Lost in the Valley of Death: A Tale of Obsession and Danger in the Himalayas
Harley Rustad
Harper
Nonfiction, Biographies/Survival/True Stories
Themes: Cross-Genre, Religious and Spiritual Themes, Wilderness Stories
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Description
For most of his life, Justin Alexander Shetler was driven to test himself against the wilderness, always pushing to climb
higher and hike further and endure harsher and more primitive conditions. He was a restless soul, always searching for a
connection or transformative experience that would give him peace and meaning, which always seemed to be just beyond the
next bend or over the next hill. Justin chronicled his travels on social media, garnering a devoted following, even as he
often dropped off the grid for more extreme adventures. As with so many restless souls seeking adventure and enlightenment,
he eventually found himself in India, a land long elevated to mythological status by outsiders. Here, in the wild and nearly
lawless hinterlands of the Parvati Valley, Justin hoped to discover the spiritual answers and peace that had always eluded
him. He found a cave to live in, and a sadhu, or holy man, to teach him. Then, in late summer of 2016, the 35-year-old
adventurer announced online that he was going on a trek to a holy lake high in the mountains in hopes of a transcendental
experience. If he didn't come back, he told his audience with a winking emoji, don't look for him.
Those were the last words he would ever share.
As his days of silence grew to weeks and months, family and friends around the world began to worry, and realized something
was very wrong. The Parvati Valley, after all, is not just known for its spiritual sites and natural beauty, but for a
thriving (and illegal) cannabis trade and numerous unexplained disappearances. The sadhu he was last known to be associated
with had a less-than-holy reputation, and some were concerned by how Justin seemed so enraptured by the man. And the local
police were unmotivated to look into the whereabouts of yet another foreigner who was most likely just there for the
high-quality hash and had probably fallen afoul of a trafficker, if he hadn't just slipped off a trail into the ever-hungry
Parvati River. As overseas efforts to search out the truth coalesced, many reflected on Justin's life and the path that led
him to India, and if that path suggested a way for him to still be alive when all evidence suggested otherwise...
Review
Yet another random audiobook selection, this is the story of a man living a life without guardrails who seemingly finally
took one risk too many. Rustad chronicles his life from a restless, nomadic, and troubled childhood where wilderness schools
and programs were his only refuge to the man who never quite grew up or figured out how to settle or find peace, unwilling
or unable to form deeper human connections while his inner turmoil and unanswered spiritual questions tormented him. He
tried and discarded numerous spiritual teachings and personas, none seeming to offer what he needed or wanted, never at home
in his own skin or life. Even his online persona was curated to present an image of himself that was more truth-adjacent
than unvarnished reality, which ultimately hindered efforts to search for him, as too many believed he was indestructible or
had just hared off on an even more extreme adventure than he'd started on. There is a faint hint of a possibility that maybe
that is what he did - as more than one person pointed out, if anyone was capable of cutting all ties with civilization and
living completely off the grid and out of contact, it was Justin Alexander - but Occam's razor suggests a more
straightforward and ultimately tragic end, for all that no body was ever found. Along the way, Rustad explores how and why
so many people seem compelled to turn to the "other" culture, or rather their outsider's distorted view of that culture, in
search of greater meaning: for instance, appropriating sweat lodges and vision quests and mishmashed teachings from various
Native American cultures without regard for the real roots and nuances and meanings of those rituals and teachings, or even
honoring where they originated. India may well be the ultimate target of this mentality and has been for centuries via
rhapsodic travel writing and literature, transforming the country in "Western" minds into something so exotic and steeped
in spirituality and larger than life that there is an actual (unofficial) term for visitors who become overwhelmed and
experience mental health episodes: India Syndrome. (The fact that there are certain native plants and drugs with potentially
devastating effects, sometimes used by the unscrupulous to facilitate crimes, also may play into some outsiders' ideas that
simply setting foot in India is enough to trigger a transformative spiritual experience.) Something about India exerts an
inexorable pull on certain people, many of whom never return home for various reasons (not always accidents or foul play;
every year, local authorities round up dozens of foreigners who simply chose to overstay their visas, unable to bring
themselves to leave).
There are times when Rustad seems to be repeating himself, and later on he reveals some pretty important information on
young Justin's formative years that might explain some of his unresolved pain and unprocessed traumas, the holes he was
forever trying to fill, which casts his extreme life and probable death in a whole new light. He also ventures into the
weeds a bit discussing other unresolved disappearances in the Parvati Valley that foreshadow Justin's fate, even as he
offers a glimpse of just what it was about India in general and the Parvati Valley in particular that was so alluring.
Ultimately, though, Rustad does a decent job summing up a man determined to live as full a life as possible and push himself
as far as he could go, always hoping that the next adventure would be the one to give his life meaning and find peace, for
all that he often seemed to be chasing phantoms so ill-defined he couldn't even say for certain just what "meaning" or
"peace" would look like if he glimpsed them. One can only hope, whatever happened to him, that he found that peace he was
searching for in the wilds of the Himalayas.