Trail of the Lost: The Relentless Search to Bring Home the Missing Hikers of the Pacific Crest Trail

by Andrea Lankford

By tracking down the book Chris had stuffed in his backpack before he stepped on the PCT, I had uncovered another uncanny coincidence. All three of the PCT Missing

It may have been “uncanny,” but in the end it was just that—coincidental. None of the three cases had anything to do with each other.

were reading stories about characters who “disappeared” in some fashion before they, themselves, disappeared.

Again, an irrelevant coincidence.

Did you know that solo males have a higher fatality rate than solo females? Therefore, a woman is more

That IS interesting!

likely than a man to survive being lost or injured in the outdoors. And it’s shocking to learn that 50 percent of adult hikers are found less than two miles from where they were last seen, whereas lost toddlers younger than three have been known to travel over five miles on foot!

This kind of startling statistic adds to the story.

The AT was another story. Psychopaths carrying either a gun, a knife, a hatchet, a machete, or a car jack have killed eleven on that trail, but, as far as I knew, a PCT thru-hiker had never been murdered.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Over the last one hundred years, as of 2020, mountain lions had attacked at least 126 people in the United States, killing 27 of them. And three of these deaths did occur within lion range of the PCT.

Not surprising considering the PCT is a Wildlands trails.

the definition to a T: a religious group with a charismatic leader and followers who are isolated from the mainstream.

This cult discussion was fascinating and could have used a lot of expansion if there were other examples?