Missing hiker (Monica Reza)

[SideQuestHiker]

Does anyone here know when heat sensitive/FLIR equipment was first used in the search? Were they able to use it the day she went missing, or not until the next day? If not until the next day, and Monica died soon after going missing, then the next day would probably be too late to find a body's remaining heat signature after laying out in the cool mountain air all night. Especially someone her size.

[SideQuestHiker]

Does anyone here know when heat sensitive/FLIR equipment was first used in the search?

Hmm. I found one clue here https://rmru.org/2025-024/ that says night vision goggles were used on the day she disappeared.

"Sunday, 6/22 – Operational Period 1

...Teams from Montrose, LA Sheriffs and LA Fire worked tirelessly that night searching on the ground and via helicopter equipped with night vision goggles until 2am, but unfortunately, they were unsuccessful in finding Monica."

And another clue in a post by RH dated Nov 30, 2025 that mentions FLIR helicopters the morning after she disappeared.

There were FLIR helicopters the first morning after she disappeared and they only located a bear and other searchers with their thermal radar.

Not sure how "night vision goggles" compare to FLIR. Probably not as good.

[SideQuestHiker]

New article from LA Magazine has some more details that reportedly come from family members.

https://lamag.com/news/exclusive-for-mo ... ake-sense/

[HikeUp]

In these cases I'm a firm believer in Squatchy's Law: when in doubt, blame Squatch!

The least celebrated member of the UAP stable.

[Tob]

Also, Barbara was apparently leading her partner on the hike, while Monica was the follower...

The Bolick case is different in that it was the leader who disappeared. So if we believe the follower, then something very strange happened to Bolick to cause her to disappear from the familiar trail. Maybe she had a stroke, got confused and wandered off into the unknown.

That is an excellent point, that Barb was the hike leader and Monica was not. I mean Jim was an expert hiker but he was not familiar with the specific trail they were on in Montana, no. I assume Subject A is the more experienced hiker or at least in this instance. I do recognize that there are key differences but I admittedly never considered the "structure" of the hike as far as who lead to effort, but you're right it undoubtedly plays into the overall dynamic between the two hikers to consider.

Okay see I wasn't aware of Monica's lack of familiarity with Mt. Waterman, I guess I thought she was. But if not, yes absolutely another great point.

As far as Barbara having a stroke and wandering off, I could certainly see that but if it was something like that, then Jim's claims about his timing is off. According to him, his head was turned for less than a minute and as he turned back towards Barb who was only 30 feet away from him, she vanished. That isn't enough time in my opinion for someone to be completely out of sight if they were not literally trying to be imo, but maybe I am wrong. I guess another important distinction to consider is according to their recounting of events Jim was stationary when Barb disappeared and Subject A was not when he lost track of Monica (although they were both moving in the same direction reportedly.)

I could certainly fathom that scenario where Monica gets lost as a result of Subject A pulling too far ahead and now after the fact he doesn't want to be completely honest about the specific details from that day because he doesn't want to admit it out of fear of looking like he abandoned her potentially.

I guess the part I just struggle with (admittedly as someone with very little hiking experience myself) is how none of the searchers were able to hear her or see Monica in the hours after she went missing. Of course beyond that, the sheer absence after all this time of Monica a body or blood or clothing remnants (aside from her hat) or ground disturbance is likewise puzzling.

So with that let me ask you guys this:

If the key to fully understanding a missing person's case like Monica's and perhaps Barb before her is a question of hiking experience in terms of making sense of where their bodies are, or could be, assuming they both met their respective demises on those respective mountains, is there like a top five list or three or whatever regarding their fates that the untrained eye wouldn't consider as far as the explanation for what happened or at least where their remains are?

I know are differences in terrain to consider (and I hope I'm not being too graphic here) but for Monica some have mentioned looking under rocks and under dirt and things like that. For Barb people have suggested she may have fell off the steep cliff and as opposed to falling to the base of the mountain she somehow became lodged inside a crevice on the way down.

What other suggestions might make sense?

