Book Excerpts

Harley Rustad’s Tale of an American Bagpacker Lost in the Valley of Death

In the vein of Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, a riveting work of narrative nonfiction centering on the unsolved disappearance of an American backpacker in India—one of at least two dozen tourists who have met a similar fate in the remote and storied Parvati Valley.

For centuries, India has enthralled Westerners looking for an exotic getaway, a brief immersion in yoga and meditation, or, in rare cases, a true pilgrimage to find spiritual revelation. Justin Alexander Shetler, an inveterate traveler trained in wilderness survival, was one such seeker. In his early thirties, Justin quit his job at a tech startup and set out on a global journey-across the United States by motorcycle, then down to South America, and on to the Philippines, Thailand, and Nepal–in search of authentic experiences and meaningful encounters while documenting his travels on Instagram. His enigmatic character and magnetic personality gained him a devoted following who lived vicariously through his adventures. But the ever-restless explorer was driven to seek out ever-greater extremes, and greater risks, in what had become a personal quest–his own hero’s journey.

In 2016, he made his way to the Parvati Valley, a remote and rugged corner of the Indian Himalayas steeped in mystical tradition and shrouded in darkness and danger. There he spent weeks studying under the guidance of a sadhu, living and meditating in a cave. At the end of August, accompanied by the sadhu, he set off on a spiritual journey to a holy lake–one from which he would never return.

Lost in the Valley of Death is about Justin’s search to find himself, in a country where, for many Westerners, the path to spiritual enlightenment can prove fraught, even treacherous. But it is also a story about all of us and the ways, sometimes extreme, we seek fulfillment in life.

Here is the author’s note from the book:

I began investigating the disappearance of Justin Alexander Shetler shortly after he vanished in the Indian Himalayas in the late summer of 2016. I had come across one of the first news articles written about him, published in the Times of India newspaper that October, and was immediately drawn into his story. He was American, thirty-five years old, and had traveled around the world extensively before he had arrived in India. He was a trained survivalist and had tens of
thousands of social media followers. And he had disappeared while on a pilgrimage led by a Hindu holy man to a sacred lake deep in the mountains in a remote corner of India called the Parvati Valley.

Over the following four years, I conducted hundreds of interviews with Justin’s parents, close friends, and acquaintances—from those who had known him as a teenager to some of the last people to see him alive. I wanted to know who he was, what had brought him, eventually, to India, and what he had been searching for. Some of the direct quotations I use in this book are taken from podcasts and interviews that Justin participated in as his status as a minor travel social media star grew. Some dialogue and scenes are pulled from videos shot by Justin and posted online or filmed by fellow travelers or friends. Any other re-created dialogue comes from the recollections, often corroborated, of these sources.

I traveled to the Parvati Valley twice—initially six months after Justin vanished and then to mark the three-year anniversary of his disappearance—to interview local police, mountain guides, guesthouse owners, holy men, and shepherds: anyone connected to the path that Justin had taken in his final two months. I interviewed
people in the United States, Canada, Philippines, Thailand, Nepal, and India who had shared a meal or a moment with him, who had known him for years or had encountered him briefly. I tracked down backpackers who had met him on the road, each one returning to his or her home country around the world with a memory of a man they couldn’t shake.

He was born Justin Alexander Shetler. That was the name on the passport under which he traveled until he disappeared. But most people who had come across him online had known him by his social media profile name, Adventures of Justin. Many with whom I spoke, acquaintances as well as some close friends, had known him only as Justin Alexander. For the last decade of his life, that was the name he preferred in person and online. I was told that Justin had intended to legally and officially drop his birth surname. Those who crossed paths with him on the road—as travelers, tourists, pilgrims—knew him simply as Justin.

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