Long Beach Press Telegram

Body of missing hiker found
Seal Beach man likely died from injuries suffered from a fall in mountains, official says.

By Guy McCarthy
Staff writer

Saturday, January 31, 2004 - SAN GORGONIO WILDERNESS -- One of the deadliest months ever in local mountains ended Saturday with the discovery of a climber's body believed to be 25-year-old Eugene Kumm of Seal Beach, missing since Jan. 17.

The body was discovered at 1:50 p.m.

"We found him lodged between a tree and a rock, 350 feet below the trail,' said Bill Loenhorst Jr., 43, who was among a team of searchers pinned down by weather and darkness Saturday evening.

Loenhorst spoke by phone from near Halfway Camp, about four miles up Vivian Creek Trail east of Forest Falls.

"He had his crampons and pack on, but we couldn't find his ice ax. He wasn't wearing a helmet.'

The hiker probably died from injuries suffered in the fall, said sheriff's Deputy Shannon Kovich. He apparently made no attempt to open his pack.

Kumm had been described by his friends as a 6-foot-2, 240-pound athletic man. He was a graduate of the University of Nebraska and a field engineer for Kiewit Industries' Long Beach office. He moved to Seal Beach last May.

He had started climbing in Washington two years ago and continued that activity with his girlfriend, Erin Reboulet of Seal Beach. In addition to hiking, Kumm liked to bicycle, kayak and work out at a gym.

The search team of Loenhorst, his wife, Ellyn, and Rich Inman was equipped to spend a snow-bound night in the mountains, Kovich said. Weather permitting, a sheriff's rescue helicopter will transport the climber's body to Forest Falls today.

The ravine where the climber's body was found was the same area where another man fell and injured his legs about three weeks ago, requiring a helicopter evacuation, Loenhorst said.

Kumm's parents had flown in from Nebraska to meet with a sheriff's chaplain in Yucaipa on Saturday, search-and-rescue officials said. Kumm's girlfriend visited Forest Falls in the initial days of the search.

Loenhorst and his wife, who live in Mountain Home Village, were the only searchers who set out Saturday morning to look for Kumm. Cool, damp low-hanging clouds were already rolling onto the ridges above Mill Creek Canyon as they left the trailhead.

"Ellyn and I, being parents, we can't hardly imagine how awful it must be for his folks,' Loenhorst said as he started up the switchbacks above Mill Creek earlier Saturday.

"It would be awesome to find him alive, but the odds are against it now. It's been so long. But I know the parents will want closure on this. We want to put it to rest if possible.'

Loenhorst, whose father helped found the San Gorgonio Search and Rescue Team in 1958, said he couldn't recall a winter season, let alone a single month, where a half- dozen people died in local mountains.

Search-and-rescue veteran Scott Stockton, 47, of Forest Falls, said the ice conditions are the worst he's seen in 25 years.

"The back-country higher elevations are no place to fool around right now,' Stockton said. "It's flat-out dangerous.'

The fatality brought the death toll in area mountain ranges to seven so far this year. Six experienced outdoorsmen died on ice-covered steeps in the San Gabriel, San Gorgonio and San Jacinto mountains, and a 15-year-old boy fell to his death while trying to climb a steep, burned slope near Devore.