I’m not very attuned to cell phone technology, but I imagine you could get errant pings, especially if they’re not far away from each other, the service is spotty, and the weather is bad. It’s also possible, I suppose, that JS fell fatally in Mount Baldy bowl, just like Gonzalez-Landas, and because of conditions or terrain, continued to slide over the next days. In winter, the summit trail goes up the Baldy Bowl, basically a bare, bald, steep, exposed slope (totally iced over recently) for several thousand feet vertical.
Baldy Bowl:
I was a 16-year-old kid who loved hiking and had trekked up to Mt. Baldy many times. I’d hiked all the routes, in all seasons, even in the dead of winter.
claremont-courier.com