Facing Evan Tanner: 'Then he was gone'

"I plan on going so deep into the desert that any failure of my equipment could cost me my life."

Those were the words Evan Tanner wrote in his MySpace blog before taking off for his trip into the desert. Gerard Roxburgh believes that all fighters are risk takers, and Tanner was no different.

"They have to be able to compartmentalize and not think about their own health and safety," Roxburgh said. "It’s essentially cognitive dissonance that you have to be able to recognize.”

With that in mind, it's probably no surprise what Tanner had planned to do. He purchased a dirt bike and headed out to Palo Verde in September of 2008. He intended to hike five miles out to Clapp Spring and refill his water bottles to give himself enough to make it back to his campsite. He planned the trip over the summer and expressed confidence in his itinerary the night before he left.

"Tomorrow I go out into the desert," Tanner wrote in his blog. "It has taken over a month to get all the gear together. The preparation for this adventure took far longer than I had expected. I’ve never done this before, so I took my time reading books, studying the land and researching gear. A few weeks of solitude in the deep desert, and then back to civilization, and back to training.”

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Though everyone in his personal life didn't think much about the trip, there were concerns raised online by media outlets. Tanner seemed to embody that risk taker persona in his blog response on Aug. 27.

"It seems some MMA websites have reported on the story, posting up that I might die out in the desert, or that it might be my greatest opponent yet," Tanner wrote. "It's really common down in Southern California to go out to the off-road recreation areas in the desert about an hour away from LA and San Diego. So my plan is to go out to the desert, do some camping, ride the motorcycle, and shoot some guns...This isn't a version of 'Into the Wild.'"

So, off Tanner went, riding into Palo Verde on September 3, 2008. Sometime late September 4 or early September 5, Evan Tanner was dead.

I need help

Those were the final words of Evan Tanner, found in an unsent text message on his phone. It's not known who the text was intended for.

Tanner said he'd planned the trip for months, and Ryan Schultz and others noted he bought plenty of gear for the trek. Bobby Razak noted, however, the hike was extraordinarily dangerous.

“I made the (same) hike and prepared for five months," Razak said. "I hiked maybe 100 miles a week, and nothing prepared me for it. It blew me away, it was so dangerous.”

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Razak covered the events of Tanner's death in his documentary "1" and even took the same trip that Tanner did in a follow-up film where he was accompanied by search and rescue experts. Tanner's plan to refill his water bottles at Clapp Spring was flawed from the beginning, as the spring was usually dry as was the case when he arrived there.

“At Clapp Springs," Tanner texted a friend on September 3. "Almost out of water. Will try and hike back to camp 5 miles south and east of Flat Top Mtns after sundown...If you don’t hear from me by 8 am, call for help.”

The time stamp read 3:26 p.m. Temperatures that day reached 118 degrees. At one point, he managed to get a call to Wade Goldstein.

“He called me while he was out there and said, ‘Wade I’m surprised I’m getting a signal,’" Goldstein said. "I said, ‘What are you doing?’ He said, ‘I think I’m dying of thirst.’ I was trying to call to him, but it was a bad connection and we couldn’t hear each other. I kept calling and calling and calling and I couldn’t get it.”

According to the GPS search and rescue found on Tanner, he eventually made his way up a small hill before climbing back down, and up again. Forensic pathologist Daryl Garber speculated in Razak's film that Tanner had become so dehydrated he likely started hallucinating and was unaware of his travel habits by this time. There would've been no saving him from heat exposure at that point.

Tanner took one last photo of himself on his cell phone, according to Razak's film. Though search and rescue operator Jeff Green noted he looked like a shell of himself, Tanner likely wasn't aware from his fractured mental state. Green speculated he wanted to take one last photo for his loved ones to remember him by.

On the morning of Sept. 4, Goldstein and others alerted the authorities who began a rescue search. Evan Tanner's body was found four days later on September 8 in a state of rapid decomposition. He died of heat exposure at the age of 38.

Why?

That's the question Luis Duarte, Elvis Sinosic and others had when they learned of Tanner's death. Renzo Aspparia said he cried when he heard the news.

“I was doing a radio show and someone told me, ‘Turn on TMZ,’" Deana Epperson said. "There it was on the screen: ‘Evan Tanner missing in the desert.’ I kept scrolling and found out he was gone.”

Johnny Hannay found out from CNN. His devastation was compounded by not having the friend he normally turned to in dire times.

"He was always calling me to make sure I was okay, and now that guy who was always there checking on me was gone," he said. "It was just really surreal. It was one of the hardest days of my life."

Of course, as hard as it was for those who knew him, the news wasn't entirely unexpected either, as Ryan Schultz and Matt Lindland noted.

“It wasn’t a surprise, but it was a feeling of sadness," Lindland said. "It’s a shame to lose anyone like that.”

Some speculated whether or not Tanner had been drinking again and if that contributed to his demise. Though his BAC was estimated to be at .08, that level is consistent with his state of decomposition. There was no alcohol found at his campsite, either.

"I had no reason to believe he was drinking again," Hannay said. "No one has ever provided me with any evidence that would lead me to believe that he was."

There was further speculation that Tanner may have planned the trip as a suicide mission. No one the Amarillo Globe-News spoke to believed that to be the case, but this is once again a time where the details of Tanner's life get a bit complicated.

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"I understand there’s a point where you’re not suicidal but you don't really want to live anymore as someone with depression," Hannay said. "It’s not exactly the same thing. I don’t think Evan would have hurt himself, because he’d think he’d let people down. I think it’s possible he could’ve put himself in a dangerous situation and just said, ‘We’ll see what happens.’”

Roxburgh concurred.

"Do I think he went out there with the intention of killing himself?" Roxburgh said. "No, I do not. Do I think he would’ve inevitably put himself in one situation or another that he would have ultimately died in, sure. Can you say that’s suicidal behavior? I guess that depends on how you define it. I would say that it showed a lack of concern for your own well being.”

However, there were others who strongly believed Tanner's death just to be a tragic accident. Asparria believed he had too much to live for. Schultz and Epperson noted his attempts to get help and the preparation he put into his journey. Ian Dawe simply felt that wasn't the Evan Tanner he knew.

“I think a lot of the people who felt like Evan may have wanted to die knew him when he was at his lowest," Dawe said. "At that time, he was so open about his struggles. … The Evan I knew was so optimistic and eager for the future. He had planned for everything that weekend. I don’t think he’d put the effort in for the future if he wasn’t intending to come back. I think this was an adventure that just went horribly wrong.”

Regardless of rational or reasoning, Tanner was gone. He left behind a complex legacy that's still being talked about 15 years after his passing. It's a legacy we'll go over in our conclusion where we attempt to find the answer to "Who was Evan Tanner?"

EDITORS NOTE: This is part four of a five part series. The conclusion will be published tomorrow.

This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: UFC champion Evan Tanner's final days before his death