Originally Posted by
Gordy
Those cliffs are near vertical, so back of valley or top on Kokee are almost same thing. A typical tour route, (I have flown this route thousands of times), would have you cross the front of the valley then right turn towards the back wall and do a left descending turn in the valley and come out the front. So pure guess work, he may have hit the back wall, but pure speculation at this point.
Yeah, I'm very familiar with the area too. I just mentioned that it appeared to be at the top of the cliffs in response to your comment regarding ELT coverage. Either way, it makes for a very sombre day.