NM NM - Ingrid Lane, 37, Jemez Springs, 15 Oct 2023

[Protectwomenandgirls]

The "cabin" might be an old fire lookout, and not accessible for one reason or another.

Thanks for chiming in, appreciate your expertise
This is a very good point --- many of these were recently destroyed by fires
Any locals here?
Does this cabin/lookout still exist?

 

[Protectwomenandgirls]

There are many reasons she could be in the wrong place to get to the trailhead. A Google mis-direction for starters. Very common and dangerous. There are trails all over that mountain, but may have inconspicuous trailheads, so she drove right by, and maybe even thought she was in a different place than she actually was.

The road might roller-coaster (it's forest road), so she might have thought she was walking down when she was going up or vice versa. After all, her car seems to have been twiddled around in orientation, or not. It wouldn't surprise me if she wasn't totally discombobulated. She might have gone down to her car again, if up wasn't working for her.

If she really planned to go up that mountain, she was starting way too late in the day. She might make the peak, but would never make it down. Plus, she'd already expended energy dealing with her car: I mean, if your car is in that condition, you can assume she expended a lot of energy right then. She could even have been there for hours, she could be head-injured and not thinking straight, she could be in a state of bliss from her Zen-time and/or something else.

The trail is 10.3 miles at the fastest. Challenging, and over 4 hours. Steep elevation gain. Likely empty. She was nowhere near that trailhead.

To me, the sweat pants are very troublesome, since they almost always have cotton content. This would make her prone to hypothermia, especially if they'd been all sweaty already, and would be disastrous if they got wet, e.g. in a blanket of fog. We don't know if she was wearing lugged hiking boots, which would be de rigueur on that trail. No "10 Essentials" would be a big red flag, especially in such a remote area and so alone. I'm not sure if she had her pack, water, etc.

Perhaps she already had hypothermia by the time she set out, and already wasn't thinking straight. Heck, maybe she even got hit by the rock in her car.

52 miles of hiking is out of the question. A thru hiker might manage half of that if they were in excellent shape. It's possible maybe in OR and WA on the PCT, but that's after months of hiking, and being motivated to beat winter or catch a plane. Those thru hikers hike far into the night. Besides, in her scenario, you're not making it back to your car before dark. Anything you could do at that point would be extremely risky: you could keep going and almost certainly trip, or you could stop where you are and die of hypothermia. Both could happen. And the temperature would suddenly have dropped as the day got late.

IMO her brains were compromised for whatever reason, and there's no telling where she is.

The closest comparator I have to this case is last year's in the Olympics, Laura Macke, about the same time of year.

Yes, in remote areas Google & other conventional map apps are very misleading!
MVUM maps for US Forest Service (USFS) are more accurate, they can be downloaded as PDFs
When dealing with US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) they're "interactive" maps, which only work with cell service, which usually is non-existent
Point is, it takes some experience to work with these maps...

 

[Stoaty]

Thanks for chiming in, appreciate your expertise
This is a very good point --- many of these were recently destroyed by fires
Any locals here?
Does this cabin/lookout still exist?

San Antonio Mountain is open for hiking, and the cabin was checked.

 

[NoSpoonFeeding]

A male predator can seem completely safe & perform well calculated atrocities later
Sadly, it didn't seem appropriate to rule this out completely
I still think her relationships at the centre should be investigated

Yes, but what I asked was how that would fit in with the circumstances of her contact with the hunters. She drove to a remote area, on a forestry road that damaged her car. A predator from the center would have to have been there too. She left the center at 9 am and was diving around/exploring/getting her car damaged for 5 hours before the hunters saw her. It is only a 14-15 mile drive from the center to the turn-off to the forestry road. It would seem she spent a few hours on the forestry road as her car was 11 miles north of the road. When the hunters saw her, she refused help, other than the tire, and said she was going on a hike. She alone put herself in that situation and the family has offered plenty of insight into the victim's behavior.

 

[RickshawFan]

Yes, in remote areas Google & other conventional map apps are very misleading!
MVUM maps for US Forest Service (USFS) are more accurate, they can be downloaded as PDFs
When dealing with US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) they're "interactive" maps, which only work with cell service, which usually is non-existent
Point is, it takes some experience to work with these maps...

