I apologize if my comment came across as insensitive and I misinterpreted
@Red Clover ’s intent. I really hope Fang is found alive as well - as is evidenced by how many are concerned, she is very much loved and deeply missed. I do hope that that this new fact prompts LE to reclassify her status and actually look for her.
LE should at least take a look at
@mark1969 's data about the credit card (which is new). That would come under "digital searching," but in this case, it would be
@mark1969 who did the search and gave it to LE.
If LE does decide to move this case to "unknown" missing (or whatever the category is), I'm trying to think what kinds of ordinary LE search procedures could then follow. If she only had one credit card, well, that part is now known. I do not think SBCSO will try to get phone records from a Chinese phone company (and that doesn't seem highly relevant at this pint - unless the Chinese phone company is the sort that keeps text messages in storage, and even then, that probably isn't going to reveal much).
LE cannot search "California in general." There needs to be a last known point from which to search. It's very hard indeed to even guess at that (probably not the highway on the 21st; probably was in Thermal, camping - but we don't know that for sure and we don't even know if LE got camera footage from a campground or whether some other means was used to come up with "they camped at a hot springs near Thermal" (there are more than a dozen such campgrounds - LE needs it to be narrowed down. Since no one has access to JRF or his phone records, it gets really difficult.
Then there's the Julian ping (but was Fang still with JRF?)
IOW, LE needs a starting point. And choosing the wrong one could result in expenditure of resources and not finding Jin Fang. Keep in mind that SARS (since there's a lot of wilderness in all three possible "last points" where Fang was noted) are typically all volunteers. The LEA pays their expenses (but typically expects them to carpool and IME, they often sleep in tents and have very basic accommodations), but the SARS members have to take off work. Sometimes, they can only search on weekends. But no one is willing to risk the lives of SARS personnel in a vast search (they typically search 1-5 square miles at a time, except in mountain rescue - which this could very well be). A SARS team with climbing equipment can be assembled quickly, because so many of the volunteers are willing to go out, no matter what, but that only occurs when a person is known to have plunged off a cliff or into a ravine - it cannot be used to search every gully, ravine and cliff in Southern California.
SO, either we go with the "Fang was at Thermal" area and
@mark1969 tries to press that point OR he goes with Julian and tries to press on that. Over time, searching both areas might become possible - but, this is no longer an emergency if we're asking living humans to risk their lives going down into (or even along) ravines). We had another sandstone crumble death here in SoCal just last week. It is not an emergency rescue at this time.
If the truck can be spotted, then LE will certainly organize whatever it takes to get to it.
I wish I lived closer to the Inland Empire (particularly the Thermal/Julian area) and was in a position to drive various back roads over time. It's not an area where I would feel comfortable going alone, either (vehicle thefts continue to rise out there at a rate higher than I'm comfortable with).
There are few reasons for a typical Southern Californian to go out that way, except for work. My friends from the Inland Empire now live elsewhere (San Diego and Temecula, in cities). San Diego is about 150 miles from Thermal. And there are three different ways to get there, two of them involving roads in that wind through mountains. Julian is just off ONE of those routes.
So here's my best guess about which roads need to be watched/peppered with missing posters:
The 86 south from Thermal (Thermal population is 1,371) to Salton Sea City
Borrego-Salton Sea Way (aka Placitas Road) westward toward Julian (largely uninhabited, curvy, mountainous)
The 79 south to Julian (Julian population 1318, most not commuting anywhere)
The 79 south beyond Julian (as the most logical thing someone would do next).
If we assume that the two travelers are still together, that maybe Jin Fang forgot her phone charger and JRF uses, say, an Apple lightening connector, so of no aid to her phone, this is the most likely route. My big assumption is that they were generally heading southward - to visit San DIego? The route to San DIego from Julian is definitely back roads - scenic, if you like dry mountainous scenery - the Cleveland National Forest has its sights and would be cooler than Morongo Valley or Palm Springs or Joshua Tree).
I wish we knew exactly how the ping data from Julian was collected. It does seem the two were visiting public lands (Joshua Tree, a plan t visit Mojave NM, I think). They could have gone from Julian back north on the 79, turned west on Placitas and then planned to loop back up the 15 to JFR's place. This seems to me to be a reasonable weekend long trip - but they are lost somewhere along the time. The mountains around Julian (both directions) would seem to be the place to look for that truck.
IMO.
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