Well, this was a freakin' ordeal.
I tried to retrieve it the next day (Sunday, 4/29/17) at about 10:30am.
The foliage was a lot thicker than it appeared in the satellite image of the area. Los Angeles had a lot of rain this winter, so that probably caused it all to get much thicker. It went down in a hilly area very dense with 4-8 foot shrubs, bushes, and trees.
It was very hot, and I didn't bring enough water with me. I was at least smart enough to dress properly for it. I wore old jeans, snow shoes with a rubber sole, a cap, and a jacket. This worked great, as the shoes were strong enough to kick down some of the branches and brush in my way. The jacket and jeans protected me from the sharp foliage. That was the good news. The bad news was that it was freaking HOT wearing all that stuff, and my water ran out super quickly. There was also a rattlesnake danger, as many live in the area and are active at this time of year.
But the biggest problem was that my cell phone was not giving a reliable GPS reading for my position. It kept giving me a range of where I was (the blue dot with the light blue circle around it), and I needed EXACT coordinates to get there. It was also VERY thick with foliage -- and it was hard to even get through, plus it was on a hill.
I knew I was very close, but I was boiling hot, tired, getting steeper. and I was out of water. Being 45 years old and tall didn't help matters. Had to abort.
I was so worn out by this venture that the thought of returning was just dreadful to me.
I decided to just place a Craigslist ad. I didn't give the coordinates, and explained the situation well. I offered to meet with people and have them search for it (to ensure they wouldn't just go find it on their own and not tell me -- or hold it hostage for more money!) I said I would give $100 if they found it in bad condition (to give incentive to be careful bringing it back) and $200 if they found it in good condition.
I got a number of responses, almost all of which were from 20-21 year olds.
I ended up hiring a nice 21-year-old college student. I wasn't very confident he would be successful, as he seemed to underestimate the job and the toughness of the venture into the foliage, even though I repeatedly said so in the ad and in my responses to him (this was a chronic problem with just about everyone who responded).
After a few failed attempts where he ran into foliage too thick to pass and came back up, he finally got to the coordinates and called me -- to tell me that he couldn't see it.
Damnit.
But then about 15 minutes later, I heard him calling out to me from further down the trail, where I was waiting for him. I walked down the trail, and there was my drone, sitting in good condition.
He must have forgotten the ad (or not read it correctly), because he asked "How much do you think I should get here?", seemingly nervous I would give him very little money. He looked super worn out and kept repeating how hard it was -- and seemed very sincere. When I told him I would give him $200, he acted very surprised and seemed thrilled. Kept telling me how much this money would help him out. As we walked back to our cars, he kept saying over and over how awful the trek was, and how he was so scratched up and worn out by the time he found it, he wasn't even that excited to see it. But he was very happy to have the $200 and I was very happy to have my drone back.
Everything on the drone looked good. Two of the propellers had some scratches on them, so I'll probably swap those out with my spares.
I recharged the battery a bit, and took it on a very short test flight (without even swapping the propellers). Worked perfectly.
Ordeal over. Cost me $200, but at least it went to a seemingly nice kid who appeared to really need the money.
Here is the crash. Video is 4K quality so blow it up full screen for more detail. (It was at 8pm though, so lighting wasn't very good.)
hanging out to fly had bad weather all week 
