Julian Sands’ love for mountain climbing brought him close to death before

For British actor Julian Sands, who went missing Friday while hiking near Mount Baldy in the San Gabriel Mountains east of Los Angeles, nearing the summit of a mountain “on a bright cold morning” brought him his greatest happiness.

In a 2020 interview, the 65-year-old actor known for “A Room With a View,” TV’s “24” and “Arachnophobia,” spoke poetically about his love of climbing — in the Alps, the Andes or in the mountains near his home in Los Angeles. Sands said climbing wasn’t about ego or a “great heroic sprint for the summit.” Rather, he said, it’s “about supplication and sacrifice and humility,” “the eradication of one’s self consciousness,” and finding harmony with the environment.

But Sands’ love of climbing also brought him close to death once before, as he told The Guardian in 2020. It was in the early 1990s, he said: “In the Andes, caught in an atrocious storm above 20,000 feet with three others. We were all in a very bad way. Some guys close to us perished; we were lucky.”

Sands’ family and friends, including people in the entertainment industry, hope he’ll be lucky again. However, he’s been missing for six days since ascending the 10,068-foot mountain, about 40 miles east of Los Angeles, in what the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department has called “extremely dangerous” winter weather conditions. In the past four weeks, two other hikers have died in falls on or near Mount Baldy, and the sheriff’s search and rescue team has launched 14 rescue missions on the mountain and in surrounding areas.

“Due to the high winds, the snow has turned to ice making hiking extremely dangerous,” the sheriff’s department said. “Sheriff’s search and rescue efforts are often hampered by poor weather along with dangerous avalanche conditions. The recent storms that brought the snow and ice conditions are not favorable for hikers, even those that feel they have a high level of experience.”

Sands was reported missing by his family around 7:30 p.m. Friday, and a car, believed to belong to “The Killing Fields” actor, was found Wednesday evening, the Daily Mail reported. On Thursday, Sands’ three adult children joined in a ground search for their father, with Sands’ son Henry reportedly retracing the route his father is believed to have taken, along with the assistance of an experienced climber.

Nighttime temperatures in the area have remained in the the mid-20s over the past week, Variety reported. As the sheriff’s department said, deputies had to abandon a ground search for Sands on Saturday as a storm moved in, and it has not been safe to send teams back out on the ground since. Instead, they’ve been using helicopters and drones in their search.

It hasn’t yet been reported whether search teams know which route Sands was following. Others who’ve hiked on Mount Baldy, also known as Mount San Antonio, have written about the risks of trying to summit the mountain in the winter. On his Trail to Peak blog, Drew Robinson said winter adventurers might try the “steep and challenging Baldy Bowl route.” But he said, “I cannot stress enough the importance of safety on this route. Do not attempt this hike without the proper gear and training. You should at the very least have an ice axe and crampons. You may also want to consider a helmet.”

A woman who was trekking along the Baldy Bowl trail died Jan. 8, five days before Sands went missing, when she slid on ice and fell from an estimated 500- to 700-foot-high ledge, CBS Los Angeles reported. Crystal Paula Gonzalez had documented her hike up Mount Baldy on Facebook, detailing the dangerous conditions as a column of ice rolled downhill past her. The mother of four decided it was so unsafe she decided to turn back but then she fell and hit a tree.