Texas Tree Trails: Fill & Download for Free

I believe the hardest loss my family has ever experienced is the loss of my youngest brother, Mitchell Dale Stehling. He is, actually, really LOST. Here is the story.My parents were planning a trip out west, and invited my brother, Dale, and his wife to go along. At first Dale was adamant that he was not going. So his wife decided to go without him. A couple of weeks before they planned to leave, Dale changed his mind and decided to go. I was very much surprised at his change of heart, but whatever. So the itinerary was made. They would head west, and stop at different national parks as they drove the motor home westward, then north to Oregon, where, three weeks later, Dale and his wife would board a plane and fly back home, and my parents would continue on.The day before their departure, Dale came by my house to say good bye. He was upbeat, and showing some excitement over seeing Yellowstone National Park. We talked and laughed and joked with one another for an hour or more, and then he stood up to leave. I told him to have a great time, stay in touch through texts, and to be careful. I don’t know why I told him to be careful, it just popped out. His response to that was, “Oh yeah, it’ll be great. And who knows, I might just get lost out there somewhere.” I told him, “Oh no, you goober, don’t do that” and he headed out the door. I walked out onto our balcony with him, and as he crossed the parking lot toward his car, I called out to him, I love you Brother!” and he looked over his shoulder and called back to me, “I love you too, Sista-Girl”. He got in his car and drove off.The little group left on June 6, 2013, headed westward toward Colorado. On June 7 I got a short text from Dale. It said, in his silly manner of speaking, “Chillin’ I am. Holla”. Silly nut, I thought, and I did “holla” back, but got no reply, so I figured he had lost the signal in the mountains.I don’t remember what day it was when I got the phone call, but it was my oldest daughter who called me to tell me that my brother was missing. I fell to my knees when I heard the words. All the air whooshed out of my lungs and I found myself sprawled out on my kitchen floor, fighting for a breath of air. Everyone in our family knew how close Dale and I were, “thick as thieves”, my mom used to say. Dale was my best friend, my confidant, my buddy, my pal. We looked after each other and we shared our secrets with one another. I couldn’t fathom that he was missing. My daughter filled in the details. I wasn’t told until a couple of days after he went missing. Why? Somehow, nobody thought to call me, until one of my nieces contacted my daughter…their companies worked closely together, and at the end of the business call, my niece said how sad it was that Dale was missing. Daughter said, “Oh my God, does my mom know?” and she immediately hung up and called me.The motor home developed some kind of mechanical problem in Colorado. They found a place that could repair it, but it would take a day or so to get parts. The owner of the business told my family it would be fine for them to stay in the motor home parked in the parking lot. Instead of sitting around they decided to make an unplanned side trip to Mesa Verde National Park. My parents had been there a number of times, and Dale wanted to see the old dwellings that were preserved within the park, and other places as well. So off they went. It was about a 3 hour drive from the motor home.Once they arrived at the park, they did a little exploring and wandering around, and Dale decided to hike down the steep paved path to see the Spruce Treehouse, as it was called. My parents were not up for the hike, and neither was his wife, who had a bum knee. So Dale set off toward the path while the others sat outside of one of the little buildings nearby, in the shade of a porch. From their perch, they could see people walking up and down the trail, and it was easy to pick Dale out from the crowd, because he had a funny gait from having several back surgeries. He walked a little bent over, and was wearing his regular attire, which consisted of t shirt, shorts, tall socks and walking shoes, also a cap and he was carrying his phone, and had his wallet in his pocket, plus had on a pair of sunglasses that he had found at a rest stop earlier in the trip. His wife had offered him a bottle of water, but he declined, saying he would be back in 30 to 45 minutes.My family watched as he strode down the path, rounded a little bend, and disappeared behind a bush. That was the last time they would ever see Dale. After about an hour had passed, and he hadn’t returned, my mother got a feeling like something was wrong. They waited for another hour, then raised the alarm. It was still daylight, and Dale was known for lolly gagging at times, but my mother had a definite feeling of unease, so a search was launched. As darkness fell, there was no sign of Dale, and the search was called off for the night. When he hadn’t returned by the next morning, a massive search began.Soon, there were rangers and volunteers everywhere on the trails looking for Dale, and calling his name. The nearby Ute Tribe offered one of its helicopters for the search, and there were people on horseback, ATV’s, and search and rescue dog teams scoured the area on and around the trails. There was even a FLIR jet flying around the mountain sides, using it’s heat seeking technology to try to locate Dale. There were missing posters plastered all over the park and in the nearby towns with Dale’s picture. There was just no sign of him anywhere. There was one report that he had been seen outside a