A Zion National Park report on the search for a missing California woman last October offered little information/NPS

A heavily redacted report regarding the search last fall for a missing California woman was released Thursday evening by Zion National Park, but it offered few details into the ongoing mystery of whether she was actually missing. 

A "follow-up report" (above) concerning Holly Suzanne Courtier's disappearance for nearly two weeks last October consisted of 12 lines, all blacked out.

The Los Angeles woman on October 6 had gotten off a park shuttle at the Grotto trailhead a half-mile from Zion Lodge and vanished. The ensuing search involved ground teams with search dogs and even a drone operator.

At the time, the woman's daughter told a California television station that Courtier had been traveling the country and visiting national parks since losing her job as a nanny. 

The fact that the woman was found on October 18 roughly a half-mile from where she got off the shuttle bus, in an iconic landscape that sees thousands of visitors a day, generated numerous questions from the public. Why couldn't she make her way to the scenic drive that winds through Zion Canyon, a narrow redrock chasm? How did she survive with little food and water?

Holly Suzanne Courtier/GoFundMe

Family members said Courtier had hit her head and became disoriented, and that she didn't drink from the Virgin River, which parallels the scenic drive, because she had heard the water had been contaminated by a toxic bacteria.

The mystery surrounding her disappearance led the Washington County, Utah, Sheriff's Department to open an investigation into the matter. 

While the search was underway, Courtier's family launched a GoFundMe page to raise money "to help cover the costs of her search and possible after care when she is found." The campaign had a $15,000 goal. An update to that page on October 22, four days after she was found, said that "Holly has suffered from mental health issues in the past and went on her hike not in the best frame of mind. She did not intend to become injured or so weak on her journey. Nor, did she intend for her trip to become a search and rescue effort. If Holly was not found when she was, she would have died."

The family added that "(T)his fundraiser is, and always was, 100 percent legitimate. However, we acknowledge and respect people’s concerns over the many inaccuracies portrayed by the press and social media regarding Holly’s ordeal. Whomever has concerns about our use of their donation is welcome to request a refund without any objection from the family."

The circumstances of Courtier's rescue prompted Sgt. Darrell Cashin of the Washington County Sheriff's Office to raise an eyebrow. He told a local reporter that the "circumstances of Courtier’s recovery ... were not consistent with our training and experience."

"These inconsistencies raised some questions as to the authenticity of the events as reported to law enforcement," said a press release from the sheriff's office at the time. "In response to numerous media inquiries, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office stands behind the observations and statements made by Sgt. Cashin. However, we feel it is important to clarify that we stand by our initial release that we were only involved in a consultation role. We fully support the findings of the National Park Service investigation and believe their investigation into the incident was thorough and well executed."

The documents released Thursday by the Park Service provided few details to the case, other than that rangers covered miles and miles in the iconic redrock national park in southwestern Utah searching for Courtier. They crisscrossed Zion Canyon, more than once starting out from the Grotto trailhead where she was last seen, and left the canyon to go up to Kolob Arch in the northwestern corner of Zion and to the Lava Point Campground in the north. Time and again the searchers reported similar findings: 

"We talked to 30-35 visitors. We saw no sign, and neither had the visitors," one ranger wrote on October 10.

Five days later, another ranger ended the day much the same.

"Started near horse corrals at Court of Patriarchs and hiked along social trails on east side of the river looking for sign. None was found," the entry read.

Even the location of where Courtier was found was blacked out by the Park Service/NPS

On October 17, just past 6:30 p.m., the park received a report that a tan hammock had been spotted in Zion Canyon and there appeared to be a person in it. The next morning, rangers found Courtier near the Grotto trailhead.

"While searching this area Ranger (redacted) came across a large blue backpack in some vegetation close to a (redacted) Ranger (redacted) searched the area near the backpack and immediately came across (redacted) lying in a tan hammock who would later be identified as the missing subject (redacted), the SAR report said.

The rangers walked Courtier about 1,000 feet to the road, where a patrol car took her back to the Zion Emergency Operations Center.

Details of the rangers' conversation with Courtier were redacted. The search cost $60,192, according to Zion staff.

The rangers' interview with Courtier also was heavily redacted/NPS