Hi all,

I am pretty upset about this because it is near where I am staying. There are a couple of caches on this trail and many others on lightly used trails in this area. I hike alone (my pit bull does add some security) frequently, so it hits close to home. I am going to stick to more populated trails for the remainder of my stay here in case it is not an isolated incident.

It is funny, I have avoided hiking on weekends because Mountain Loop Highway gets so busy, but now I will begin doing the opposite.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/277324_hikers12ww.html

Its disturbing to all of us. You don't usually see this sort of thing on the trails. Murder is usually city stuff. A few years ago there was something like this near Mt Rainier. I think they eventually got the guy. I've seen some pretty ratty looking types camping along the river before but people who make the effort to hike in my experience are pretty straight up people. I agree. For now everyone should stay wary till they nail this piece of scum.

I agree with EraSeek. I've never met a hiker that wasn't a nice person, but we'll need to have our guards up.

Saw that news in the Herald first thing this morning and was stunned. I was on that trail Monday, going after Pinnacle Lake - Pika Heaven.

I notified the paper and Sno Co Sheriff's office, but had nothing to report. Maybe saw some bear tracks, but now they rule out an animal attack.

I'll be on the edge of my seat waiting to find out more.

East County has had a problem lately with Meth Labs and Marajuana grows. Perhaps the hikers came across one of these. Of course, now the Sheriff's dept will be going over that area with a find tooth comb.

I don't go hiking nearly as much as I'd like because I won't go alone. Now apparently being with one other person isn't enough. I've been telling myself all day that this couldn't possibly be random - just set up to look that way. I am anxious to hear what comes of this.

PP, my thoughts exactly. I really hope you are right about the "randomness" of this.

Now that just creeps me out. My wife and I have been talking about caching in this area this summer. Now if we do it I'll probably want to do it as part of a bigger group or skip it altogether. In the past I've felt comfortable with just the 2 of us, more worried about someone trashing the cachemobile at the trailhead then getting attacked. {sigh}

Yeah, I hike alone a lot, too, so this is definitely disturbing, but much more so for the women cachers. But so far my gut feeling from the Times article thia a.m. is that this will prove not to be random. Maybe that's wishful thinking, but statistcally random murders are pretty rare. But the media, particularly television, like to really play them up whenever they can as they increase viewership/readership, which means they make more money. I'm an old grad student in mass media (a cynical ABD), so I have no respect for TV news in particular. That's not to say don't be more careful out hiking--that's simply the prudent thing to do until we know more from the sheriff's office--but also take the bloody media with a big chunk of rock salt and wait for the actual facts to trickle in. All the media--and they are all part of big corporations--really care about is the ratings and there's nothing like a random murder, particularly of this type, to jack them up. They'll play on our fears for as long and for as hard as they can.

How fine? You think they'll find any of the caches in the area?

They have re opened the trails and said no reason to avoid them. Word is it was a mother and daughter. Possible murder suicide. Wierd.

Did mom kill daughter, or vice versa?

Link update please?

Thanks

Kiro news radio report around 2pm today. No link.

ok just curious, I'm sure it won't be long.

They have been identified as a Seattle school librarian and daughter. No mention of suicide here. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/loca...ersslain13.html

I had actually heard, from the P-I I think, that murder-suicide had been ruled out. I did see that more information would be forthcoming this evening. Either way, it is a terrible thing. Selfishly, I do hope that it is not a random act.

Weird, but I can't help wondering if they were geocachers... maybe even found a cache or two up there and signed the log book. Of course they never made it home to log the find.

That was my first thought yesterday...and I immediately looked up caches in the area.

We'll have to wait and see.

According to the Kiro news at 6:00, the mother may have been a librarian in a school.

Here are some links to the latest news stories:

Story 1
Story 2
Story 3
Story 4
Story 5

It makes us uneasy. Dh told me last night that he really doesn't want me to go out caching alone w/the kids unless we go to urban caches. He also said something about getting me a concealed weapons permit. It's a shame.

Last I heard on the news, they were hiking and it wasn't a murder/suicide. So there's some nut case running loose. Hope they get him soon.

