Two Girls Gone

Hiking's benefits are undeniable. Many of its risks are well known and their repetition is not a bad thing. So too, are the many stories that offer lessons for people in the outdoors. The stories of these two missing people offer instruction, and caution.

The first takes place on Friday, October 8, 1976  in Knoxville, Tennessee. Teresa Lynn “Trenny” Gibson was not looking forward to a field trip planned to the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. The high school junior's horticulture class should have been exciting given Trenny's goal was to study landscape architecture. She had hoped the trip would be cancelled and had discussed that with her father.

The weather was bad that morning so she did not dress for  a day’s hike. Instead she wore a blue blouse, pastel blue striped sweater, blue jeans, and blue Adidas shoes. This seemed to highlight the $600 sapphire and diamond ring she wore. Trenny had it bought from money saved from a summer job.

The outing was a go and she boarded the bus, sitting next to a friend named Robert Simpson. No one at the time or later noticed anything untoward or problematic. Around noon the bus pulled into the Clingmans Dome parking lot a driver and the teacher, Wayne Dunlap, the adults in charge. 41 students were in their care.

The parking lot was near the Forney Ridge Trail, a 3.6 mile route that the students would be taking to Andrews Bald and back. Trenny seemed to have made it to Andrews Bald and was about three-quarters of a mile from the parking lot when she was last seen by multiple classmates. By then, she wore a brown plaid coat t borrowed from Simpson. Multiple students saw her stop to look at something off the trail as she headed toward the bus.

Trenny was never seen again.

Trenny’s disappearance was first noted about thirty minutes after her last sighting. When no one could find Trenny at the bus, Dunlap and a student hiked the trail to find her. After no luck, Dunlap contacted the National Park Service and filed a report at 4:30 pm. Soon after, the bus, minus Trenny and Dunlap, headed back to Knoxville. Dunlap stayed behind to assist with the search.

Two hours later, 19 volunteers began looking. The weather conditions deteriorated, hampering efforts due to rain and fog.

The bus was late getting back but eventually school officials told the Gibsons that their daughter was missing. Mr. Gibson had just gotten in from a business trip to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, but he and his wife acted quickly, packing up their family, and headed to the site.

The search response and media coverage were significant but yielded no results.

Five years later, when Mr. Gibson was interviewed by the Knoxville News-Sentinel, the Eagle Scout and former Boy Scout scoutmaster, expressed appreciation for all that was done, and expressed disappointment in the school district. Based on his experience, one adult chaperone for 40 students was at least 3 chaperones too few.

Decades have passed and no news or clues. It is as if when she simply walked off the face of the earth. This prompted speculation that Trenny took off on her own will. Yet, her savings passbook showed that even after the jewelry purchase, she shad $2,000. Her purse, other jewelry, a warm coat, and her much beloved dog, Mitzi, were all at home.

Her parents pointed to abduction. The FBI agreed, but it wasn’t because of what she left behind, it was because of what she didn’t leave behind. In all of the searching that was done for Trenny not one scrap of fabric could be linked to the clothes she was known to have been wearing at the time she disappeared.

Dwight McCarter is a retired National Park Service Ranger. When Trenny vanished, he was still working, and it was his assignment to head up the search effort. This included six dog teams. Three of the teams tracked her scent to the Appalachian Trail, around the Clingmans Dome Tower, to a road about a mile away. Of the 115 searches Dwight McCarter has done, Trenny’s is one of the two he was unable to resolve.

After an extensive investigation and equally extensive searches in the park, the FBI came up with two theories. Trenny was abducted from where the Fourney Ridge Trail intersects with the Appalachian Trail and was taken out of the park. Or Trenny followed the Appalachian Trail by mistake and went down to a nearby road where she was abducted or met with some other kind of foul play.

Trenny had goals, dreams, a dog who loved her, a drivers license, and was getting a car for Christmas. From a practical standpoint, it makes no sense for Trenny to leave behind all of her money and things to run away to a new life while on a field trip.

A few years later, in 1981, Stacey Ann Arras vanished without a trace inside Yosemite National Park. The 14 year old's disappearance also remains unsolved. Though Yosemite National Park has been the site of other people mysteriously gone missing, Arras's case is especially eerie given the startling lack of evidence. While there is probably a scientific or rational explanation for what happened to Arras on July 17, 1981, the reality of her departure remains as haunting as any paranormal mystery. 

Arras was traveling with others when she disappeared; including her father and six others. The group was horseback riding and had reached Sunrise High Sierra Camp before Arras wandered off to take photographs of the nearby lake. The camp was a tourist destination. There were many people around. 

While the group was resting, Arras told her father she wanted to hike down and take pictures of a nearby lake. Her father declined to join her. When Arras left her companions, the tour guide recalled seeing her, "standing on a rock about 50 yards south of the trail." The trail to the lake was only 1.5 miles long. 

That is the last time anyone has officially reported seeing Arras.

When she wandered off, a 77-year-old man from her group accompanied her. The man sat down to rest while the teen walked ahead. When Arras didn't return, the man got up to look for her, then gathered the group to search . He later reported that he'd spoken with a group of hikers, but they said they hadn't seen her. Witnesses say they saw the man sitting down as Arras wandered off, and there is no further evidence implicating him in any wrongdoing. 

Despite the search beginning only minutes after Arras vanished, no one found any trace except for the lens from her camera. It was found inside the grove of trees Arras entered before presumably photographing the lake. Arras reportedly had several other items on her person. She was wearing an ankle bracelet and possibly stud earrings, as well as carrying binoculars and her camera. None of these items ever turned up.

By some reports, up to 150 people looked for the teen, which includes roughly 67 Mountain Rescue Association volunteers, dogs, and helicopters all canvassing a 3 to 5 square mile area around Sunrise Lake. Despite this, the camera lens is the only clue. According to a news article from the Fresno Bee in 1981, the dogs employed in the search "were unable to pick up any scent because of dry and dusty conditions." 

The search was fairly small relative to the size of the area, and it's likely she kept moving even once she realized she was lost. Arras is one of many people who disappeared in a national park, though the exact number is unknown. The National Park Service doesn't keep a record of the many people who have vanished in the parks.

According to a news article published in the Fresno Bee around the time of Arras's disappearance, "Park officials said Stacey was having some family or school troubles, and she was missing her teenage boyfriend." It is speculated that perhaps the teen ran away or had simply embarked on a walk into the woods.

Bears, drowning and lost top all speculation. However, there have been no reported death-by bear incidents ever in the park and the lake was searched. Given the location, foul play was ruled out. Most believe Arras simply wandered off and became disoriented.