The body of an Ohio woman who went missing in Great Smoky Mountains National Park was found in steep, rugged terrain similar to this/ Jeff Wadley, Backcountry Search and Rescue.

How an Ohio woman lost her way in Great Smoky Mountains National Park and ended up dying on a steep, heavily vegetated drainage might never be fully known, a park spokeswoman said Wednesday evening.

The body of Mitzie Sue “Susan” Clements, 53, was found Tuesday about three-quarters of a mile from the Appalachian Trail that rambles through the woods near the roof of the park. The weather was much like it was a week ago when the woman failed to reunite with her daughter at the Clingmans Dome parking area: cool, rainy, and foggy.

A short break in the weather allowed searchers to place Clements' body in a stretcher that was then hoisted out of the forest by a Tennessee Army National Guard Blackhawk helicopter. 

Though only about 2 miles from the parking area, the woman's body was hidden in the dense rhododendron thickets of the Huggins Creek drainage. 

“Any tracks, any scents that the dogs could have picked up, were pretty much erased in those first couple of days” because of off-and-on rain, said Julena Campbell, the park spokeswoman, adding that, "You can’t see the person standing next to you, it’s that thick.”

More than 500 miles of trails were searched for Clements, and another 10 square miles, roughly, of off-trail landscape also was explored.

Several trails intersect in places not far from where Clements' body was found. But to veer off one of those, and stumble nearly a mile down a steep drainage, is not easily done and certainly doesn't seem logical.

"We just don’t know what happened," Campbell said. "Because it was in the middle of nowhere, there aren’t any trails nearby. The closest trail to that would have been the Appalachian Trail. We don’t know if she was on that trail.”

Investigators might never figure out how Susan Clements got lost and died in Great Smoky Mountains National Park/HO

Hypothermia can play cruel tricks on the mind, and the wet, foggy weather, with night-time lows in the 40s, was something Clements was not dressed for. She was wearing a light sweater, with leggings and nylon workout pants, as well as a clear rain poncho, according to the park. She could have gotten disoriented and been unable to think clearly.

For now, foul play is not suspected, and there were no immediate, obvious, signs of animal attack, said Campbell. 

It was roughly three weeks ago that a ginseng poacher, William Lee Hill, Jr., 30, of Louisville, Tenn., was found dead in the woods not far from Cades Cove, with a black bear nearby. Park officials are awaiting results from both an autopsy on Hill and a necropsy on the bear to determine how the man died.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park's landscape, and heavy vegetation, can make searches extremely complicated. The park is rippled with drainages eroded by creeks that bound over ledges and dart through boulder-choked stretches before coming to rest momentarily in pools. The mountain flanks in many places feature cliffs both steep and cut with crevices.

Roaming these mountains and their shadows are the occasional wild cats that pass through the area and the resident black bears that easily can, and actually do, reach 500 pounds by feasting on the fish and vegetation that are so abundant in the Smokies. And there are feral hogs.

Nearly 50 years ago one of the largest hunts in National Park Service history was spurred when Dennis Martin, a soon-to-be-7-year-old, went missing on Father’s Day 1969. Before it ended, the FBI investigated, more than 1,400 searchers combed Great Smokey’s rugged backcountry, an estimated 70,000 linear miles were said to have been walked, and 1,110 helicopter sorties were flown. Noted psychic Jeane Dixon suggested where the boy might be found, the White House monitored the search, and active Army and National Guard troops on summer maneuvers joined the hunt.

For two weeks they searched. They never found young Dennis.

Complicating the search for the boy was rain. More than 2.5 inches of rain – and possibly 3 inches in and around Spence Field along the Appalachian Trail -- fell throughout the night. The aftermath not only challenged searchers the following morning, but it would confound them in the ensuing days.

With Clements' body found and removed from the park this week, investigators will try to piece together her final hours. But, as Campbell said Wednesday evening, "We may never know what happened.”