A tragedy for sure. They were experienced desert campers, and being from southern Arizona they are used to the heat, but unprepared for Death Valley.
I’m not clear on where their Subaru was found. I’ve been into Gold Valley to the end of the road at Willow Creek, and I doubt it made it over the summit from Greenwater Valley as that road, though not technical, I’d consider way to rough for a Subaru.
Given that, I’d think that today that they would have had a good chance for a cell phone signal. In late October, 2002, I camped for two nights and spent three days exploring the Greenwater townsites and Gold Valley. I camped atop a prominent set of tailings at Furnace the first night, at the Ramsey townsite of Greenwater the second night. I had a strong cell phone signal both nights and placed several phone calls without dropped calls.
In any case, they unfortunately made a deadly choice of direction to go for help. As mentioned, they could have simply made an easy walk back to the Dante’s View road, or ten miles south to CA178 or 17 miles into Shoshone. I don’t know if they had any reference to determine their elevation, but to drop over 5,000 feet in elevation loss between the summit between Greenwater and Gold Valley to Mormon Point in a short horizontal distance equal a severely steep slope and slow going at best, a technical rope work challenge at worst.
