Andrea Lankford’s Trail of the Lost: The Relentless Search to Bring Home the Missing Hikers of the Pacific Crest Trail (2023) is a memoir and a work of investigative nonfiction. A New York Times bestseller and a finalist for the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Nonfiction, the book follows Lankford as she investigates the disappearances of three young men—Chris Sylvia, Kris Fowler, and David O’Sullivan—who vanished from the Pacific Crest Trail between 2015 and 2017. Struck by the unprecedented cluster of cases, Lankford joins forces with an eclectic team of amateur online sleuths to uncover what happened to the men. 

Lankford is a former National Park Service law enforcement ranger whose 12-year career in search-and-rescue missions was previously detailed in her book Ranger Confidential. After leaving the service, she became a registered nurse and hiked the entire Appalachian Trail. Her professional and personal experience informs the book’s major themes, exploring how Citizens Filling Institutional Gaps step in when official agencies fail to act. The book also outlines the critical importance of The Efficacy and Ethics of Search Methods in an activity affected by misinformation and pseudoscience, and the author clearly highlights The Allure and Danger of an Impersonal Wilderness for many who seek out extreme remoteness.

This guide refers to the 2024 paperback edition published by Grand Central Publishing.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of cursing, emotional abuse, physical abuse, graphic violence, rape, substance use, addiction, mental illness, death by suicide, suicidal ideation, self-harm, illness, and death.

Summary

Author Andrea Lankford recounts her experience leading search-and-rescue missions, including the 1995 search for a young man named Gabriel Parker at the Grand Canyon. The initial search failed, leaving Lankford with a lasting sense of responsibility. Parker’s body was found by accident, and his death was ruled a suicide. In 2017, Lankford was asked by television producers to research missing hiker cases and became invested in the case of Chris Sylvia, who vanished from the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) in 2015. When the television project was canceled, Lankford felt compelled to continue investigating. She soon learned that two other young men had also recently disappeared from the PCT: Kris “Sherpa” Fowler in 2016 and David O’Sullivan in 2017. Struck by this unprecedented cluster of disappearances, Lankford began her investigation, joining forces with a dedicated group of amateur searchers.

The first known disappearance on the 2,650-mile PCT occurred in 1959 when Louise Teagarden vanished in Southern California. Her remains were not found until 1991. In February 2015, 28-year-old Chris Sylvia was unemployed and living with friends in California. At his roommate Min’s suggestion, Chris began a solo PCT hike on 12 February to clear his head.  Four days later, he called Min, asking to be picked up the next day, but Chris failed to arrive. A week later, Min reported him missing. On October 12, 34-year-old Kris “Sherpa” Fowler, an experienced thru-hiker from Ohio, hiked north in Washington into deteriorating weather and was never seen again. He was reading Wanderer, a memoir that resonated with his own disillusionment with corporate life. Six months later, on March 22, 2017, 25-year-old David O’Sullivan from Ireland began his PCT hike. A novice inspired by the book Wild, David sent an email to his family from Idyllwild, California, on April 6, his last known contact.

Lankford began her investigation into Chris Sylvia’s case in November 2017. She learned that on February 20, 2015, another hiker, Eric Trockman, found and photographed Chris’s abandoned gear near Chihuahua Valley Road. Lankford and Trockman visited the site and the nearby hiker hostel, meeting the caretaker, Josh McCoy. Through Facebook, Lankford connected with Cathy Tarr, a retired manager who was volunteering to search for Kris Fowler and helping the O’Sullivan family. The two women met and agreed to collaborate. They met David O’Sullivan’s parents, Con and Carmel, who detailed the mishandling of their son’s case by law enforcement. Lankford faced bureaucratic hurdles trying to obtain Chris Sylvia’s official missing person report.