USGS is standard map to take hiking. It’s updated regularly as a matter of government. It has the roads on it, as well as trails.

Wild guess that this “missing” is not a map issue.

Pro tip: the National Geographic paper maps (yellow and black covers) for National Parks use USGS (fewer contours IIRC) but are very easy to read and have key features like shelters.They are also on waterproof paper. RF recommendation: If you ever get an outdoor store (or bookstore) coupon you otherwise have no use for, pick up a map for your next adventure: it might save your life.

 

[Protectwomenandgirls]

USGS is standard map to take hiking. It’s updated regularly as a matter of government. It has the roads on it, as well as trails.

Wild guess that this “missing” is not a map issue.

Pro tip: the National Geographic paper maps (yellow and black covers) for National Parks use USGS (fewer contours IIRC) but are very easy to read and have key features like shelters.They are also on waterproof paper. RF recommendation: If you ever get an outdoor store (or bookstore) coupon you otherwise have no use for, pick up a map for your next adventure: it might save your life.

In one of the FB posts her sister mentions that Ingrid didn't typically use paper maps. Her sister was concerned because Ingrid tended to rely on navigation apps

 

[RickshawFan]

I’m speculating this is not strictly a hiking mishap. My biggest problem is the assumption that the missing person was fine when the hunters left. She’d had an accident (that seems to have involved a crash of some kind) and had to change a tire. As far as I know, during all that, her body would be flushed with adrenalin. This would allow her to get herself out of her predicament, including the encounter with the hunters, and seem fine (maybe even hyper) when she took off up the road. Adrenalin can take hours to wear off, and when it does, you can be in very bad shape.

IMO No way would an “experienced” hiker head up a mountain in the circumstances described, and IL was supposed to be an “experienced” hiker. Evidently, cell phones didn’t work even before she set off, so she wouldn’t have any map at all before she set out. IMO you wouldn’t set out on a hike with a cell phone for navigation, if it didn’t have a signal from the get-go.

She may already have been on the wrong road precisely because there was no cell service, perhaps not even knowing she was on the wrong road. Viz. the women who got lost earlier this year in Gila NF. They went deep into the forest because of Google, and never got a new signal to get re-oriented or get help.

Also, it was too late in the day to set off on that hike; there weren’t enough hours before darkness to go up the trail, summit, and back. It’s not clear IL knew where she was in relation to the trailhead, either, since she certainly wasn’t near the obvious one for the mountain she wanted to summit.

There’s no indication she had water or supplies (or anything), as far as I can tell. An experienced hiker wouldn’t do that, especially on a hike like the one that seems to have been intended.

Do we know if her window crashed out in the spot where her car was found? Do we know if she locked herself out of the car and used the rock to smash the rear window to get back in? Do we know if she moved her car between when the hunters last saw her and it got into the condition it did (she might have driven back and forth to get out of there and had a mishap when she tried to turn around or she might have spun out)? Did the hunters re-visit the location of the car and verify it was the exact spot they last saw IL? How would they know in the absence of obvious landmarks?

The “facts” of the case while in the forest make absolutely no sense to me unless there was cognitive impairment of some kind, while on one of those dirt roads. I would speculate she had an injury (head?) that she hadn’t noticed….yet. And then adrenalin wore off.

 

[ch_13]

IMO No way would an “experienced” hiker head up a mountain in the circumstances described, and IL was supposed to be an “experienced” hiker. Evidently, cell phones didn’t work even before she set off, so she wouldn’t have any map at all before she set out. IMO you wouldn’t set out on a hike with a cell phone for navigation, if it didn’t have a signal from the get-go.

She may already have been on the wrong road precisely because there was no cell service, perhaps not even knowing she was on the wrong road. Viz. the women who got lost earlier this year in Gila NF. They went deep into the forest because of Google, and never got a new signal to get re-oriented or get help.

RSBM.

She was an AllTrails app user and had apparently downloaded the San Antonio Mountain trail to her phone before she set out. With a downloaded map, the app is designed to work independently of cell service. Generally, you would also map the route to the trailhead via Google/Apple maps when you leave. Those apps should also work without cell service once a destination has been selected. So to me it's a real puzzle why she ended up on the wrong road.