[Tob]

Older women are very susceptible to Urinary Tract Infections (UTS). UTIs can also induce a form of delirium.

Never thought of this but its interesting.

The only thing I would say is that with something like urosepsis, the onset of confusion is typically gradual in retrospect but it might seem to others as sudden in real time, so it's a certainly a fair point to consider. I guess I would want to know from the people closest to the individual in question if they noticed any odd behavior leading up to the disappearances because looking back there should be signs of slight confusion like illogical flow of ideas or just strange behavior in general.

[Tob]

Speaking of which, didn't a girl get left behind on Iron Mountain a couple years ago?

Yes, Maria Tice...

Interesting. Never heard of this case. Thank you.

[Sean]

According to him, his head was turned for less than a minute and as he turned back towards Barb who was only 30 feet away from him, she vanished.

According to the archived article I read, it was "maybe a minute." At a normal pace, Barbara could have walked the distance of a football field in that time. Then they could have remained that distance apart for some time until something happened to her.

I could certainly fathom that scenario where Monica gets lost as a result of Subject A pulling too far ahead and now after the fact he doesn't want to be completely honest about the specific details from that day because he doesn't want to admit it out of fear of looking like he abandoned her potentially.

That's sort of the issue, isn't it? And now we have the new map from the new article, which puts Monica's last known position a full quarter mile from the turn. Well, that's not 30 feet or 30 yards. So maybe the new map is wrong, or maybe we don't really know her last known position, because He Who Shall Not Be Named hasn't been clear, and isn't around to correct the record.

I guess the part I just struggle with (admittedly as someone with very little hiking experience myself) is how none of the searchers were able to hear her or see Monica in the hours after she went missing.

You might be amazed at how quickly a person can become delirious and weak from heat stroke, dehydration, lack of food, heart attack, etc. When you're delirious you might not even think to shout out for help, and when you're dehydrated it's hard to raise your voice and think clearly. I've been very dehydrated, and I could barely talk or chew, let alone shout or focus on anything but getting water.

I just watched a movie called Lost on a Mountain in Maine, based on the true story of Donn Felder. Donn got lost in the fog and freezing cold when he was twelve, but he remembered his father telling him that in such a situation he should find a river and follow it, because rivers lead to civilization. So Donn descended to a river. He then had water but no food. By some miracle, on the ninth day, he crawled toward an occupied cabin and was rescued from near death.

If Monica made it to a stream (and there are two major watersheds south of Waterman Mountain), she could have walked some distance along the bottom of a canyon. But I doubt she had the ability to make it back to civilization.

If the key to fully understanding a missing person's case like Monica's and perhaps Barb before her is a question of hiking experience in terms of making sense of where their bodies are, or could be, assuming they both met their respective demises on those respective mountains, is there like a top five list or three or whatever regarding their fates that the untrained eye wouldn't consider as far as the explanation for what happened or at least where their remains are?

We have amazing SAR groups in Los Angeles, and they usually cover all the bases. Still, if someone wanders off the trail and dies behind a tree, in some brush, or under a rock, they might never be found, or might only be found much later by accident. But some people don't think about staying put and in the open when they're lost, because they panic or get dehydrated and don't think straight.

Now the untrained or inexperienced person won't think of a lot of things, based on how untrained and inexperienced they are. There are levels to this. For example, you didn't consider the leader-follower dynamic, which might play a role in speculating what happened and which direction to look first. When you're dealing with bad leadership and bad following all around, it's kind of a shitshow, but at least SAR had a witness and the beanie to go on. You should go by the available evidence and ask what possibilities fit with the clues. Given knowledge of the terrain and trail system, it kind of points to her dropping to water and expiring somewhere in a big canyon, with lots of holes and crevices. Monica's basic psychology and skills might also be a factor. If she didn't have the mentality for a hike leader, she probably wasn't prepared with the necessary knowledge, tools and supplies for survival on her own in such a place as the Angeles National Forest, and if she found herself exhausted, deep in the watershed, then she was definitely in a lot of trouble.