In October 2016, Kris Fowler’s stepmother, Sally Fowler, and his father, Mike, struggled to get authorities to take his disappearance seriously until Sergeant Randy Briscoe of the Yakima County Sheriff’s Office initiated a large-scale search. Sally conducted her own investigation, learning that Kris stayed with “trail angels” David and Marilyn Linder at the Hotel Packwood just before he vanished. Her search was complicated by false leads, including the online photo of an unidentified man in a Brazilian hospital who strongly resembled Kris. The man was later identified as a missing Canadian, Anton Pilipa. Mike Fowler died of lung cancer in 2017 while his son was missing.

Cathy Tarr’s plan to hike the PCT in 2017 was canceled after a car accident. While recovering, she became involved in the Kris Fowler search. She grew suspicious of a key witness, a bear hunter who claimed to have seen Kris 10 days after he went missing. Cathy discovered evidence proving the hunter was in Seattle on the day of the alleged sighting. 

Lankford made a breakthrough in the Chris Sylvia case when she interviewed Jeffrey “Hatchet” Lewis, the hiker who found Chris’s pack in 2015. Hatchet revealed that he also saw a copy of the novel Siddhartha and a pair of Marine Digital camouflage pants in the hiker box at the hostel. Chris’s family confirmed that the items belonged to him; they also obtained his copy of the book, which contained underlined passages. This discovery highlighted an unexpected link among the three cases: All of the men were reading books about characters who disappear or step outside of society.

Cathy Tarr organized volunteer searches for David O’Sullivan in the treacherous San Jacinto Mountains, partnering with the Irish Outreach of San Diego. Cathy employed advanced technology, and a team of volunteer “squinters” spent months reviewing thousands of high-resolution images, but David was not found. 

The team explored various theories, including animal attacks and foul play. They investigated a religious cult known as the Twelve Tribes, which ran “Yellow Deli” restaurants and actively recruited hikers on the PCT. Chris Sylvia was considered the most likely to have joined, but the idea remained inconclusive. Cathy was then persuaded to hire Dr. Arpad Vass, a forensic anthropologist who claimed he could find remains from the air by detecting “DNA frequencies.” Lankford was deeply skeptical, but the O’Sullivan family funded the effort. Vass provided GPS coordinates in an extremely remote area, and, in March 2018, Lankford fractured her ankle while attempting to hike to the location to investigate. The method was later disproven.

Psychic Pam Coronado became involved in the search for David O’Sullivan. In July 2018, while following a “vision” on a remote trail, Pam and a friend got lost. Their rescue was complicated by the outbreak of the Cranston Fire nearby. The team also uncovered the story of James “Medic” Parrillo, a serial con man who preyed on a 62-year-old PCT hiker named Kira “Steel Magnolia” Moon in 2018. The hiking community, led by Sally, exposed Parrillo’s criminal history, forcing him off the trail.

In August 2019, a hiker found an abandoned bag, raising hopes it might belong to Kris Fowler, but the lead was another dead end, causing a “hope hangover” for Sally. The team achieved a resolution in a different case when Cathy partnered with Theresa Sturkie, the wife of John Sturkie, who went missing in the San Jacintos in January 2019. During a volunteer search, Cathy found a clue which prompted a renewed official search, and authorities found Sturkie’s body. In December 2019, the discovered remains of Paul Miller, a hiker who had been missing in Joshua Tree National Park for 17 months, validated their data-led search method.

In September 2019, Cathy organized a large volunteer search for Kris Fowler. Sally spread some of her late ex-husband’s ashes on the trail. While the search was unsuccessful, the experience provided Sally a measure of resolution.

In September 2020, Chris Sylvia’s mother, Nancy Warman, died. Lankford reflects on the meaning of Chris’s tattoo, “accept, learn, let go.” Cathy Tarr established the Fowler-O’Sullivan Foundation (FOF) to help families of missing hikers. In their first official case in January 2021, the FOF successfully used drones and squinters to find the remains of Rosario “Chata” Garcia, an elderly woman who had gone missing near Idyllwild. Lankford concludes by accepting the ambiguities of the three unsolved cases, finding solace in the community that formed during the search and the enduring spirit of the trail.