Sep 24, 2026 · 31 min · 10 segments
A teenage girl disappears while on a horseback riding trip in Yosemite National Park during the summer of 1981. Park rangers are left mystified and baffled when only the lens to her camera surfaces as…
Around 3:00 PM on Friday, July 17th, 1981, George Aries and his 14-year-old daughter, Stacy, had just arrived at Sunrise High Sierra Camp in Yosemite National Park.
They'd spent the last few hours horseback riding, and so far their journey had taken them roughly three miles, and they still had another mile and a half or so to go before they reached their destination, a place called Sunrise Lakes.
The adjacent lakes were back in the direction of the trailhead George and Stacy had entered on, but were technically through a different part of the terrain.
So to help break up the hike, Stacy and her dad had decided to stop for the day at the cabins at Sunrise High Sierra Camp to offload some of their gear and enjoy a well-deserved rest.
The plan was to stay the night in a cabin there and then start toward the lakes the next morning, Saturday, July 18th.
Deciding to stop on Friday afternoon was good for the rest of the people they were with too.
You see, based on which source material you read, Stacy and her dad were part of a group of anywhere between six and 20 travelers who were on a week-long pack ride with horses or accompanied by mules.
And I don't know about you, but I've been horseback riding in mountainous terrain like this before, and let me tell you, a break from being in a saddle on the back of a horse is life-giving, especially after you've gone for a few miles.
Something to note about Sunrise High Sierra Camp is that it's located several miles from the closest paved road on the southeast side of Tenaya Lake.
The terrain all around the camp is rugged with some patches of alpine meadows, but then out of nowhere, large swaths of rock just pop up and go for miles.
The uneven landscape makes it difficult to traverse, even for the most experienced hiker.
The website yosemite.com states that the camp sits 9,400 feet above sea level, or about a mile and a half up in altitude.
By the late afternoon, Stacy and her dad had cleaned up and changed out of their sweaty clothes, and she was eager to check out the views around the area.
According to an article by Strange Outdoors, Stacy asked her dad if he wanted to go with her for a short walk to a nearby ridge so she could take some pictures.
But George told her that he wasn't interested in doing any more walking and said it was okay if she went by herself.
According to McClatchy News Service and that same article I mentioned from Strange Outdoors, before Stacy took off, George cautioned her to change her shoes.
After showering, she'd put on open-toed sandals, and he thought it would be safer if she wore hiking boots up to the ridge.
Before walking away, she pointed about 100 yards away to an older man who'd been traveling with their group, and she told her dad she wouldn't venture far from where that guy was sitting on a boulder The source material isn't specific about how much time elapsed after Stacy walked away from her father, but the later it got, nobody at the camp, including George, really noticed that Stacy hadn't returned.
None of the articles I read go into detail about if her dad started asking around for her or not, but what is clear is that shortly after Stacy left to go take pictures, the elderly man who she'd pointed to sitting on the boulder walked back into camp and alerted everyone that he thought something might have happened to her.
According to several news reports, this man was 77 years old, and most of the research material doesn't state his name, but that one article by Strange Outdoors that I mentioned earlier did give his name, Gerald Stewart, so I'm going to refer to him as Gerald.
And Gerald's story was that when Stacy passed him while he'd been sitting on the boulder, she mentioned she was headed to a nearby lake.
Now, just to give you some context, the closest marked bodies of water on a map of this area are Sunrise Lakes, a trio of smaller lakes clustered beyond the main lake.
Around 3:00 PM on Friday, July 17th, 1981, George Aries and his 14-year-old daughter, Stacy, had just arrived at Sunrise High Sierra Camp in Yosemite National Park.
They'd spent the last few hours horseback riding, and so far their journey had taken them roughly three miles, and they still had another mile and a half or so to go before they reached their destination, a place called Sunrise Lakes.
The adjacent lakes were back in the direction of the trailhead George and Stacy had entered on, but were technically through a different part of the terrain.
So to help break up the hike, Stacy and her dad had decided to stop for the day at the cabins at Sunrise High Sierra Camp to offload some of their gear and enjoy a well-deserved rest.
The plan was to stay the night in a cabin there and then start toward the lakes the next morning, Saturday, July 18th.
Deciding to stop on Friday afternoon was good for the rest of the people they were with too.
You see, based on which source material you read, Stacy and her dad were part of a group of anywhere between six and 20 travelers who were on a week-long pack ride with horses or accompanied by mules.
And I don't know about you, but I've been horseback riding in mountainous terrain like this before, and let me tell you, a break from being in a saddle on the back of a horse is life-giving, especially after you've gone for a few miles.
Something to note about Sunrise High Sierra Camp is that it's located several miles from the closest paved road on the southeast side of Tenaya Lake.
The terrain all around the camp is rugged with some patches of alpine meadows, but then out of nowhere, large swaths of rock just pop up and go for miles.
The uneven landscape makes it difficult to traverse, even for the most experienced hiker.
The website yosemite.com states that the camp sits 9,400 feet above sea level, or about a mile and a half up in altitude.
By the late afternoon, Stacy and her dad had cleaned up and changed out of their sweaty clothes, and she was eager to check out the views around the area.
According to an article by Strange Outdoors, Stacy asked her dad if he wanted to go with her for a short walk to a nearby ridge so she could take some pictures.
But George told her that he wasn't interested in doing any more walking and said it was okay if she went by herself.
According to McClatchy News Service and that same article I mentioned from Strange Outdoors, before Stacy took off, George cautioned her to change her shoes.
After showering, she'd put on open-toed sandals, and he thought it would be safer if she wore hiking boots up to the ridge.
Before walking away, she pointed about 100 yards away to an older man who'd been traveling with their group, and she told her dad she wouldn't venture far from where that guy was sitting on a boulder The source material isn't specific about how much time elapsed after Stacy walked away from her father, but the later it got, nobody at the camp, including George, really noticed that Stacy hadn't returned.
None of the articles I read go into detail about if her dad started asking around for her or not, but what is clear is that shortly after Stacy left to go take pictures, the elderly man who she'd pointed to sitting on the boulder walked back into camp and alerted everyone that he thought something might have happened to her.
According to several news reports, this man was 77 years old, and most of the research material doesn't state his name, but that one article by Strange Outdoors that I mentioned earlier did give his name, Gerald Stewart, so I'm going to refer to him as Gerald.
And Gerald's story was that when Stacy passed him while he'd been sitting on the boulder, she mentioned she was headed to a nearby lake.
Now, just to give you some context, the closest marked bodies of water on a map of this area are Sunrise Lakes, a trio of smaller lakes clustered beyond the main lake.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
