Is Something Strange Happening At Mesa Verde? The Search For Dale Stehling

The Unsolved Enigma of Mesa Verde: Dale Stalling’s Vanishing Act

The case of Mitchell Dale Stalling’s disappearance from Mesa Verde National Park in June 2013 is not merely a story of a missing person; it is a bizarre testament to how a small, well-trafficked area can hold onto a secret with terrifying finality. For a park renowned for its excellent infrastructure, short trails, and relatively low rates of disappearances—typically less than one per decade—Dale Stalling’s vanishing act, and the subsequent discovery of his remains, is shrouded in frustrating, almost deliberate, ambiguity.

A Deceptively Safe Setting

Mesa Verde, Spanish for “Green Table,” is a 52,000-acre National Park established in 1906, best known for its extraordinary Ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings.¹ These architectural wonders, including the iconic Spruce Tree House, attract visitors who primarily stick to the winding scenic roads, museums, and short, guided tours. Compared to sprawling wilderness parks like Yosemite or Yellowstone, Mesa Verde is manageable. Its limited, short hiking trails, while occasionally hugging steep canyon walls, contribute to its reputation for safety.

In 2013, Dale Stalling, a retired, 51-year-old meat cutter and market manager from Goliad, Texas, was enjoying a road trip vacation with his wife, Denine, and his parents.² Dale was a fit, 6-foot-tall, 230-pound man described as an avid outdoorsman. The trip was rerouted when their RV broke down near the park, prompting the family to take a day trip to Mesa Verde on the hot afternoon of June 9th.

The Last Sighting

While driving the park loop, Dale spotted the Spruce Tree House cliff dwelling from a distance. Captivated, he decided to take the short, quarter-mile paved trail for an up-close look. It was a simple decision, one that should have taken him, at most, a quick thirty minutes. He was restless and bored, and despite his wife Denine’s offer to grab him some water, Dale rebuffed her, stating the destination was “just right there”—within eyesight.

At approximately 4:15 p.m. on a day where temperatures soared to $100^{\circ}F$ in the canyon, Dale set off, wearing no supplies, no water, and no intention of a long trek. Denine called to him for a picture, but Dale, perhaps not hearing, simply called back, “I’ll see you in a bit,” and disappeared behind the first switchback.

Hours passed. Denine and Dale’s parents grew concerned. By 7:20 p.m., park rangers began a preliminary search, stopping when darkness fell. The true search began the next morning, June 10th. Searchers quickly realized Dale was not lost on the simple Spruce Tree House trail. Instead, he had either taken a wrong turn or intentionally decided to walk the much longer, more rugged Petroglyph Trail, a 2.4-mile loop that winds along a canyon wall.

The definitive information came from retired Judge Jess Vill, who was hiking the Petroglyph Trail that day with his family. Jess encountered Dale twice:

5:00 p.m.: They stopped to catch their breath. Dale remarked, “I’d guess I better hurry as I got some people waiting for me.”

5:20 p.m.: Jess’s family, approaching the petroglyph panel, saw Dale sitting on a boulder nearby. Dale got up, stated he should be on his way, and continued further up the trail.

Dale Stalling, seemingly relaxed and in no distress, walked off into what Jess Vill later recalled as “Oblivion.” He was the last known person to see Dale Stalling alive.

The Baffling Search and the Cryptic Call

Knowing Dale’s precise location and intended direction, the subsequent search was massive but yielded virtually nothing. At its peak, 60 to 70 Searchers, two dog teams, helicopter surveillance, and rappelling crews scoured the limited, cliff-side area. The terrain, being a cliff, largely restricts movement: you can’t simply walk off-trail without falling. Thus, the most reasonable theory was a fall from the Petroglyph Trail. Yet, no body, clothing, or obvious evidence was found.

A few scant, confusing details emerged:

On the morning of June 10th (the day after he disappeared), rangers got a partial ping from Dale’s cell phone.

Around 7:00 p.m. that same day, his phone attempted to call his voicemail. After that, his phone went dark. This suggests whatever happened to Dale, he was potentially still alive and in possession of his phone for more than 24 hours.

