View of snow-capped Mt. Baldy from downtown L.A.
The following article about the discovery on Mt. Baldy of human remains, presumably belonging to a famous actor, appeared in today’s news feed.
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Authorities in Southern California recovered human remains on Saturday near the mountain where search crews have been looking for the British actor Julian Sands. He was reported missing in January.
The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement that it had been contacted around 10 a.m. local time on Saturday by hikers who had found human remains in the Mount Baldy wilderness, which is more than 40 miles northeast of Los Angeles.
The remains were brought to the coroner’s office and were expected to be identified this week, the department said.
Dangerous conditions, including a series of severe storms in the winter and lingering ice and snow in June, have complicated search efforts for Mr. Sands.
Mr. Sands, 65, of North Hollywood, went hiking alone on a trail on Mount Baldy. On hiking websites, the popular trek is described as challenging and strenuous.
Mr. Sands has appeared in more than 150 films and television shows, including his best-known role starring as George Emerson in the Oscar-nominated 1986 film “A Room With a View.”
The film, an adaptation of E.M. Forster’s novel, often makes lists as one of the best British films of all time.
The sheriff’s department provided an update on the search for Mr. Sands last week and said that parts of the mountain still could not be reached because of “extreme alpine conditions,” including steep terrain and ravines covered in more than 10 feet of ice and snow.
On June 17, more than 80 people helped search for him. Two helicopters and drone crews were used to check areas inaccessible to searchers on the ground, the sheriff’s department said.
There have been eight searches for Mr. Sands and eight other unrelated search-and-rescue missions in the Mount Baldy area since January, the department said.
After Mr. Sands was reported missing, the department warned hikers in January that storms in Southern California were creating dangerous conditions in the mountains.
The department said it had responded to 14 rescue missions for lost, stranded and injured hikers on Mount Baldy and in the surrounding area in a four-week period ending on Jan. 18. Two of the hikers did not survive after falling and hurting themselves.
On Wednesday, Mr. Sands’s family thanked the search teams.
“We continue to hold Julian in our hearts with bright memories of him as a wonderful father, husband, explorer, lover of the natural world and the arts, and as an original and collaborative performer,” his family said in a statement.
In several interviews, Mr. Sands talked about his fondness for hiking and the mountains.
In a 2020 interview with Thrive Global, a company started by Arianna Huffington that provides behavior change technology, Mr. Sands said that he had spent time in mountain ranges in North America and Europe.
Mr. Sands said that people who did not climb mountains assumed it was about a “great heroic sprint” to the summit and ego.
“But actually, it’s the reverse,” he said. “It’s about supplication and sacrifice and humility, when you go to these mountains. It’s not so much a celebration of oneself, but the eradication of one’s self-consciousness. And so on these walks you lose yourself, you become a vessel of energy in harmony, hopefully, with your environment.”
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I bring all this up for a couple of reasons, not least of which is that I myself love to hike. Full disclosure: My wife’s a big Room With A View fan. But for me – as with most British drama – I can take it or leave it. I guess the thing that strikes a chord with this story in the wake of the recent Titan submersible deaths is people’s differing reactions to the enterprise of extreme human adventuring, with resultant loss of life. And also as a reflection of their preconceived biases about inequalities of wealth. Bear with me as I unpack all that a bit.
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For all I know, Julian Sands could be a gazillionaire – although, based on the fact that he hasn’t appeared in an Oscar nominated film since Room With A View in ’86, probably not. My guess? He probably lived comfortably in North Hollywood, hiked alone often, and – at age 65 – didn’t need another job as a Walmart greeter.
Compare this with the guy who ran the Titan submersible that imploded on its way to the Atlantic sea floor to show off Titanic’s ruins. This guy was filthy rich, no question. And his passengers each paid a quarter of a mil for their ill-fated ride. So they too probably didn’t need a Walmart greeter gig.
How many FB posts did I read lamenting about how all that mega-money (“A Million Dollars!”) could have been better spent to help the needy? And about how so many taxpayer dollars were wasted rushing to their aid (“The poor immigrant boat-people didn’t get such a quick response!”)? Subtext – of course always unspoken – is this: “Those rich buggers got exactly what they deserved, as a kind of cosmic balancing out of the economic scales.”
Don’t get me wrong, I can be as anti-capitalist as the next fellow. Just ask my cousin the Full-Bird Colonel (USAF, retired) who once called me “Vladimir Lenin,” and not only because I’m bald and wear glasses. Fact is, $250K or no $250K, there’s no way in hell you could ever have dragged me on board that submersible, because frankly, I’m scared-to-death of drowning. The grace of it all is that, rich or poor, they were most likely dead before they knew what hit them.
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Look folks, you wanna rail against Elon Musk’s Space-X or Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse? Well, I say, by all means, go ahead and have at it. You won’t get any push-back from the likes of little-old-me. But here’s the thing: Before you go getting too comfortably self-righteous standing on your progressive soapbox declaiming about the demise of 5 rich guys in an imploded Spam can deep in the waters of the North Atlantic, consider if you will the words of Julian Sands. They run pretty much counter to the usual tropes about heroic adventurers with inflated egos. And as for your tax dollars at work? Consider the 14+ missions mounted by SoCal Search and Rescue for lost/injured hikers on Mt. Baldy in December and January alone. My guess, few if any of them were billionaires.
And after you’ve done all that, just one more task: Take a chill pill, please. The rest of us will be very glad you did. And now, quoting from that famed British actor, Forrest Gump: “That’s all I’ve got to say about that.”
Comments? Hey, that’s what the “Comments” button is for. As I said before: You’re welcome to have at it.