Search and rescue called after visitors get lost looking for swimming hole

If you want to find a place in the rugged Stanislaus National Forest, or anywhere else in the steepridged, deep-canyon Central Sierra backcountry, don’t rely on your mobile phone maps app.

For example, from downtown Sonora your phone might tell you the fastest way to Tioga Road in Yosemite National Park is down to Murderers Gulch via Wards Ferry Road. That’s laughable, especially if you get stuck or crash, and have to call for help.

If you want to find a popular swimming hole, your phone might take you down a road so rough it’ll wreck your vehicle and you’ll have to call for help. That’s what happened the other day to people who were trying to drive to the local legend called God’s Bath, on the granite-bedded, slickrock Clavey River.

Someone with the Tuolumne County Sheriff’s Search & Rescue team posted about it Monday afternoon, and said, “Our team just concluded a mission for subjects in a disabled vehicle that followed what their iphone gave them for directions.”

The unidentified visitors tried to get to God’s Bath on poorly maintained formerly paved and dirt roads from Highway 108, even though online searches provide multiple maps that show the place is a short distance from paved Cottonwood Road, also known as Forest Road 1N04.

The visitors were in a vehicle that couldn’t handle the route their phone showed them. They kept going anyway and their vehicle sustained significant damage and became disabled, sheriff’s search-andrescue communications staff said.

They eventually had to call 911 for help. A deputy responded and saw two more vehicles on the same route, trying to reach God’s Bath.

“If you are on a dirt road, you have taken the wrong route,” sheriff’s searchand-rescue communications staff said. “If you are going through Long Barn, you have taken the wrong route.”

Sheriff’s search-and-rescue communications staff did not say exactly when the incident occurred. They did not explain how many search-and-rescue staff responded, or whether a tow truck was called out to get the stranded visitors’ vehicle.

“If you are thinking about a trip to God's Bath, please don't use Apple Maps,” sheriff’s search-and-rescue communications staff said. “The correct route to the trail head is a long and winding paved road, the hike into the Bath is steep and difficult.”