I suspect you may be right about some kind of impairment affecting her thinking.

There's also the matter of the burner phone. Could something have happened to her primary phone?

 

[RickshawFan]

RSBM.

She was an AllTrails app user and had apparently downloaded the San Antonio Mountain trail to her phone before she set out. With a downloaded map, the app is designed to work independently of cell service. Generally, you would also map the route to the trailhead via Google/Apple maps when you leave. Those apps should also work without cell service once a destination has been selected. So to me it's a real puzzle why she ended up on the wrong road.

I suspect you may be right about some kind of impairment affecting her thinking.

There's also the matter of the burner phone. Could something have happened to her primary phone?

She could have lost her real phone, bought a temporary replacement, and then found the real one under her seat or something.

Google is notoriously inaccurate when it comes to finding routes in the backcountry. So many have died following Google directions.

Nothing about relying on a map on a tiny electronic screen convinces me it would be a helpful or safe idea. Do we even know which SA route she downloaded to go up?

 

[ch_13]

She could have lost her real phone, bought a temporary replacement, and then found the real one under her seat or something.

Google is notoriously inaccurate when it comes to finding routes in the backcountry. So many have died following Google directions.

Nothing about relying on a map on a tiny electronic screen convinces me it would be a helpful or safe idea. Do we even know which SA route she downloaded to go up?

This is apparently the trail she downloaded: https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/new-mexico/san-antonio-mountain-trail

Whatever the issues with mapping software in the backcountry, I don't believe that was a factor here. I have an AllTrails subscription so when I heard that she also used it, I double-checked that the routes to the trailhead were valid by trying various starting points in New Mexico. I checked both Apple Maps and Google Maps and couldn't find any anomalies.

You can try it yourself. AllTrails locates the trailhead at 35.96912° N, 106.59815° W. Put that in as the destination and check how Google routes to there.

 

[RickshawFan]

This is apparently the trail she downloaded: https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/new-mexico/san-antonio-mountain-trail

Whatever the issues with mapping software in the backcountry, I don't believe that was a factor here. I have an AllTrails subscription so when I heard that she also used it, I double-checked that the routes to the trailhead were valid by trying various starting points in New Mexico. I checked both Apple Maps and Google Maps and couldn't find any anomalies.

You can try it yourself. AllTrails locates the trailhead at 35.96912° N, 106.59815° W. Put that in as the destination and check how Google routes to there.

But do we know she downloaded exactly that one? There are other trails to get to the summit, including trailheads at the road she was on.

Brilliant thought to check how Google would get you there…

IMO the mystery would have more grounding if the hunters re-visited the spot where they helped her. I’m wondering if it’s a different spot than where her car had its final resting place. Even if just a little bit away, there could have been a whole sequence of events not including heading up a trail. She could even have gone in search of a cell spot and got all mixed up.

The hunters didn’t see the window smashed in, correct? If she smashed the window in herself because she locked the keys in by mistake, she had to have come back to the car after they saw her head up the roadway.

 

[ch_13]

But do we know she downloaded exactly that one? There are other trails to get to the summit, including trailheads at the road she was on.

That's the only trail on AllTrails that leads to the summit.

You are correct though, there are other side trails that she could have taken as well. It's certainly possible that she picked a different starting point if she wanted a longer/more difficult hike. I'll sometimes do something like that in areas I'm familiar with. But the question was if she had been misled by Google Maps or the AllTrails app and if she chose to not use either to find her way, then the tech isn't the issue.

 

[RickshawFan]

That's the only trail on AllTrails that leads to the summit.

You are correct though, there are other side trails that she could have taken as well. It's certainly possible that she picked a different starting point if she wanted a longer/more difficult hike. I'll sometimes do something like that in areas I'm familiar with. But the question was if she had been misled by Google Maps or the AllTrails app and if she chose to not use either to find her way, then the tech isn't the issue.

What evidence do we have that she was going to San Antonio mountain, and not some totally other mountain?

 

[ch_13]

What evidence do we have that she was going to San Antonio mountain, and not some totally other mountain?

