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

Former National Park Service ranger Lankford (Ranger Confidential) provides a memorable account of her search for three young men who went missing along the 2,650-mile-long Pacific Crest Trail in successive years. In 2017, almost two decades after she retired from a 12-year stint with the park service, Lankford teamed up with amateur investigators seeking answers about the fates of Kris Fowler, David O’Sullivan, and Chris Sylvia, who were each attempting to hike the entire PCT in one year before they vanished from the same footpath in Washington State. Though every other missing hiker in the trail’s 55-year history had been found, rigorous searches for the three men had turned up nothing. So Lankford and her team—including one victim’s mother, a former pharmacy manager, and a cartographer—delved deep into less traditional search methods, such as scouring Facebook groups for information. Lankford excels at making the searches feel immediate, and asks incisive questions about how long is too long to pursue cold-case investigations (“Our dogged pursuit for answers jeopardized our livelihoods, our mental stamina, and our health,” she writes). Readers expecting conclusive answers about the men’s whereabouts will be disappointed, but this is a gripping real-life mystery. Agent: Andrea Blatt, WME. (Aug.)

Correction: An earlier version of this review misspelled the name of one of the missing hikers.