[SideQuestHiker]

The new LA Magazine article says Hiker C went back to her car rather than waiting at the bottom of the steep section. The source sited is a family member. I commented on this discrepancy on reddit and got some replies from trailangel4 (long time reddit member) that backs up the claim Hiker C went back to her car.

trailangel4 - Yeah. Can confirm. That was the story in the early days of the search. Hiker C initially stated that after wandering around at the separation point, they returned to the vehicle.

I think if Hiker C returned to the car it changes the timeline of how long Monica continued alone up on the trail. Hiker A would need to go all the way back to the car to inform Hiker C that Monica was missing. Also, the video and timeline says Hiker A and C were together when they met up with the 5 other hikers. Where did this meeting happen? Down at the parking lot? That's not the story told in the FB video or the written timeline.

The timeline presented in the Facebook video posted back in July, 2025, and fleshed out in the written timeline posted by RH in Aug, 2025 says:

9:15am – “A” is back at LKP to search “200 yards” west on ridge and “125 feet” south of LKP
9:40am – “A” goes down to tell “C” at bottom of steep section. They run into a group of five hikers (including a former SAR) ascending the trail. The group of five and “A” head back up to LKP while “C” stays at bottom of steep section.
10:00am – the six hikers search around the ridge and boulders for 30 minutes.
10:30am – the former SAR member tells “A” to return to car and trigger SOS signal.
10:52am – “A” triggers SOS signal.

Given the change in the facts (i.e. Hiker C went back to the car), are the times listed above still accurate? How were the times determined? The video doesn't give specific times, just some durations (e.g. after 25 minutes...).

The key time is when Hiker A and the 5 other hikers made it back up to the ridgeline and resumed searching. If it was later when they got back up there, because Hiker A had to come further down the hill to meet Hiker C, then Monica could have travelled further than first thought and that could help explain why Monica didn't hear them calling out to her.

[EDIT - Actually, probably an even more important time is when Hiker A first went back on his own to look for Monica. I can no longer believe he went 150' down the trail, waited 5 minutes, then went back up and did an initial search. I think I debunked that fairly well in my Part 2 video. It's more likely he just continued much further down the trail before starting to wait. This would mean more time going down, then more time going back up. All this extra time means Monica could have been further away by the time he got back up to do the initial searching.]

Thoughts?

[Tob]

I too have considered the mountain lion angle for Monica's circumstances. According to the data, just like I came to the realization with Barb, it's important to acknowledge at least statistically this scenario is very unlikely.



Its certainly not impossible but when you consider no body being discovered after 10 months, no blood and other than just a hat left behind, no real bodily remnants or clothing articles or obvious indications a struggle of any kind took place etc. it doesn't seem this is the obvious answer. However with this point, again like I have said in my earlier posts I'm here to learn from seasoned hikers about the likelihood of a body being hidden from plain view on a mountainous hiking trail. I'm definitely open to being convinced its much more realistic than I would have imagined.

One thing I do wonder is if at some point along her descent down Mt Waterman, Monica became acutely aware in the moment of an imminent THREAT that was potentially posed of opportune animal attack. Perhaps that could explain a illogical deviation in her route from the trail?

I guess that sort of implies that in the amount of time that her hiking partner pulled forward, an animal like a puma or a bear saw her distance separate from a bigger, more readily identifiable male companion (and theoretically) it then decided to make their presence be known. I mean isn't that kinda what the apex predator mountain lion is sort of known to do? Stalk their pray and then when they feel circumstances are optimal for a successful attack, they zero in?

My understanding (and I admit this is more along the lines of lore/heresay) is that mountain lions are known for dropping down from trees above and with the rare instances they do actually decide to attack kill and they go for the jugular in a way to where by the time they strike and you are aware, "its already too late." Furthermore they tend to almost seemingly retreat if they do lock eyes on a human once they conclude that the conditions for a true sneak attack are NOT optimal, which is why in a lot of these mountain lion encounter videos you see posted on the internet these lions appear to approach initially but then they just eventually back off or turn around altogether.