In the light of our recent discoveries about Raj's spot, I think we should be able for now to try to find Ty's location, despite of the poor clues he left behind him.
1- For that, we have to give some credits to what Ty's said about his location:
"[...]
i was on a mountain biking trip with 7 others riders that i often ride with in the Big Basin area near Saratoga, CA.[...]"
2- According to Ty's testimony, the shoots were taken on June 5th, i-e the same day as Stephen.
3- On the left side of the shoots, one can see a tree that was identified by Numbers to be probably a "Pacific Madrone". ("
Arbutus menziesii")
4- Ty said
"i was on a mountain biking trip".
5- The shoots seems to be taken on an open place, without lots of trees above the riders.
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According to Spf33 calculations, here's where the drone should be:
Firstly, I began to draw a large area where I think Ty and his riders group was:
Secondly, I searched a full profile of the "Pacific Madrone"
hereThis website provides excellent infos about the plants distribution
here and
here, unfortunately not so accurate for our research.
Here's another site with a very complete profile of the "Pacific Madrone", including a native range map, and an associated cover forest list.
Extract: "
Pacific madrone is a major component of the forest cover type Douglas-fir-Tanoak-Pacific Madrone[...]"
Another extract: "Flowering and Fruiting- Flowers of Pacific madrone are small, whitish, perfect, and urn-shaped. They are borne in dense racemes of terminal panicles.
Madrone flowers in mid-March at lower elevations with warm temperatures, and in mid-May at higher elevations. Flowering usually ends in June."
Finally,
here's a great complete site with a counties map distribution, with an observation summary of all the points that one can see on a detailed map:
POINT N°17:
"On upper 1/3 of sidehill" of
Mount BeliawskiPOINT N°18:
Castle Rock State Park
(Note that all the Long/Lat are wrong in the datas above.)
Thirdly, I also have (don't ask me how I was able do get them, I don't remember!
)
the whole USGS PDF maps of the area including Geotools.
The interesting thing is that on the south sidehill, there's a lack of coverage trees, at the same place where the Madrone tree is referenced, and closely to the Summit road:CONCLUSION:My guess is that Ty's pictures were taken probably along the summit road (or maybe near "Camp Saratoga, Highway 9), in a place where there were no trees coverage, not too far from Stephen's place, and most likely around Mount Beliawski, where the presence of the "Pacific Madrone" is reported:
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For the record, some interesting views of the Pacific Madrone:
