Body of Missing Bicyclist Is Found

The body of a missing Occidental College student was found Wednesday in a muddy debris basin above Devil’s Gate Dam, five miles downstream from where his bicycle was discovered.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Altadena Mountain Rescue team found Nathan Cook about 20 yards east of a stream in Oak Grove Park next to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Sgt. David Halm said.

Cook vanished while mountain biking in the rain-drenched mountains above Altadena over the weekend. His body was identified Wednesday by his father, college officials said.

“It looks like, based on where the body is, he was washed down,” Halm said. “He was covered by trees and other debris.” Sheriff’s homicide detectives do not suspect foul play based on their initial investigation, he said.

Cook, 20, an Oregon native, left the liberal arts campus in Eagle Rock shortly after midday Saturday, heading for the popular mountain bike trails in the Angeles National Forest that his friends say he loved so much.

He was reported missing Monday after friends found his car at the beginning of the Gabrielino Trail near JPL.

Searchers from the U.S. Forest Service and the Sheriff’s Department soon found his mountain bike, glasses and helmet with its strap broken about five miles from where he entered the trail, said Sheriff’s Deputy Michael Irving.

Cook’s parents arrived from Warrenton, Ore., and learned of their son’s fate Wednesday at the Altadena sheriff’s station. They declined to speak to reporters after the body was discovered. An award-winning biology major, Cook was in his junior year at Occidental, where he had been doing independent study.

Investigators suspect Cook was a victim of the weekend’s torrential rains. Search and rescue officials reported seeing water lines on trees in the mountains well above the height of a person’s head near where the bike was found. Such levels indicate that there may have been a flash flood, officials said.

Halm said the rain turned a stream near JPL into raging waters several feet deep that swept the man downstream.

“Based on the damage to [nearby] trees,” Halm said, “the body could have been under three feet of water.”