Boots. Bones. An ID with a familiar face. Hikers who found Julian Sands tell their story
LOS ANGELES — When a group of local hikers started up Mount Baldy in June, by way of a rugged and rarely traveled canyon, their organizer had a nagging fear in the back of her mind: "I hope we don't find a dead body today."
Like most everyone else in Los Angeles' hiking community, she and her friends had followed the news of British actor Julian Sands' disappearance on the mountain in January. They knew that repeated searches by authorities, including one just a week before with helicopters circling above and 80 people scouring the rocky terrain, had come up empty.
They also knew that the last-known ping from Sands' cellphone put him on an icy ridge beneath the summit, where an inadvertent step could have sent him sliding uncontrollably into the remote canyon they were about to climb.
So the hikers weren't completely surprised when, three hours into their , one of them spotted a boot.