Joan

I too am hoping this is not a random act. I live close to this area and spend ALOT of my summer up there. We have a girls weekend camping/geocaching trip planned in a couple of weeks very close to pinnacle lake. I think we will err on the side of caution & cancel. It's sexist I know but what can I say. I would feel much better with my husband and his concealed weapons permit.
I hope they catch this sicko soon!

My dad was getting jumpy about me caching on my own yesterday, and now I know why. Even though I live no where near there... He only let me find three before making me come home. I hope they catch the guy soon.

Him?

I hadn't noticed that they had narrowed it down to "singular male" already, and ruled out all the other possibilities.
What else do they know about the murderer(s)?

Well I think everyone would be totally amazed if it was a team of female snipers.

It's just human nature to assume that the most common senario would apply to this case. And if that is true it would be someone known to the victim, not a stranger.

However, in this case I don't think that will be true given it happened in the morning in a remote location. I would lean toward a meth manufacturer doing extensive product testing.

Mt Pillchuck was not lacking for hikers today, male or female, and a fair number of dogs too.

I was out at Monte Cristo yesterday and there were tons of cars and folks. I still went for long periods without seeing anyone, though. A woman at a coffee drive thru told me that business has dropped of significantly. I wonder if folks are sticking to the more popular trails? I know that I am for now.

I wonder if the cache owners contacted the Sheriff's office to give them a heads up about the cache containers?

It's sad what happened, because we all like to think we are immune to human nature because we are in the woods.
However, think about all the man (and woman) days spent hiking in Washington this year. Hundreds of thousands. And these are the first two murders in a couple years? You are way more likely to die in a car accident on the way to the trailhead than be murdered on the hike.

It just made me so sad when we heard about the murders up on Pinnacle Lake trail. I think I am the biggest "Scardity-cat" in all of "cache kingdom".. and it seems just as I was starting to "relax a little bit" and enjoy it all..THIS has to happen. Doesn't seem fair does it?

It just seems like it is just what the world is coming to anymore. A person just can't get "too comfortable", and not be on guard. Can they?

I often wonder how some women can go caching alone. Do you think it is safe?


Howlingwind

Bull Moose, I completely agree with you, in one of the stories they talk to a gentleman who remembers somethign like this happening in the 70's..

The 70's!?!?!? okay, so we had some people get murdere don the trail 30 years ago, and people feel unsafe going up on trails...
But last night in a Wall-Mart parking lot somebody got mugged/kidnapped, but you don't see anyone avoiding parking lots....

One bad seed, on one trail that is abotu 2 miles long, and everyone freaks out about the thousands of hiking trails in our state alone.. People.. get a grip.

But I hear there was another body on the trail.

So you'd prefer people to stick their heads in the sand and ignore this?
Personally I'm not too freaked out about it and it wouldn't stop me from hiking that trail, however I will be a little more cautious, maybe a little more observant, and I don't see anything wrong with that.

No. I would like the police to find the people who did this, and for everyone to take the same precautions on a hike they'd take walking down the block near their house, as far as looking out for the two legged snake.

I don't avoid driving because I know there are car accidents, but I do fasten my seatbelt. Same idea.

No, we don't ignore the event but we should put it in true prespective with all the other events in our lives.

Other news stories are that four people were stabbed in Kirkland and the house set on fire, several more were shot in Skyway last night. Statictics indicate we are safer on the trail than at home or out on the streets. Why should we change our geocaching behavior based on sensational news?

And there was a cache just up the block a while back (the only reason I knew where this happened). So are we going to avoid suburban caches?

In the Kirkland murders, they have arrested the next door neighbor. In Skyway, they are now saying it may be gang-related or a holdover from a earlier arguement. Unfortunately, 95% of murders are people killing people they know. What I think prompted this discussion thread, is the fact that this (over a week later) seems VERY random. To paraphrase every murder mystery I have ever read: this case is getting cold. This also hits closer to home because we geocachers (at least I) enjoy the woods. To have this happen is disturbing. Now, the folks that shop at the Wal-mart were the kidnapping occured are also probably disturbed by that parking lot "issue." If I shopped at that Wal Mart, I would be disturbed by it. My point, people tend to identify with things they can connect with. Does anyone need to "get a grip?" I don't think so. I hike with my four year old daughter. Do I connect with a mother and daughter getting killed on a hike? Heck, yeah. Does it make me think twice abuot taking a hike? Yeah, right now it does. Should it? Probably not. Any concerns I have now, I probably should have had before.

