Rescuers Follow a ‘Voice’ but Search Is Fruitless

Rescuers searching for a hiker thought they heard a faint voice in a steep, dangerous ravine off Mt. San Gorgonio in the San Bernardino Mountains on Friday, but found no one after scouring the area twice.

Eugene Kumm, 25, of Seal Beach has been missing in the wilderness on or below the 11,500-foot, ice-capped mountain for a week.

A second man, Ronald Barbour, 69, of La Crescenta, has been missing in the San Gabriel Mountains near Wrightwood since setting out Jan. 16 for a bike ride and hike.

A team searching an area below Gorgonio known as Mill Creek “thought they might have heard a voice” early Friday afternoon, San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Deputy Shannon Kovich said. “It’s a very steep drop-off right there.”

Kenneth Smith, 66, of Yucaipa was found dead in the same ravine Jan. 5. He had gone ice climbing in the Forest Falls area, not far from where Barbour went missing.

All told, four hikers have died since New Year’s Day on the icy or fire-ravaged mountains ringing the Southland. Six more have been rescued.

Reinforcements from throughout California, including specially trained rescuers on horseback and motorcycles, were expected to set out at 7 a.m. today on Gorgonio and near Wrightwood in an all-out push to try to find the two hikers.

Alpine-trained trackers said they were hampered by false leads in some cases because of equipment or tracks left by others, and authorities urged would-be hikers to stay away.

“We’re tracking false clues,” Kovich said. “We’re not following the right footprints because they’re putting those additional tracks out there.”

Citations have been issued by deputies to hikers who insisted on using the closed Vivian Creek trail, where Kumm was last seen by another hiker as he set out to climb to the summit.