People have been disappearing inside US National Parks at an alarming rate, with at least 10 vanishing never to be seen again since 2016, data examined by The Post shows.
One was a hiker whose last message was to his son, telling him he was on his way to Yosemite National Park.
Another got separated from his group during a nine-day excursion through the stifling Grand Canyon heat.
A young river tour guide, with his whole life ahead of him, also vanished during a group trip.
“No trace of man missing on Colorado River in Grand Canyon,” reads a local news headline from the time.
At least 1180 people were reported missing from US National Parks between 2018 and the first two months of 2023, according to records obtained by The Post via a Freedom of Information Act request.
Most were located safe and well, often with the help of search and rescue teams. Others were found injured or dead either from suicide or accidents, but a small number of disappearances can’t be explained at all.
A Post examination of the data showed Grand Canyon National Park had more deaths, missing persons reports and suicides compared to any other park.
Most deaths result from falls over the canyon, helicopter crashes or overheating.
‘Needle in a haystack’
One death with no easy explanation is Charles Lyon, who has not been seen in just over two years.
The 49-year-old from Tyler, Texas, was last seen at a Best Western motel in Tusayan, Arizona, on June 10, 2021.
His car was found around the Grand Canyon’s South Rim the next day, and police believed he was alone.
Jonghyon Won saw a similar fate in September 2017, when his car was found parked at the South Rim of Arizona’s Grand Canyon National Park.
The 45-year-old did not tell anyone about his plans to be in the area, and was never seen again, the NPS reported.
Florida teacher Floyd E. Roberts III disappeared from Grand Canyon National Park on June 17, 2016, while hiking with a group for a nine-day excursion, police said.
The area had been rocked by extreme heat when the 52-year-old was separated from his group.
Roberts — who WFLA described as a business technology and web design teacher for a Florida middle school — was last seen in a remote portion of the western Grand Canyon, near Kelly Tank, heading toward the Shanley Spring area.
With no body recovered, explaining their sudden disappearances isn’t easy.
Some who fall into the canyon are not found for years, as in the case of Scott Walsh, who disappeared in 2015 but his body wasn’t found until 2021.
Harder to explain is the disappearance of 22-year-old Morgan Heimer.
In June 2015 he was guiding a tour group through an area of the Colorado River near Pumpkin Springs when he also vanished.
NPS records show Heimer was helping “clients to jump off a low cliff into the water” in the minutes before he was last seen around 4 p.m. June 2.
“The last client had completed the activity and Heimer and the Lead Guide had switched positions,” states a search and record report.
“The Lead Guide had just talked to Heimer about taking a bit of time off that afternoon. The Lead Guide walked away from the cliff to talk to a client. When the Lead Guide turned around Heimer was gone.”
The guide told searchers he thought Heimer had left to take a break, but realized something was amiss when Heimer failed to turn up for dinner.
Heimer, from Cody, Wyoming, was described as having “Advanced/Superior Skills.”
He was on day six of the eight-day excursion.
Heimer’s family joined searchers in Arizona.
Crews spent six days scouring the area before scaling back their efforts.
The immediate response to disappearances among some of the most treacherous landscapes in the country fall into the hands of search and rescue workers, who are battling against the clock due to the extreme elements in an environment like the Grand Canyon.
“When you’re looking for a person, you truly are looking for a needle in a haystack,” said longtime search and rescue expert Ken Phillips, about searching for missing people in Grand Canyon National Park.
The now-retired National Park Service (NPS) search and rescue chief told The Post rangers usually have only the smallest clues — a shoe impression on the ground, a credit card receipt — to find who they’re looking for.
“You have to realize just how difficult it can be to find a single human being in such a large area.”
Bodies are then not only difficult to find within an already treacherous landscape, but also often exposed to the extreme weather conditions — including drying heat known to expedite deterioration.
In colder climates, bodies and any evidence left behind often grow harder to find as snow accumulates.
Remains are also subject to scavenging by wildlife.
Such examples with the sprawling Grand Canyon National Park are only a handful of cases nationwide that have since gone cold.
‘No signs’
National Parks elsewhere in the country have seen their own spates of mysterious disappearances.
Barry J. Tragen, 68, visited Glacier National Park in Montana at the end of July, 2020.
His whereabouts raised alarm bells five days later when rangers noticed his car was still parked near Kintla Lake, the NPS said.
Rangers searched for any signs of the Columbia Falls, Montana, man for weeks and came across a pair of sunglasses they believed were his.
K9s were brought in and showed interest in an area of the lake’s outlet.
They also used boats, ground search teams and underwater equipment, but “no signs of Tragen were found,” the agency said.
The NPS scaled back their search efforts beginning Aug. 10, 2020, and Tragen remains missing.
Beverly, Massachusetts, man Matthew Silveira’s July 2020 disappearance also reached the National Park Service, which was called in to assist the Wellfleet Police Department after local officers discovered his car abandoned just miles from the Cape Cod National Seashore, according to reports from the NPS and Boston.com.
Camping gear and his cell phone were found inside, according to the NPS report, which also described the 32-year-old of having a history of making “suicidal statements.”
Silveira’s car was found over 120 miles from his hometown, but he was never located.
‘No clues have been found’
James Pruitt drove 1,400 miles to Rocky Mountain National Park from his hometown of Etowah, Tennessee, on Feb. 28, 2019.
The 70-year-old parked his car in the lot of the Glacier Gorge trailhead, according to the NPS.
Park rangers discovered his car March 3, and grew suspicious when the vehicle did not have an overnight parking permit.
Pruitt’s family told rangers they did not know where within the national park they had planned to hike, and said they have not heard from him since 10 a.m. Feb. 28, police said.
They also said Pruitt had not planned on staying in the park overnight.
But Glacier Gorge had gotten two feet of snow by the time rangers caught wind of Pruitt’s disappearance, which added to the already challenging search, police said.
Rangers scoured 15 square-miles until March 11, when their search “entered limited continuous operations” on March 11, 2019, the NPS said.
A team of 40 searchers briefly resumed their efforts in October, after months of small, sporadic searches during the summer months, but by that time its possible his remains could have been almost entirely consumed by wild animals, leaving no trace.
In California, Peter Jackson texted his son on Sept. 17, 2016, to say he was on his way to the high-traffic Yosemite National Park.
He had been staying at the White Wolf Campground, and had paid to park through Sept. 21, 2016.
The avid hiker’s backpack was discovered in the area of Ackerson Meadow and Aspen Valley in August 19, but neither he, nor his remains, have ever been found, officials said.
On the other side of the country, John Squires was rafting with friends on June 20, 2018 when their vessel overturned in the American Creek within Alaska’s Katmai National Park.
He and the others were thrown into the fast-moving water when their raft collided with a submerged object, the NPS said. Squires was last seen swimming down-river and trying to get to the shore.
His friends were ultimately able to swim to safety, but were unable to get to Squires.
He remains missing nearly five years later.
Chad Hewitt told Outside Online his friend “was the real deal.”
“His heart was in Alaska.”
