these, or any crimes to the Inyo County Sheriff’s Department at 878-0383 or 873-7887, or the Mono County Sheriff’s Department at (760) 932-7549. |
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 07 October 2008 )
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