See this post from @Protectwomenandgirls:

Ingrid was most likely hiking to San Antonio Mountain per a post on official FB page.
This is the last hike she saved on her Alltrails account before she went missing, up from where her car was found.
There is a cabin up there. No mention of it ever being searched

 

[RickshawFan]

See this post from @Protectwomenandgirls:

Thx....

This has become my philosophy about this whole event: IMO there are assumptions—e.g. that she was going up San Antonio because that was the last trail she downloaded—that may not be factors. The whole potential story is hanging on very frail threads. Remove one thread, and the whole load falls apart.

I research and download whole adventures, maps, everything. That doesn't mean I'll actually end up going on the trip! I might just like the idea of it, and not the reality.

I also think we have no idea where IL's head was that day.

 

[Protectwomenandgirls]

This is apparently the trail she downloaded: https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/new-mexico/san-antonio-mountain-trail

Whatever the issues with mapping software in the backcountry, I don't believe that was a factor here. I have an AllTrails subscription so when I heard that she also used it, I double-checked that the routes to the trailhead were valid by trying various starting points in New Mexico. I checked both Apple Maps and Google Maps and couldn't find any anomalies.

You can try it yourself. AllTrails locates the trailhead at 35.96912° N, 106.59815° W. Put that in as the destination and check how Google routes to there.

It seemed like Ingrid wasn't using Apple or Google maps from what her sister said on FB, but there's no way to be certain because her sister just referred to the app as Ingrid's preferred mapping app.
Her sister used this app when looking for Ingrid. There are lots of details from her sister on the FB page.
To me this made it seem like it wasn't a standard mapping app, but that's just a speculation...

 

[Protectwomenandgirls]

Thx....

This has become my philosophy about this whole event: IMO there are assumptions—e.g. that she was going up San Antonio because that was the last trail she downloaded—that may not be factors. The whole potential story is hanging on very frail threads. Remove one thread, and the whole load falls apart.

I research and download whole adventures, maps, everything. That doesn't mean I'll actually end up going on the trip! I might just like the idea of it, and not the reality.

I also think we have no idea where IL's head was that day.

I also download information and then change my plans at the last minute.
Per the official FB group, Ingrid's family (sister and mom) hiked up many different peaks in the area looking for her. They also looked on many roads and numerous other areas adjacent to her vehicle. Many locals have been looking too.
It's very upsetting that Ingrid still hasn't been found

 

[Protectwomenandgirls]

But do we know she downloaded exactly that one? There are other trails to get to the summit, including trailheads at the road she was on.

Brilliant thought to check how Google would get you there…

IMO the mystery would have more grounding if the hunters re-visited the spot where they helped her. I’m wondering if it’s a different spot than where her car had its final resting place. Even if just a little bit away, there could have been a whole sequence of events not including heading up a trail. She could even have gone in search of a cell spot and got all mixed up.

The hunters didn’t see the window smashed in, correct? If she smashed the window in herself because she locked the keys in by mistake, she had to have come back to the car after they saw her head up the roadway.

Not sure about the spot the hunters originally saw her vs the spot her car was found, but this would be very useful information to have.

Her sister said that they found an item of hers up the road from her vehicle so they know what direction she headed from her car.

I haven't seen any information about the window and the hunters. Her husband, in the interview, said he wonders if she smashed it herself with a rock from their yard. No indication as to why he thinks she may have done this.
In my experience you cannot easily lock your keys in the car with a Subaru this new. We have a 2019 and it makes an audio alert and refuses to lock if the keys are in the car unless you have another key fob outside to override the key fob that's still in the vehicle.

One of the strongest things to me about this case is the window being broken and the big rock left in the backseat (there is a picture of the rock in the car in the video of the interview with her husband).

The other thing being the burner phone.

 

[Protectwomenandgirls]

I’m speculating this is not strictly a hiking mishap. My biggest problem is the assumption that the missing person was fine when the hunters left. She’d had an accident (that seems to have involved a crash of some kind) and had to change a tire. As far as I know, during all that, her body would be flushed with adrenalin. This would allow her to get herself out of her predicament, including the encounter with the hunters, and seem fine (maybe even hyper) when she took off up the road. Adrenalin can take hours to wear off, and when it does, you can be in very bad shape.