grocery store in Cortez, a town nearby, but nothing came of it. The search went on for about a week. Finding no clues whatsoever, the rangers decided to scale back the search. They assured the family that they would continue searching, sending rangers out into the “field” regularly. Dale’s kids had rushed out to Colorado as soon as they heard their dad was missing. There was nothing to do, but sit and wait, and at the end of the week, it was decided that everyone would head back home.The day after Dale went missing, a father and his two grown daughters came forward to say they had seen him on both the Spruce Treehouse Trail, and the Petroglyph Trail. They said they had spoken to him briefly and on the Petroglyph Trail, he asked them how much further it was to trails end, because he said his family was expecting him back. They went their separate ways, and hadn’t crossed paths again. That was the only sighting of him that was reported.With heavy hearts, and somewhat shell shocked by the whole experience, my family pointed their vehicles toward Texas, and came home, stopping only to rest and eat. My parents have described to me the terrible feeling of driving back down the mountains without Dale, or his wife, who had opted to travel with her children.During this whole time, after I found out that he was missing, I was in touch with my mother. I heard the sense of urgency in her voice turn to despair, as there was simply no news on my brother’s whereabouts. She shared with me the heartbreak she felt with each mile that separated them from where they had last seen Dale. Everyone was devastated. As the days turned into weeks, and weeks into months, my poor mother was so overcome with grief that she could hardly speak. My father too was lost in his thoughts and grieving over his lost son. Dale’s wife tried to keep a brave front, but she too was tortured by his mysterious disappearance. We all held out hope for a long time that he would be located, maybe not in good shape, but alive. Slowly, slowly, the months passed with no word. The rangers at the park eventually told my sister-in-law, who called regularly for updates, that they had more important things to do besides searching for her husband, they had a park to run after all, and searching took man hours and money. Naturally we were all dismayed.As for myself, I was inconsolable. I cried every day, all day, for months. The story was big news in our town. I would stand in line at the grocery store or the bank and hear people talking about the man who has mysteriously disappeared. Everyone had their own theory. Some thought he must be deceased, having fallen off a cliff, some thought he must be lost somewhere in the park, wandering around and looking for the way out. Others insisted that Dale just decided he wanted a different life than the one he had back home in Texas, and had just walked away, never to return. Hearing people talk about my lost brother always made me cry. I was so lost without him, and it was so unbearable not knowing what had happened.A year passed, no word. My sister-in-law planned a trip out the Mesa Verde, intending to walk the trails on the one year anniversary of his disappearance. I asked if there was room for me. She was surprised that I wanted to go, knowing how hard I was grieving, she thought the last place I would want to go was to the place where he had last been seen. So off we went. I have a bad knee and ankle, and I hadn’t planned to hike the trails, I had decided I would stay behind with his wife’s mother and wait while the rest hiked. My sister-in-law had a product with her called Plexus Pain Relief, and I rubbed some of it on my knee and ankle, and much to my surprise the pain immediately went away. I changed my mind and decided to make the hike after all. The group had decided to go to the Spruce Treehouse first, but I wasn’t sure about the very steep path, so I opted to wait for them to come back and join them on the Petroglyph Trail hike. I saw one of my party up ahead on the trail, so I headed out after her, only to discover a good way into the hike that it was not who I thought it was. I was just sure they were ahead of me, though, so I picked up the pace, intending to catch up to them. I never did. Along the way, people told me to be prepared, that the going was rough, and they were right. There were places where I had to shimmy down on my butt, and others where there were no hand holds and I kind of crawled up using both my hands and my feet on the ground. There was one place I came to that was like a wall of rock. If I jumped up I could see the path up there, and footprints in the trail, but couldn’t figure out how to get up. Finally I found a place where the toe of my shoe would fit, and I grabbed a little sapling, and heaved myself up and over the top of the wall. There I found that the trail wound around, hugging the side of the mountain on one side, with nothing but a steep drop off on the other side. I literally hugged the side of the mountain as I inched my way along the trail. I was completely alone on my hike, after a certain point I didn’t see another soul, and I just kept putting one foot in front of the other, getting tired and hoping to find the end of the trail soon. At one point I passed a place that smelled so strongly of cat urine that it made my nose burn, and I recall the hair on the back of my neck prickling me as I imagined some big wild cat watching me from high up in a tree or from a dark crevice in the rocks. I walked a little faster, and about a fourth a mile from there, I heard a twig snap behind me. It scared the life out of me, and I turned with a start, expecting