The Relentless Search to Bring Home the Missing Hikers of the Pacific Crest Trail
Please note that I am now an Affiliate Marketer on Amazon. This means my book reviews will include a link to the book on Amazon. If you purchase the book using my link, I will earn a small commission. This is at no additional cost to you. More details here. Thank you for supporting my Book Blog in this manner.
*****
Andrea Lankford’s credentials make her the perfect person to write a book about searching for missing hikers on the Pacific Crest Trail. According to her website, we learn the following:
- She is a former National Park Service ranger
- In that capacity, she performed firefighting, law enforcement, and life-saving wilderness medicine inside many National Parks to include Cape Hatteras, Yosemite, and the Grand Canyon
- She implemented the “Heat kills, hike smart” public education program which saves lives annually
- She is the author of five nonfiction books, including Trail of the Lost, which was an instant New York Times bestseller
- A previous book, Ranger Confidential: Living, Working and Dying in the National Parks, has been called a Top Ten Book by National Geographic
- Her book, Haunted Hikes: Spine-Tingling Tales and Trails from North America’s National Parks was chosen by People Magazine as a 2006 Travel Pick
- Her own outdoor resume includes thru-hiking all 2200 miles of the Appalachian Trail
- And she – and a friend – were the first to mountain bike the 800-mile Arizona Trail from Utah to Mexico
- She has a B.S. in Forestry
- And after leaving her forestry work, she got an A.D. in nursing
The subtitle of this new book promises a lot – a relentless search – and it delivers. The author focuses on three hikers who disappeared while hiking the Pacific Crest Trail between 2015 and 2017. And it tells of the four years she joined forces with amateur searchers to find them.
All of the missing hikers were men and they were relatively young – ages 25 to 34. They all hiked the PCT seeking solace, challenge, and perspective on life. Other than this, there was no similarity among them.
The trail spans 2650 miles from Mexico to Canada. The last known location of two of the men was on the southern part of the trail – between San Diego and Los Angeles – while the third man went missing much further north – between Portland and Seattle.
The hikers’ names are/were Chris Sylvia, Kris Fowler, and David O’Sullivan. We also meet Chris’ mom, Nancy Warman, and Kris’s mom, Sally, and David’s parents Carmel and Con. And then, there are lots of searchers we get to know. We meet the pros – law enforcement and land management agencies – and the amateurs. Not to mention the boatload of folks who “join the search” via Facebook groups to help find the missing.
The part I found most intriguing was to learn about a religious community, a cult, called the Twelve Tribes of Israel. They operate “Yellow Delis,” which are cafes all over the world. The author tells us there are fifteen of them and that one was in Vista, California, near the vanishing point for two of the hikers. Beyond cafes, the Twelve Tribes operate hostels that cater to long-distance hikers. There are two on the PCT in Southern California.
If I were holding on to hope that my missing-hiker-loved-one was still alive, I’d be thinking they joined this cult and in so doing, gave up all connections to their previous life.
But I guess that’s what this book comes down to: How do families adjust when a loved one vanishes into thin air? With so many possibilities as to what might have killed them and where their remains might be, and the tiny possibility that theirs is a disappearance-by-choice, how do families go on? What do they do when new leads come in? How many new leads can they follow? When is it time to give up? These are interesting questions that readers need to explore, and that the author does explore.
And you will notice that I did not say if any of the three are found by book’s end…
*****
Click here to learn more about Trail of the Lost on Amazon.
*****
Thank you for reading this review. It would mean the world to me if you would subscribe to my blog/newsletter. You will receive exactly 28 emails from me in a year’s time. They will include 4 reports for book lovers and 24 slice-of-life blogs. Thanks for considering this. Lorie
Leave a Reply