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The controversial disappearance and discovery of Holly Suzanne Courtier in Zion National Park
Holly Suzanne Courtier, disappeared October 6, 2020, found alive on October 18, 2020. Zion National Park, Utah.
Revised January 2024
Holly Suzanne Courtier, 38, from Woodland Hills in California, disappeared in Utah’s Zion National Park on Tuesday, October 6, 2020, around 1.30 pm. Twelve days later, she was found after some visitors to the park spotted her. She was fortunate to be alive, but was it a legitimate disappearance, or was it staged? Many questions remain about this case.
Background to the Holly Courtier disappearance
Holly Courtier was dropped off at the Grotto parking area by a private shuttle and was scheduled to be picked up at 4.40 pm the same day. But she didn’t show up for the pick-up. Her daughter, Kailey Chambers, says she was an experienced hiker and familiar with Zion National Park because they visited together the month before for her 19th birthday, exploring the area around The Narrows. Kelly also said her mother often solo-hiked.
Kailey Chambers
Holly had been traveling the country visiting national parks since losing her job as a nanny because of the coronavirus pandemic. She had been using a van as a home.
Visitors to the park could not drive in, and you had to take a shuttle bus in and out, so the bus was the only way she could leave without hiking out. Security cameras at the entrances and exits of the park showed her entering but not exiting.
She intended to hike the Kayenta trail towards Emerald Pools.
Grotto Picnic Area, Zion National Park
Zion National Park is an American national park in southwestern Utah near Springdale. A prominent feature of the 229-square-mile (590 km2) park is Zion Canyon, which is 15 miles (24 km) long and up to 2,640 ft (800 m) deep. The canyon walls are reddish and tan-colored Navajo Sandstone eroded by the North Fork of the Virgin River. The lowest point in the park is 3,666 ft (1,117 m) at Coalpits Wash, and the highest peak is 8,726 ft (2,660 m) at Horse Ranch Mountain. Located at the junction of the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin, and Mojave Desert regions, the park has a unique geography and a variety of life zones that allow for unusual plant and animal diversity. Numerous plant species, 289 species of birds, 75 mammals (including 19 species of bat), and 32 reptiles inhabit the park's four life zones: desert, riparian, woodland, and coniferous forest.
The park’s public information officer, Amanda Roland, said at the time of the disappearance that beauty and danger go hand in hand in Zion, “There is a vastness….Zion has massive sandstone Cliffs, there are a lot of canyons and a lot of wilderness. It’s definitely a lot of area to cover. It’s not just flat ground.”
The search for Holly Courtier
Holly’s family reported her missing on October 8, two days after she went into Zion. Her vehicle was quickly found in Springdale, at the park’s Southwest entrance. But there was no sign of Courtier.
At the point she went missing, Courtier was 5 foot 3 and around 100 pounds, with brown hair and blue eyes and was wearing a black Patagonia Nano puff jacket, a dark tank top, Danner brown hiking boots with red laces and a Kuhl cream open-front hoody. Her intended travel plan from the Grotto parking area was unknown.
The following items were possibly with her: an Osprey blue multi-day pack, a yoga mat, a Rumpl NanoLoft puffy blanket and a camouflage double-sized hammock.
Temperatures in the park in October are an average high of 19°C, 66 °F and low of 4°C, 39 °F. In 2020, between October 6 and 18, temperatures ranged from 3 to 34 °C (37 to 93 °F). So reasonably cool at night and warm during the peak of the afternoon.
As of mid-October, Search and Rescue teams with five K-9 Units from the Utah Search Dogs and a drone operator from the Grand Canyon National Park Emergency Service Team were trying to locate Holly.
The NPS said investigative leads have been positive from the established tip line and had continued to assist investigators.
Park officials released several new pictures of Courier, including a still image from surveillance video of her at the park and an image of her meditating in the clothes she appeared to be seen wearing that day. Several images were also released of her tattoos, which include a lightning bolt and feather on her forearms, a star on the inside of her right ankle, a double infinity on her left wrist, and a sun and moon on her right wrist.
According to her daughter, “I do know there are freshwaters streams she is able to get water from, but without food, we are running a few days on her survival so this is very crucial”.
The Rescue of Holly Courtier in Zion National Park
Holly Courtier was found alive on Sunday, October 18, 2020. She was a lucky lady, after suffering a head injury, reportedly after hitting her head on a branch whilst setting up her hammock. She had been in the park for 12 days without food and water, losing 15 pounds in weight.
Park rangers said that they located her after receiving a credible tip from a park visitor who told them they had seen Holly at the park. A park spokeswoman said authorities found Courtier "in a thickly vegetated area along the Virgin River”.