IMO No way would an “experienced” hiker head up a mountain in the circumstances described, and IL was supposed to be an “experienced” hiker. Evidently, cell phones didn’t work even before she set off, so she wouldn’t have any map at all before she set out. IMO you wouldn’t set out on a hike with a cell phone for navigation, if it didn’t have a signal from the get-go.

She may already have been on the wrong road precisely because there was no cell service, perhaps not even knowing she was on the wrong road. Viz. the women who got lost earlier this year in Gila NF. They went deep into the forest because of Google, and never got a new signal to get re-oriented or get help.

Also, it was too late in the day to set off on that hike; there weren’t enough hours before darkness to go up the trail, summit, and back. It’s not clear IL knew where she was in relation to the trailhead, either, since she certainly wasn’t near the obvious one for the mountain she wanted to summit.

There’s no indication she had water or supplies (or anything), as far as I can tell. An experienced hiker wouldn’t do that, especially on a hike like the one that seems to have been intended.

Do we know if her window crashed out in the spot where her car was found? Do we know if she locked herself out of the car and used the rock to smash the rear window to get back in? Do we know if she moved her car between when the hunters last saw her and it got into the condition it did (she might have driven back and forth to get out of there and had a mishap when she tried to turn around or she might have spun out)? Did the hunters re-visit the location of the car and verify it was the exact spot they last saw IL? How would they know in the absence of obvious landmarks?

The “facts” of the case while in the forest make absolutely no sense to me unless there was cognitive impairment of some kind, while on one of those dirt roads. I would speculate she had an injury (head?) that she hadn’t noticed….yet. And then adrenalin wore off.

I agree with your speculation.

I wonder if she was afraid to ask the hunters for help and that's why she acted like she was fine? I believe someone else in this thread already asked this same question. I can't imagine Ingrid being fine after all that had occurred with her vehicle, but we are hearing the same thing from the last people who saw the woman who went missing in AZ, Chelsea Grimm, under similar circumstances (car damaged in national forest, potentially hiking - but no one knows for sure, told people she last interacted with that she was fine)

I agree, it seems way too late for Ingrid to go on a hike, especially up a mountain - and especially after all that had happened to her car.

I haven't seen anything mentioned about water or supplies. No mention of a backpack.

*Putting all of your contributions together, I wonder if Ingrid was originally planning to go on a hike...but got into a pretty severe predicament using mapping apps on forest service roads?

Do we know anything about the condition of these roads? Are they Subaru friendly roads (not hating, I have one)?
side note: reminds me of the couple in Death Valley who got 2 flats on their Subaru and the man sadly passed away when they were trying to hike out to find help

After all of this damage happened to her car maybe she was just desperately trying to find cell signal, wandered off from her car and got lost. Wasn't prepared to spend the night because she thought she'd be getting help or going back to her car.

 

[RickshawFan]

Not sure about the spot the hunters originally saw her vs the spot her car was found, but this would be very useful information to have.

Her sister said that they found an item of hers up the road from her vehicle so they know what direction she headed from her car.

I haven't seen any information about the window and the hunters. Her husband, in the interview, said he wonders if she smashed it herself with a rock from their yard. No indication as to why he thinks she may have done this.
In my experience you cannot easily lock your keys in the car with a Subaru this new. We have a 2019 and it makes an audio alert and refuses to lock if the keys are in the car unless you have another key fob outside to override the key fob that's still in the vehicle.

One of the strongest things to me about this case is the window being broken and the big rock left in the backseat (there is a picture of the rock in the car in the video of the interview with her husband).

The other thing being the burner phone.

I have a friend who two days ago got locked out of his year-old super expensive VW, so the issue is top of my mind. He had to get it towed. It was a fob thing, though he had the fob with him.
I wonder if the battery in IL’s car was dead for one reason or another?
I wonder how IL’s partner knew that particular rock was from their yard. That seems oddly specific. I don’t think I’d recognize a stone from my yard if it ended up in someone’s vehicle several hours away. Unless there was some specific reason IL would be carrying that rock? Her favorite rock? A buddha statue?
IL could have thought she left her phone at home by mistake, but didn’t want to go back for it. She might have then found it in the car, or concluded there was no service anyway, so no reason to actually use the burner. The burner phone detail doesn’t ding my significance antennae.