Hiker went missing and cops had no leads—until one man's 'very weird hobby' cracked the case

The hiker's phone's battery was about to die and it was cold and dark. All the police had was one photo of his legs.

PUBLISHED 10 HOURS AGO

(L) A man hiking through rocky mountains. (R) An officer looking for someone with a torch. Representative Cover Image Source: Getty Images | Pekic; Sythetic-Exposition

A seemingly useless pastime might turn out to be life-altering for a person. A hiker experienced that because his rescue happened due to a stranger's weird hobby. The man, Rene Compean, went missing during a hike and the one way the police had to find him was a photo he had sent to a friend before getting lost. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department started asking hikers with experience around the Mount Waterman area of the San Gabriel Mountains and one of them had a strange but helpful trick up his sleeve, per NBC Los Angeles.

A hiker walking around in a rainforest. Representative Image Source: Getty Images | Ippei Naoi

The authorities showed the pictures to hikers in the area in hopes that they would be able to help them deduce the location. "They were worried for the missing hiker since it was getting dark and cold. They searched throughout the night without success and a new team was assembled first thing this morning to continue the search," the Facebook post from Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department read. The man hadn't turned on the "location" on his phone, so the police couldn't get his location code from the photo either. The police also circulated the photo in the media and on social media in hopes that someone would be able to tell them where the place was.

An officer looking at evidence to find a missing person. Representative Image Source: Getty Images | Lerexis

The department was informed that the man's phone was dying at the time he sent the photo and they had no hopes of contacting him. The original post from the department observed that the person's legs were dangling from a canyon area and looked dirty, either from mud or burn marks. Compean's car was near the Buckhorn Campground, 25 miles northeast of Downtown Los Angeles, per NBC Boston. Nobody knew which trail the 46-year-old took from there. The weather had also turned very cloudy the day after the man went missing, but the department was able to find him late Tuesday because of the help they got from a man, Benjamin Kuo.

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"I've got a very weird hobby, which is, I love taking a look at photos and figuring out where they're taken," Kuo told the outlet. He responded to the social media post and informed the department about the co-ordinates of the man's possible location. "This was a good clue and it was worth investigation," Sgt. John Gilbert with LASD's Crescenta Valley Station, pointed out. "So that's when we asked our Air Rescue 5 to go and check out that area and see if they saw anything, lo and behold, we were able to find him." Kuo and Compean met each other virtually after Compean's rescue.

"I crazy appreciate what you did...I really don't know if I could make it there another day. It was just so cold," the hiker told Kuo. "From the image in the background below your shoes, I was able to figure out where you were — pretty close," the man responded. Compean explained that he might have gotten lost because of the recent wildfires in the area that might have burned down some of the signs, prompting him to take a wrong turn. Kuo tracked wildfires as a hobby through satellite images and hence could help save the man's life. "LASD wants to thank everyone who pulled together and helped us find Rene safe and sound so quickly," the department wrote in their post.