to see the cat, but instead there was a young woman hiking quickly along. She told me that the end of the trail was near, and then left me in the dust. I came to the top of the mountain, and stepped out into a large clearing, and to my left was a cliff. No railing, nothing preventing someone from falling over. I am afraid of heights, yes I know, what was I doing hiking in the mountains, and I didn’t go near the edge, but as I progressed down the trail, I looked behind me and could see what a steep drop off it was. A person would never be found if they fell off that cliff.I made it to the end of the trail, and my emotions took over. I knew that this was the last place my brother had been seen. I knew that he had walked the same trail I did, and seen the same mountains and trees, smelled the same fresh air, heard the same winds blowing the leaves, and suddenly it was all too much for me and I just stood there with my head hanging and bawling my eyes out. An employee of the park approached me to see if I was ok, and I told them that I had just hiked the trail where my brother had disappeared from one year to the day ago. She was kind and gave me tissues and hugged me, and I went off to find the rest of my people, who I was still sure had completed the hike before me. I had hiked 3 miles up the mountain in about 2 1/2 hours, like I said, I was moving pretty fast. My knee and ankle never did bother me for the whole hike. After I had smelled the cat urine, I had made up a little prayer which I repeated over and over for the rest of the hike:Heavenly Father, full of grace, please look down upon my face. Have mercy on me and take my hand, as I traverse this rugged land.It turned out that my group was behind me, and I waited for them for about an hour and a half, when finally they all came to the end of the trail and we were reunited. I was so emotional after the hike, that I cried and wrote my feelings down in the car as we went back to our motel rooms. People have asked me if I got closure from that trip, and I have to say that I didn’t. I found myself looking for places where Dale could be all along the hike, and it was eerie being on my own for more than an hour while I hiked along. But it was thrilling to know I had done it, I had hiked the trail in honor of my brother.It is Feb 3, 2020 as I write this, and in just about 4 months, my brother will be declared legally deceased. I wonder if that will give me closure…. but my heart knows that it will not. I realize that I may live the rest of my life without any answers as to where my beloved brother is, and what happened. A piece of paper cannot bring me closure. I now live on the same property where Dale once lived, and he loved living in the country so much. He regularly walked the pastures around his home, and knew every inch of the place. He was always busy in his lovely gardens, which he nurtured in the same way he nurtured his kids. I can picture him walking out here, sometimes I even think I see him where his garden used to be, but it’s just a glint of sunlight or a shadow on the ground.Certain things Dale said and did before he left have come to light since he vanished. There is much more to his story than what I have written about here, and there was an interesting visit with a Native American Navajo Medicine Man during my trip out west. Those are stories for another day, as I know this answer is already incredibly long. The bottom line is that I miss my brother as much today as I did when he first went missing. I still grieve for him. Lots of things have happened in our family in the past seven years that I would love to talk over with him. But I have come to accept that I will never see him again on this earth. It hurts so much. However, I have faith that we will meet again, when my time on earth is done, and I go home to heaven. I believe that there, our souls will be reunited and it will feel as if we never missed a beat in being separated on earth.So this is the story of my family’s greatest loss. It breaks my heart over and over, every day. For a while, nobody really talked about Dale, because it was too painful, I guess, but I would have none of that. I mention his name and recall memories aloud all the time. It is the only thing I can do to keep him close to me. Well, and there is the tattoo I got on my left ankle, with a heart shaped vine, a single ladybug, and my brother’s name spelled out in the center. I carry him with me always.EDIT 9/21/2020: Just a couple of days ago, my family received the news that my brother has been found, deceased. He was found about 6 miles into the wilderness, his remains looked as if he had just sat down under a tree and died. His remains were skeletal, but completely intact, which is just amazing, considering he was out there for seven years and no animal got to him. His bones were wearing his clothing, and his shoes were there as well. He had his wallet and cell phone on him, along with a Texas drivers license and a credit card both bearing his name. He was discovered by a hiker who was hiking off trail, and who contacted the media, and who left an anonymous note regarding the body, for one of the park rangers. We don’t know who actually found him first, this person has chosen to remain anonymous. We hope to receive his remains in a few weeks, and then he will be cremated and buried on his property, under the big ancient live oak tree where he always said he wanted to be buried. My family is adjusting to this new knowledge of what happened and what the end of the story is. We all feel relieved, but there is still so much sorrow. Thank you for reading the story of my missing brother.