Holly was severely dehydrated and had lost 15 pounds when she was found, according to her older sister, Jaime Strong, "The doctor was shocked she was so dehydrated. Her potassium levels were extremely low. Her levels of her kidney function were very bad. She was starting to show signs of her kidneys shutting down."
When she was found, Holly also had a "large lump" on the back of her head after hitting it against a sharp part of the tree she had tied her hammock to. That hammock caught the attention of visitors traveling through the park, who alerted authorities.
Jaime said, "Rangers told us her hammock was seen by a little boy and his mom. They spotted the hammock, so that was the call that was made to the Rangers."
According to Holly's daughter, Kailey Chambers. she had hit her head and became disoriented. Her sister said, "Once she hit her head, she did not have the energy to walk out. She was praying to be found, and we were all praying to find her."
She had a Sharpie pen with her and would mark how many days had passed on a tree nearby. "She had a really hard time moving because of a lack of energy, lack of water, food
Sharpie Ben marks on tree
Despite being close to a river, her family said Courtier couldn't drink the water, because of toxicity concerns. Her sister said, she was so dehydrated "she couldn't open her mouth”. Foods were slowly being introduced back into Courtier's diet after she was found.
Questions and controversy after the discovery of Holly Courtier
Sgt. Darrell Cashin
Sgt. Darrell Cashin, from Washington County Sheriff's Search and Rescue, who helped the search-and-rescue effort, said he had questions about Courtier's story and pointed out discrepancies.
For example, Courtier's daughter told CNN that her mother hit her head early in the hike and became so dehydrated that she couldn't open her mouth. Cashin said he doubted this, adding that park officials said she was able to leave the park largely unassisted.
Cashin also questioned how Courtier was able to survive for nearly two weeks alone without food and with little water, as her family said.
"If she had been drinking that water, unless she had some really high immune system, she would've been very, very ill and probably unable to come out on her own. She either took a lot of water with her or had another clean water source that was near here, but the Virgin River is not that source. If she did have a good water source, what was it?"
If Courtier had hit her head and was as dehydrated as she told her family she was, search-and-rescue teams would have immediately called an ambulance when they found her.
"If we had found somebody in that condition with that kind of severe head injury, we would have at minimum called for a transport agency to check her out. The fact that that didn't happen tells me that they did not find any significant injury to her that would've prompted them to do that."
Was the Holly Courtier disappearance staged?
Did Holly Courtier intend to benefit from a staged disappearance? Certain aspects of the case seem peculiar, even though her family denies wrongdoing. Some members of search and rescue were undoubtedly puzzled.
The Virgin River had a parasitic infection, so it would have made her very ill if she drank the water. After 12 days, she would have needed to drink water from somewhere unless she brought in a large amount into the park.
She was well equipped, e.g., with a pack, a hammock, and warm-weather clothing. Why was it reported she was only going into the park for the day?
The area where Holly was found appears to be close to the Virgin River and the Grotto Picnic/Parking area, close to a road (Zion Canyon Scenic Drive). The hammock was found half a mile from the parking area where she was dropped off, not in the heart of the wilderness. It seems suspicious that in a well-hiked area with a lot of visitors, she could not have raised help, especially as her head injury was from a branch knock, not a fall.
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Read about other strange disappearances from Utah
The faked disappearance of Alma Tolman on Antelope Island
The strange disappearance and death of Jerika Binks on the Timpanogos Cave National Monument trail
The shocking death of John Jones in the Nutty Putty Cave in Utah (Member only)
The missing woman found alive after 5 months missing in Utah’s Spanish Fork Canyon
The weird disappearance of Garrett Bardsley from Cuberant Lake in Utah
Sources
https://www.fox13now.com/news/local-news/search-underway-for-woman-missing-in-zion-national-park?fbclid=IwAR3xNBCpMaqiS1SUm4IV6QZOjjUHOm48NNeuQjsTdac1qVDhEZ8AY3t0LJw
https://www.stgeorgeutah.com/news/archive/2020/10/17/prc-k-9-units-dispatch-to-aid-in-continuing-search-for-woman-missing-in-zion/#.X4wBLZNKg_U
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zion_National_Park
https://www.insideedition.com/where-is-holly-suzanne-courtier-california-mother-disappears-on-solo-hike-in-utahs-zion-national
https://www.insider.com/zion-hiker-holly-courtier-official-questions-story-discrepancies-2020-10
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/woman-missing-national-park-12-22879051
https://abcnews.go.com/US/mother-missing-12-days-zion-national-park-found/story?id=73686514
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/21/us/rescued-hiker-holly-courtier-sister-interview/index.html