MOO I understand what you’re saying but I wonder if I’m correct in my thinking here…
The vehicle was seen heading towards the trailhead at 7.45am on Sunday morning. If they headed towards Hites Cove from the point where their vehicle was discovered, they would possibly reach Marble Point (just over a mile away) after 25 minutes or so? According to the nearest weather centre the temperature at 7.51am was 77F By 8.51am it had risen to 85F and continued to rise to a high of 109F at 2.51pm.
Surely they would still have time to hike back up to their car at Marble Point having realised the heat was only going to increase and they’d have an even bigger hike back up if they continued?
Wouldn’t the dog and the baby have shown signs of heat distress long before they got down to the river? Marble Point is a great vantage point to view the surroundings and consider options. I’m trying to understand this from their POV but the fact there is a dog and a baby to consider is beyond my comprehension. The choice of this hike, on this day, under those conditions makes absolutely no sense.
Sorry to continue to labour the point. I really do appreciate all the comments and ideas submitted by everyone and hope we all get some answers we can accept very soon.
RSBM @Pumphouse I think you have to account for the fact that having a baby slows everything down. So it could have been quite a bit later than you're suggesting when they got started and thus to Marble point. Also, what others have suggested about something unexpected occurring could have slowed them down too. Even something like a blister or an old injury (bum knee) affecting walking speed, etc.
Regarding the baby still being in the pack. Agree with others about her safety and JG's possible/likely (moo) being disabled - but also she was a year old and could certainly crawl, if not walk, and keeping her in the carrier could very well have been for her own safety too.
I, too, struggle with how they decided to do that hike, on that day, with those dependents. Although, I don't think I would ever have done any portion of it, myself, I keep coming back to the possibility that they intended something shorter and something derailed things (like the possibilities, for example, detailed by
@Auntie Cipation). Also, even though I wouldn't have taken that hike with my kids (or by myself for that matter, not a fan of even less extreme heat for hiking), I will say this case and this thread has opened my eyes to HS risks. I've backpacked a fair amount (Kauai, New Zealand, Canada, Colorado, Washington, California) and there are still things I don't know. Of course there are. And that's true for parenting too. I've definitely been humbled as a hiker and a parent, especially with my second kid, realizing things I did with my first kid that I know better about now. I'm saying that to say, if they had a blindspot in judgment and they intended something shorter and they encountered something unexpected it seems completely reasonable the cascade of events lead to their tragic deaths. I know we can't fathom them taking their dependents out under those conditions, but what if they really intended to be back shortly and just had a human moment of underestimating the heat and how quickly it could disable them? We don't want to believe this, I think, because it exposes all our humanity, fallibility, and fragility. It asks us to sit with the discomfort of randomness and the tragedy of preventable mistakes.