After weeks, the search was scaled back, partly due to persistent $100^{\circ}F$ temperatures and the need to divert resources to fight raging wildfires. Park Chief Ranger Jesse Ferra stated, “My gut feeling is that he is out there somewhere and never left the park.”

Seven years later, the final major clue in the immediate aftermath of the disappearance was given by a woman named Jody Peterson. She hiked the Petroglyph Trail the day after Dale vanished. An hour into her walk, she suddenly heard a “weary male voice call out saying, ‘I need some help!’” She had no cell signal in the canyon and raced back to the ranger station. She told the Chief Ranger, who admitted, “We thought we heard a call for help in that area yesterday.” If Jody heard Dale, it would suggest he survived a fall, was still mobile (or close enough to the trail to call out), and was likely suffering from dehydration and injury, explaining why Searchers could not initially find him.

The Discovery and the Cover-Up

The case remained cold until September 2020, seven years and three months after Dale vanished.

Human remains were discovered in a remote, rugged section of the park. Identification was made almost instantly without initial testing, as the skeletal remains were found with Dale’s driver’s license, credit cards, and social security card.

According to officials, the remains were found 4.2 miles as the crow flies from where Dale was last seen, at the bottom of a canyon, west of Durango. They noted there was no indication of Foul Play, and the cause of death was believed to be natural causes.

However, the circumstances surrounding this discovery are deeply unusual:

The Anonymous Caller: The remains were found only because an anonymous caller pointed Searchers to the correct location. This individual was hiking somewhere off-trail in an area closed to the public, which they likely used as a reason to remain anonymous. The probability of an off-trail hiker stumbling upon bleached skeletal remains in a vast, rugged canyon is astronomical, raising questions about this source.

The Vague Location: The Park Service was intentionally vague about the location, only stating the remains were “west of Durango” and in a remote section. Durango is so far east of Mesa Verde as to be a meaningless marker. This vagueness prompted speculation that the remains were found in the wild, eastern half of the park, an incredible distance over torturous canyon-and-ridge terrain from the Petroglyph Trail.

The Justification: The park spokeswoman refused to release the exact location (even the canyon name), claiming it was due to the “cultural sensitivity of the park” and to “prevent others from also hiking off trail causing resource damage and potentially turning into additional search and rescue cases.” This reasoning is weak and troubling; it strains credibility that the death of a man would encourage inexperienced people to wander into dangerous, closed areas. At the very least, naming the canyon would offer valuable investigative context without revealing protected ruins.

Dale’s wife, Denine, commented on the discovery, calling Dale “directionally challenged.” However, walking 4.2 miles (as the crow flies, implying a much longer route over ground) from the last known sighting, through the steep, unforgiving landscape of Mesa Verde, requires an almost unbelievable level of disorientation or a single-minded determination. Given the lack of water and $100^{\circ}F$ temperatures, his ability to walk such a distance while injured (if the call for help was his) before succumbing to dehydration and heatstroke seems an incredible feat.

The Enduring Mystery

The case of Dale Stalling, despite being closed, is utterly unsatisfying. The official conclusion of “natural causes” fails to explain the journey.

Did Dale fall from the Petroglyph Trail, survive the fall, and then, in a state of delirium, heatstroke, and directional confusion, wander for miles through the dangerous, trailless canyons until he collapsed? This theory aligns with the “call for help” and his lack of water but asks us to believe he traversed a near-impossible distance over difficult terrain, only to die where his bones would bleach in the sun for seven years, and only be found by a secretive hiker.

Or was there something else? The extreme lengths the National Park Service went to in order to obscure the location—an unusual response for a closed case—suggests a deeper sensitivity than just protecting cultural resources.

Dale Stalling’s short walk to the Spruce Tree House became a final, fatal trek into a wild, untamed corner of a historically rich park. His bones were eventually found, bringing a measure of closure, but the circumstances of his death and the location of his remains remain, thanks to the park’s deliberate silence, a troubling and persistent enigma.