The Valley of Death can become a trap. Like other places in the American South West that attract tourists, campers, hikers. It doesn’t matter if you are prepared or for an adventure: the territory and the climate allow few margins. on April 4. Alexander Lofgren, 32, a former soldier and assistant to deputy Raul Grijalva, decides to go trekking with his wife Emily in Death Valley. They are aboard their Subaru, driving along a dirt road, marked on the maps of the park. But they don’t come back, no one has any news of them, their cell phones are silent, partly because the network coverage is poor. Family and friends alert the authorities, the Inyo County Sheriff, the rangers. The searches begin.
On day 8, a team finds the car along a dirt road. On board a note that reads: Two flat tires, we continue to Mormon Point, we have enough water for three days. Alexander, as an experienced veteran, with missions abroad, leaves indications, aware that someone will come looking for them. The couple, instead of going back along the path followed up to that moment, moves to the west. The idea is to slip into Willow Creek, a very narrow canyon, closed between rocks, and then reach the 178 that leads north, towards the famous Zabriskie Point, about 60 kilometers away.
E sar in this gorge that a helicopter spots the missing. in a difficult spot. They can’t even descend with the winch. They return to the area the next day – April 9 -, around 10.30 in the morning they finally reach Emily who provides a first account of the drama. Her foot was injured, she needed treatment and then her husband decided to go ahead in the hope of finding help. Not for gone far. His desperate attempt stopped in an inaccessible area: Rescue teams find him lifeless. At the moment it is not clear what the causes of death were. If the heat – it was about 38 degrees -, a disastrous fall, sudden complications or something else.
The woman has been transferred to a nearby military hospital and will be able to provide investigators with all the information they need to close the case. Unfortunately, this is not a rare story. In 1996 a family of German tourists, father, mother and two children, vanished into thin air. A mystery that lasted until 2009 when some of their remains were found in Death Valley. They had ventured with a van on a track suitable only for a 4×4 but had been forced to abandon the vehicle due to a breakdown. And they would be then died while wandering in the desert with limited supplies and little water. A story on which reconstructions and theories have continued to turn.
April 14, 2021 (change April 14, 2021 | 19:07)
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