{"id":55183,"date":"2025-01-22T06:00:24","date_gmt":"2025-01-22T12:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/?p=55183"},"modified":"2024-12-30T13:24:47","modified_gmt":"2024-12-30T19:24:47","slug":"trail-of-the-lost-by-andrea-lankford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/trail-of-the-lost-by-andrea-lankford\/","title":{"rendered":"Trail of the Lost by Andrea Lankford"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The over 2600 thrilling miles of the Pacific Crest Trail stretches along the west coast of the United States from Mexico to Canada.\u00a0 Each year thousands of hikers of all abilities attempt to hike the trail either from start to finish or in selected segments.\u00a0 As author Andrea Lankford quickly discovered and documents in Trail of the Lost<\/strong><\/em><\/a>, not all who hike the trail complete it successfully.\u00a0 Lankford has had a lengthy career searching remote areas as a former park ranger in the National Park Service’s law enforcement team.\u00a0 After her career at the National Park Service ended twelve years prior, Lankford discovered the stories of numerous missing persons hiking the Pacific Crest Trail.\u00a0 \u00a0A few stories caught her attention and she continued to dig deeper to find out more.\u00a0 \u00a0She discovered the stories of three young men whose disappearances contained some similarities.\u00a0 The cases had bits and pieces of common threads but occurred in different locations of the trail and the evidence each missing man left behind was vastly different.\u00a0 All three men disappeared within months of each other and had been missing for years when Lankford decided to start the search anew in an attempt to solve these cold cases.<\/p>\n

Lankford starts by organizing an initial search, the first of many, and encounters fellow amateur sleuths eager to assist her in the search on the ground.\u00a0 An eclectic group starts a quest that will lead down dangerous and heartbreaking paths for the searchers and the men’s families.\u00a0 There are also moments of bittersweet joy in the search for clues and answers.\u00a0 Lankford’s group includes family members, as well as others who don’t fit the typical mold of amateur sleuths.\u00a0 These searchers, regardless of their background, form strong bonds and share the common desire to give the missing hikers’ families the closure they are seeking.\u00a0 \u00a0Along the way they encounter and investigate religious cults, possible serial killers along the trail, dubious experts whose intentions are suspect, eyewitnesses who have ulterior motives and quirky trail characters who provide cautious tips and information on the missing hikers.<\/p>\n

This is a part fascinating, part heartbreaking but ultimately uplifting account of a group spearheaded by Lankford that did whatever was necessary (including risking their own lives) to find answers for the three missing men’s families.\u00a0 Even though these men’s cases were long cold and the group had numerous setbacks along the way, it is comforting to know that dozens of people selflessly gave their time and effort to find out what happened to the three missing hikers.\u00a0 This is a great and compelling read that combines true crime investigations with the harsh reality of nature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The over 2600 thrilling miles of the Pacific Crest Trail stretches along the west coast of the United States from Mexico to Canada.\u00a0 Each year thousands of hikers of all abilities attempt to hike the trail either from start to finish or in selected segments.\u00a0 As author Andrea Lankford quickly[Read more]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,5,8,5991],"tags":[1635,4853,3846,9613,8114,9614,2064,72],"class_list":["post-55183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-read-a-likes","category-staff-picks","category-straight-off-the-shelf","tag-california","tag-missing-persons","tag-mysterious-stories","tag-oregon","tag-pacific-crest-trail","tag-search-efforts","tag-trails","tag-washington"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd0CXx-em3","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55183"}],"version-history":[{"count":32,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55371,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55183\/revisions\/55371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}