Anyhoo, my two cents. I REALLY wish they would catch this guy. And yes, I would be one of the ones highly shocked if it was a band of female snipers.

As usual, someone has said what I was trying to communicate much more eloquently.

Here's a link to Ron Judd's article on the subject...

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/outd...trailmix20.html

The first three paragraphs communicate what I was trying to say so clumsily.

Yeah. That Lucy is quick with the camera. Got two shots of me on one face plant!


So what is it we don't agree on here. Go enjoy the trails. Have some fun in life. Keep your eyes always open. Be aware. Be safe. Live life to its fullest. Hope they nail the snake. Pray for someones loss. Agreed.

In complete agreement with the above.

Great piece thanks for sharing.

Yes, thanks for posting...it is an excellent article. My only problem with it is that it does discount "logical" reasons to be afraid. Like you said, until we know that it is not someone with "serial" intents, it is difficult to not have some fear.

I think some of the posts in this thread discount that gender, location and situational differences may result in different levels of concern about the incident.

And the comment about avoiding suburban caches is silly. We have different ways of protecting ourselves in urban/suburban areas and a significant level of isolation in wilderness areas. That being said, I am involved with a school that has classes throughout my hometown and we tell students at the beginning of each semester to always be extra careful and alert in a neigborhood that is not yours. You don't know where the hotspots are if you do not spend time there. I think the same goes for anywhere.

It's not really all that silly. You have different ways and levels of protecting yourself on the trail. You just need to think it through what it is you're protecting yourself from and how you intend to do so. Pepper spray works just as good in the woods as it does in suburbia.

Situational Awareness is the phrase taught to people who routinely go into harm's way - such as fighter pilots, young convoy / patrol drivers in Iraq, and the police; it's the acquired habit of keeping your paranoia level high enough to see threats in time to avoid them before they hurt you without going over the edge into unhealthy fear. Whether it's poison ivy, bears, bad drivers, or people on the trail - they all have subtle clues about their hazards in advance. We bumble along most days in our cars assuming everyone else on the road is as alert (or more alert) than we are, or stride down the city sidewalk or rural trail thinking everyone we meet's got the same benign attitude we're blessed with... then we encounter this kind of REALITY check!

One of the hallmarks of the human is he/she can learn from their environment. For example, regardless of what others may think about bears, I never enter the backcountry here without a firearm in ready-access position. In the same vein, having learned what it's like to be a victim, I never enter the 'frontcountry' without a tool to assist me in discouraging person(s) to go away (ranging from stick to sidearm), who may mistake me for a potential target. So, this unfortunate incident reinforces my need to be alert and prepared to deal forcefully with the admittedly remote possibility that the next fellow human I meet on the trail isn't planning to be nice to me.

Who among us has not felt uncomfortable around 'skulkers' hanging aimlessly about places we visit (hey - that sounds like a cacher!), or has not seen the evidence of the homeless population that in many cases camp out right in our favorite caching areas. Not stereotyping any one 'kind' of human - bad people are found fairly evenly distributed through the population; it's generally the males who get overtly aggressive with their 'badness'. Learn to recognize the warning signs of impending bad interactions by attending a personal defense class - it'll give you information that will increase your level of self confidence. Most of all, do not allow the 'dark' to rule your life - be 'situationally aware,' equipped for trouble avoidance, and keep on caching!

And here I thought it was just a picture of some one looking for the cache.

Investigators have reopened the Pinnacle Lake Trail, where the bodies of Seattle hikers Mary Cooper and her daughter Susanna Stodden were found on July 11.

The Snohomish County Sheriff's Office opened the two-mile trail and Pinnacle Lake Road on Friday because investigators had finished collecting evidence in the area, according to a statement released Monday.

Everett Herald Article

I think North Wes has given us all some really GOOD thoughts on all this...in fact I think his thoughts and advice have been about the best that I have read on here.

I think I personally will read this over again, and take some of your advice North Wes. You are so right when you said that we should be alert, but not to let "fear" overcome us.

Thanks for writing in..I felt you wrote this with ME in mind...

Howlingwind

Was up near there on Monday, up at upper ashland lake about 2 miles formthe pinnacle trail head.