Carson National Forest

You know, my early days in connection to the land was also with my dad.

It was, you know, following him through two feet of snow as he's breaking trail and the snow's waist deep for me when we're chasing mule deer in the Carson National Forest outside of Taos.

And, you know, my dad also died unexpectedly and way too young.

And that happened in 2015.

And I went to La Madera several times, which is not easy to get to.

It's a tiny, tiny little spot in the middle of the, uh, Carson National Forest here.

And tiny community.

Um, I'll tell you a little bit about it in the article.

And for almost a year, nobody knew what became of her.

And then, just a couple weeks later, a hiker up in Carson National Forest found human remains.

It was Melissa Cassius.

There was a handgun with her.

Turquoise shirt, jeans, pink and white sneakers, a maroon hoodie knotted at her waist, a black backpack that looks full.

She's about three miles from home, moving towards Pot Creek and at the edge of the Carson National Forest, straight into the country she knew better than almost anyone.

And this is the last time that anyone has seen Melissa Casillas alive.

Sierra gets home after three thirty, thereabouts.

And then for a long time, there's nothing at all.

It's almost eleven months before she's found.

On May twenty-eighth, twenty twenty-six, a hiker in the McGaffey Ridge area of the Carson National Forest, off a dirt road that climbs from the same highway off of Highway five eighteen, comes across human remains.

A handgun is lying nearby.