By Wednesday, conditions had not improved and the sheriff’s office urged hikers to “think twice and heed warnings,” adding that rescue teams had responded to 14 rescue missions on Mount Baldy and the surrounding area in the last four weeks.
The rescue missions were for lost, stranded and injured hikers, two of whom did not survive after falling and injuring themselves, officials said. The recent storms brought snow and ice to the mountain, and conditions were not favorable for hikers, even those with experience, the authorities added.
Mr. Sands, a British performer who has appeared in more than 150 films and television shows, including “Arachnophobia,” “Naked Lunch,” “Warlock” and “Ocean’s Thirteen,” is known to enjoy the outdoors. He is best remembered for his starring role at 27 opposite Helena Bonham Carter in “A Room With a View,” the Oscar-nominated Merchant Ivory adaptation of E.M. Forster’s novel, which often makes lists as one of the best British films of all time.
In an interview with The Guardian in 2020, Mr. Sands said he was happiest when close to a mountain summit on a cold morning and had aspirations of climbing a remote peak in the Himalayas. He also described a time in the early 1990s when he was caught in a storm above 20,000 feet in the Andes. “We were all in a very bad way,” he said. “Some guys close to us perished; we were lucky.”
In another interview that year with Thrive Global, a company started by Arianna Huffington that provides behavior change technology, Mr. Sands said that he had spent time in mountain ranges in North America and Europe.
Mr. Sands said that people who don’t climb mountains assume it’s about a “great heroic sprint” to the summit and an ego.
“But actually, it’s the reverse,” he said. “It’s about supplication and sacrifice and humility, when you go to these mountains. It’s not so much a celebration of oneself, but the eradication of one’s self consciousness. And so on these walks you lose yourself, you become a vessel of energy in harmony, hopefully with your environment.”