The “missing 411” in your question caught my eye, because I am quite familiar with David Paulides and his work regarding missing people. It is mind boggling, once you get into it, and the whole Missing 411 experience has happened in my life.I have written about my brother’s mysterious disappearance from Mesa Verde National Park, CO, on June 9, 2013. Honestly that is all there is to tell. He went on a hike and never returned. Massive search ensued, to no avail. No sign of him has ever been found; the only thing to indicate that he was even in the area is a single ping from his cell phone. It lasted a second. It was suspected that he had fallen, or dropped the phone, causing it to turn on for a brief moment, but no call was made from that phone. David Paulides came onto the scene, and went over every detail with a fine toothed comb, and that is how Mitchell Dale Stehling became a statistic in Mr Paulides’ book, The Devil’s In The Details.I have had several experiences when I was in the wilderness alone, and got a terrible feeling of doom. It was undescribable, and the first time it happened to me, I was only 11 years old. I was playing in the piney woods behind our home, when suddenly I realized that all sounds of birds and insects had stopped. All I could hear was the wind in the trees. I sat quietly, confused, for a few moments, telling myself everything was ok. But the feeling of fear and doom persisted and I literally ran out of those woods like I was being chased by a banshee. My brothers teased me, but I never went back into those woods again. As the years passed, my memory of the incident faded, until one day, many years later, and in another state, I got that same creepy sensation while I was out in the pasture, cutting holly berries to use for Christmas decorations.I was busily clipping away and then for some reason, I noticed how quiet it had gotten. I could only hear a loud buzzing in my ears. That was different than the first time it had happened, but the memory of that long ago afternoon in the piney woods of Georgia came to my mind. I was standing there, scared out of my wits, and over what? There was no visible threat against me, yet the fear was as real as if there were a pasture full of devils dancing around me. But something told me to remain calm, and to walk, not run, out of there. With my heart pounding in my chest, I fast walked to the edge of the pasture, pulling a wagon full of holly berry cuttings. Once I reached the edge of that pasture, I still had to go through another one to get home, and in that second pasture, I took off running, dragging the wagon along behind me. I didn’t stop until I had passed up my brother’s home, and was near my parents’ home. The buzzing noise in my ears went away, and things were normal at the house. No paralyzing fear, plenty of birds singing and the chirp of crickets was plain as day.I don’t know what scared the tar out of me those times. I had been in the wilderness alone many times, and only twice did that fear and doom overtake me. And then another time, something similar happened, but I wasn’t as fearful as the first two times. I went for a hike on the petroglyph trail in Mesa Verde on the one year anniversary of my brother’s disappearance. He disappeared while on this trail, or while on the Spruce Treehouse trail. I noticed as I hiked alone on the rugged trail blazed up the mountain side, that it was awfully quiet. I couldn’t hear any noise at all except for the wind in the trees. I noticed the absence of birdsong. I walked past a place on the trail that smelled strongly of cat urine. Very strong cat urine. I knew there were all kinds of wild animals in the mountains, wild cats and bears especially. The hair on my neck stood up, and I felt fear creeping in as I stood quietly and looked around at the trees and rocks that surrounded me. A wild cat could easily be hiding, stalking me. I hoofed it on up the trail, trailing fear behind me. I made it safely out of the mountains, and once was enough for me. I have no desire to go back.I refuse to go into the wilderness alone anymore. The third time is the charm. And I had to stop reading Missing 411 books, because they got to me. Case after case after case of people who vanished mysteriously, my brother being one of them, just bogged me down after a while. I hope we find answers to the mystery some day. And I’m determined not to become another statistic.EDIT 9/23/2020: My brother has been found. He was found at the bottom of a canyon, approximately 5 miles from where he was last seen. An off-trail hiker discovered the skeletal remains and looked for ID, found a wallet containing a Texas drivers license and a Social Security card and a credit card, all in my brother’s name. The coroner said it appeared that he had sat down beneath a tree and died there. No signs of injury… no broken bones, no head injury, we will never know for sure how he died. His remains were intact, and clothing was still on the bones, even the shoes. He had cigarettes and a lighter with him, as well as his cell phone. At last we will bring him home, to be buried on his property under the big oak tree where he always said he wanted to be buried. The end of his story on brings more questions, but those questions will have to settle down while I grieve the death of my beloved brother.

