Trail of the Lost

Just too in the weeds.

Many people try to hike all 2,650 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail, or PCT, each and every year. This route spans from Mexico to Canada on the west coast and includes some of the most beautiful places on Earth. See the dry valleys of California, the serene Crater Lake, and breathe in the cool, clean air of Mount Rainier. (my personal favorite) But what happens to those poor souls who wander off the trail and are lost? Andrea Lankford, a retired parks search and rescue officer, and her pack of amateur sleuths try to put clues together to try and find three lost hikers who attempted the 5-month journey and give the family the peace they have been searching for years.

Whether you're following along with the vivid depictions of trail stops, sights, and or search parameters set forth, the book never fails to be thrilling. The search team dips their toes into many avenues to try and find these missing hikers. This includes contacting mediums, DNA specialists, psychics, crackpot inventors, exploitative adventure seekers, cult followers, and so much more. It gets pretty wild, and the devotion of the family's search attempts is heartwarming, to say the least.

The core of the book follows the search of the main three hikers, but deviates to some other well-known people who have lost their way along the trail and reports on a variety of peskies in the more secluded areas. The story-telling is concise and it does a great job explaining some of the most common hiking terms such as zero-days, HYOH, trail angels, and more. For those seeking to take on a long thru-hike, it is important to read some of these stories and add their knowledge to your trail rolodex. You never know when it might come in handy.

I recommended this to all hikers and arm-chair adventurers!

It turns out you can write a book without an ending. The reader experiences a tiny fraction of the weight of the unknown that families of missing hikers face, which is made both understandable and agonizing in this book. Lankford pulls in other (solved) search & rescue stories to try to make up for the three main unsolved cases, and is well placed to inform us of the various agencies, politics, and personalities at play in wilderness missing persons cases and SAR missions.

Every year, there are hundreds of hikers that take off onto Pacific Crest Trail. Most of them make it back without any incidents, and with some great stories. Others find trouble along the trail, and have some horror stories to share. Yet others step off, never to be heard from again - and that is where this book begins.

There are three main cases that are followed, and the many different leads that came in, locations, and more - but none have led to a successful conclusion. The names of the missing grow each year.

This was a fantastic read - I would love to type more, but I don't want to ruin the book for readers. But it was amazing, and definitely worth a read!