Did you see this?
http://www.otherhand.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/JT45.south_.slope_.routes.jpg
It's a giant photo of the NE slopes of Smith Water with search routes drawn in. In addition, I took one trip down the ridge west of the "odor location," but that doesn't change the equation much.
On other fronts:
I still think the NE Smith Water theory holds up the best. We've got a guy who loves hiking who says "I'm going hiking." We find his vehicle at a trailhead. We get a ping from his cellphone at a distance from the cell tower that corresponds to NE Smith Water. NE Smith Water makes a certain amount of sense for an ambitious hiker from the trailhead where his vehicle was found. Yeah, there could be foul play or even, God forbid, space aliens, but the simplest explanation is usually the one that's best.
The fact that Bill hasn't been found is no indication that the theory is incorrect. Recall missing Adventurer Steve Fossett's case. Did the largest search ever in US history find him? No. It was a random hiker who chanced across some items that had drifted down from the crash site. And Fossett's crash site was near the very popular resort town of Mammoth, CA and near the popular destination of Devil's Postpile National Monument. Fossett was also near the trail to Minaret Lake, a very popular hiking destination.
Minaret Lake:
Had Fossett crashed in a less popular area, he'd likely still be missing. Fossett had a stinkin' plane for crying out loud, and they still couldn't find him. Bill on the other hand was just a guy with a little backpack.
I'm not faulting the searchers here; I'm trying to make a point: It's hard to find a person in a rugged location. You could walk 20 feet away from where Bill is lying and not know it if there were a large rockpile separating you.
In my dad's case, he was found nine days after his death, again, by a random hiker, not by the large organized search and rescue effort. His gear wasn't found until 2 or 3 years later, again, by a random hiker. Interestingly, in the case of my father, his gear was not scattered. His gear was pretty tightly concentrated behind a log.
Speaking of rocks, there are plenty in the area where Bill went missing:
And there are plenty of hidey holes in those rocks.
I think that with the heightened confidence in the ping data that we've got the first fairly solid theory that we've had for a while. No offense, but some of the other theories were a bit of a stretch (of course, what else did we have to go on?). I think people getting out there and looking is the right course of action. In the case of both Steve Fossett and my dad, it was a random hiker who found them, not a trained SAR person.
I'm working an awful lot right now, but maybe I can get out there on a Saturday this month. I don't have a GPS though, and while I don't think they're necessary for just general hiking, they're all but essential for a search, particularly for a search in a area with so many nooks and crannies. Again, you can pass 20 feet from Bill's position and not spot him. In order to know weather a given location has been searched, you've got to have GPS (well, unless you're going to put marker flags out there on the ground in each and every spot you check).
HJ