My parents were both in their late 70’s when my youngest brother disappeared.It happened during the first 3 days of a trip out west. My parents and my brother and his wife set off on what was meant to be 3 weeks of traveling in the motor home to see some of the National Parks. It was in Mesa Verde, CO, that my brother went on a short hike, alone, and never returned.If you’ve never had a beloved family member go missing, then you probably can’t imagine the kind of torture it brings. Of course there was a week long search, which proved fruitless. My family ended up having to leave Colorado and come back to Texas without my brother. Unthinkable. Unheard of. But it’s been nearly seven years, and no sign of him has ever been found. Nothing. Not a button, not a hair, nothing except for one ping on a cell phone tower and then silence from his cell phone. So there was and is grief untold for this family.My mother grieved the hardest. My father was also devastated, but he made himself go through the motions of life. My poor heartbroken Mom, however, just couldn’t cope with the loss of her youngest child, and she could barely speak for nearly a year.And that is the backstory that leads me to the outrageous thing my parents did.They live in the country, in south Texas. Town is about 30 minutes away. One morning not long after they came home from Colorado, they decided they needed to get some food in the house, so they set off for town. They came upon a vehicle parked a little bit off the road, close to the stop sign at the end of the Farm to Market road they live on. My dad, for some reason, decided to pull over and see if they needed help.It turned out to be a young man that they didn’t know, who had run out of gas, and needed a lift into town.Now, you have to understand that I was taught to be cautious when approaching strangers, especially in a situation like that. It was just common sense; we live in a strange world. Normally my dad might have cracked his window and asked if he could call someone for the young man. But that is not what he did.My dad offered the guy a ride into town. I never in my life would have thought my father would pick some stranger up and take him anywhere. Don’t get me wrong, my dad is a kind-hearted and generous man. Just cautious.So the guy thanked my dad, and got in the back seat of the car, and proceeded to tell Dad that he didn’t have any money for gas, nor a gas can to put gas in. So my dad drove the guy to WalMart, bought him a gas can, then went down the street and filled the can up, then drove the guy all the way back to the boonies so he could gas up his car and go.When my parents told me of this adventure, well, you can only imagine some of the scenarios that played in my mind. Anything could have happened. They could have been robbed, car jacked, even murdered. They knew nothing about the person they took under their wing and rescued. They both expressed to me that if their son had been stranded and out of gas, they would have hope that some kind soul would come along and help him out.I have always felt that losing their son so recently is what made their hearts so soft that day. They were missing him so much and were longing for the universe to send them a distraction. What better way to be distracted from our own troubles than to help someone else with theirs.I appreciate that my parents have suffered a great loss. There can be no closure to a situation like we are in, other than to finally accept that most likely, no answers will be forthcoming regarding the whereabouts of my brother. I appreciate that they are kind and good people. I also appreciate that God was with them the day they gave a stranger a ride and a can full of gas. But I have asked them not to pick anyone else up like that in the future. And they have agreed that if they encounter a similar situation down the road, they will be more cautious, and maybe just offer to call for help for a person in need.Maybe I’m overprotective. But I want to keep my parents, who are now 82 and 83 years old, with me for as long as possible. I just don’t think I can handle another mysterious disappearance, or worse, again.EDIT 9/22/2020: A few days ago, the family got word that my missing brother had been found. He was found deceased deep in the wilderness, by a hiker who went off trail. We are all so relieved to have our answer and to have some closure. He will be brought home and will be buried beneath a big oak tree on his property, the place where he always said he wanted to be buried.