Hiker missing for a month is found dead on Southern California peak

A hiker who had been missing for a month was found dead near the summit of Southern California’s Mount Islip.

Robert Gregory, 61, an experienced hiker from Hawthorne, did not return from his Jan. 16 solo outing in the San Gabriel Mountains.  He had posted an itinerary for a hike from the Windy Gap trailhead — where his pickup truck was found — to 8,250-foot Islip, his family said.

A helicopter crew recovered his body Friday, Feb. 17, from a snowy slope about 300 feet below Islip’s summit, the San Bernardino sheriff’s office said. The cause of death has not been determined.

The search for Gregory coincided with that for actor Julian Sands, 65, who went missing Jan. 13 in the area of Mount Baldy, 12 miles southeast of Islip. Sands has not been found.

From mid-December to mid-January, more than a dozen rescue operations were called for hikers in the San Gabriel Mountains, which had received heavy snowfall. In addition to Gregory and Sands, authorities have reported these:

• Jin Chung, 75, of North Hollywood, was found alive Jan. 24, two days after he went missing on Mount Baldy. He was able to walk out on his own. Chung had separated from his companions and failed to meet them back at the trailhead.

• Crystal Paul Gonzalez-Landas, 56, of Covina, suffered fatal injuries Jan. 8 in a fall of about 500 feet on Mount Baldy. Another hiker used the SOS function on a GPS unit to call a helicopter crew. Gonzalez-Landas, an experienced hiker, was pronounced dead at the scene.

• Jarret Choi, 43, of Los Angeles, went missing Dec. 28 on the Ice House Canyon trail, a few miles southeast of Baldy. His body was found two days later at Ice House Saddle, two miles from his destination of Cucamonga Peak. It was determined he had suffered fatal injuries in a fall of about 300 feet on an icy slope.