‘A real-life horror movie.’ Woman shares story of helping lost teen get back to sanitarium in 2019

EDITOR’S NOTE: Following the publication of this article, the Stimson family reached out to EastIdahoNews.com about the origins of the Valley in the Clouds Sanitarium. Read more about that here.

ISLAND PARK — In 2019, a lost teenage girl with cuts and bruises wandered into a local Scout campground, and the woman who helped her get back to a mysterious place called the Valley in the Clouds Sanitarium is still worried about her.

The chilling story recently attracted a lot of attention after an old police log was shared on social media.

The police log

According to the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office police log dated Aug. 6, 2019, and shared by the Rexburg Standard Journal, a camp director of a local Scout camp said a female who was 17 or 18 years old wandered into the campground.

The police log explains that she had “lots of cuts on her arms … seemed lost and confused … (and) did not like the male staff from the camp to interact with her.”

“Went to the gate of the Valley of the Clouds Sanatorium,” the log states. “Did not want them to follow her in. Advised it is northeast from Scout Camp about a mile. Right-hand turn onto Big Sky Road. Gated off.”

The log said the girl’s name was El, and she had short red hair and was wearing a plaid shirt with a black tanktop, jeans and Converse or Vans shoes.

The police log information shared by the Standard Journal was then shared three months ago on Reddit by someone who said five years ago they “came across a log in Rexburg’s newspaper that I haven’t been able to get my mind off since.”

The Reddit post was shared on a local Idaho Falls Facebook page at the beginning of July, where community members speculated together and commented they wanted to know more details about this mystery. The Facebook post has since been removed, but you can still view it here.

Local woman who claims to have talked with lost girl shares story of them meeting

Taylor B. — who asked to not have her entire name published due to the high amount of interest in this story — was a volunteer and vice chairman for an event called Cedar Badge held at the Island Park Scout Camp in 2019.

Taylor, who was 18 years old at the time, told EastIdahoNews.com what happened on Aug. 6, 2019, still haunts her to this day. She remembers one of the male volunteers called her on a radio and asked her to come help with a “weird situation.”

“I go over there, and the first thing I notice is this distraught, confused girl who’s literally sitting arms crossed, afraid, won’t talk and there’s a bunch of men surrounding her,” Taylor said. “At that point, in doing college courses, I’m in criminology, I could instantly see her body language.”

Taylor asked the men to leave and give her time alone with the girl. She says the girl had purple bruises and cuts on her arms and legs but refused getting treatment at the first-aid station on the campgrounds.

When she asked the girl — who she believes was 15 to 18 years old at the time — what her name was, she wouldn’t tell Taylor at first. The girl eventually said her name was “El,” but Taylor isn’t convinced that was the truth.

“She was super skinny. That was the first thing I noticed. (She was) very light and fair-skinned was the other thing I noticed, and I think it was noticeable because of how purple the bruises were,” Taylor said. “Her hair looked like it hadn’t been brushed through in days. It was red (and) very poofy. She had really pretty eyes.”

Taylor said it was difficult for her to talk with the girl. Taylor didn’t know if her lack of vocabulary and struggles with grammar was because she was “distraught and confused” or because she didn’t have a high IQ or a big vocabulary in the first place.

“Her clothes weren’t very nice. They had holes in them and were a little dingy,” Taylor recalled. “Her bike, especially where I come from the bike industry, it was a pretty trashy bike. Nothing nice. No suspension. I was shocked when she said she’d been riding it through the woods.”

‘I just walked out of the woods’

Taylor ended up taking the girl over by the lake on the campgrounds where she opened up a little bit.

“She’s like, ‘I’m not exactly sure where I am. … I just walked out of the woods,'” Taylor remembers her saying. “I was like, ‘How long have you been in the woods for? What happened to you?’ She very much shies away from that conversation.”

Anytime a man got close or approached, Taylor said the girl “got nervous and completely shut down to the point where I had to (tell them) to stay away from her and let her be.”

“(I asked), ‘Were you biking?’ Her whole story is confusing of how she got here (and) how she roamed onto the Scout place,” Taylor said. “I’m like, ‘How can we help you? Can we drive you to where you need to be?'”

Taylor said the girl quickly replied, “No, you can’t.”

Taylor had her bike with her at the camp and asked the girl if she could ride back with her to her home. After building up enough trust with the girl, she agreed to have Taylor ride her bike with her to a specific gate.

The bike ride

The girl told Taylor nobody else could come on the bike ride, but Taylor said she couldn’t go alone. She told her a man from camp would follow far behind them so she could turn around and catch back up with him once Taylor dropped her off. The girl agreed that would be OK.

“It was just her and I. I hopped on my bike, and that’s where everything got really nerve-racking to me, and I didn’t want to leave her,” Taylor said.

The girl began to recognize where she was once the two of them got on the main road.

“(I asked) ‘Where’s your house?’ Just trying to figure out what to expect,” Taylor said. “She said, ‘No, no. You can’t come to the house part.’ I said, ‘OK, is there any particular reason why?’ She said, ‘It’s not going to be good if you go there.'”

Taylor said the girl told her there was something “that was watching you,” so Taylor thought that meant there were possibly cameras. She also said it sounded like from her conversation with the girl that one main person was in charge who made “a lot of the calls.”

She couldn’t get the girl to talk more about her home life but Taylor said what she understood from what the girl repeatedly kept saying was if Taylor went to the door or past the gate, “whatever is going to happen wouldn’t be good.”

The Reddit post stated the girl “asked to be taken back to the ‘Valley of the Clouds Sanatorium'” but Taylor said the girl didn’t verbally ask to go back there — pointing out she doesn’t believe the girl could have said the name of the place — instead, she showed her how to get there.

Taylor guessed the bike ride to the gate was around two and a half to three miles away from the camp.

“It was already getting weird with, ‘You can’t come to the house with me,’ and ‘It’s not going to be OK,’ and as soon as we got to the gate, my heart dropped and it changed even more,” Taylor said. “I tried to get her to wait for police, but she wouldn’t. She was very hesitant. No police could be involved. … She just needed to get back to this place.”

Valley in the Clouds Sanitarium

When they arrived at the gate, Taylor noticed the wording off to the side that read “Valley in the Clouds Sanitarium.”

“I remember the ‘S’ was there on the gate. That’s the first thing that I saw in that name,” she said. “I wanted to remember it because I wanted them (camp leaders) to look it up when we got back, so I mentally saved it and told them.”

Taylor doesn’t remember seeing any houses, only trees. East Idaho News has been to this location and can confirm there is a locked gate with the wording “Valley in the Clouds Sanitarium” next to it on the rock wall. There’s also a “private keep out” sign, and the area is fenced off.

There’s a long road that appears to lead back to at least half a dozen cabins or buildings, but due to how many trees were surrounding the structures it was difficult to see exactly how many buildings or what else was back there. A flagpole could also be seen from the gate.

Taylor asked the girl how far in she’d need to ride past the gate. She wouldn’t answer. Taylor didn’t feel that letting her go was the right decision, but the girl would not let her past the gate.

“It’s like a picture that’s been burned into my mind. It was scary. I saw her riding her bike and then she turned the corner and as soon as she turned the corner, she disappeared. She was gone forever,” Taylor stated. “I remember standing there at the gate for at least five minutes after she turned the corner, hoping I would hear something, but it went dead silent.”

Taylor said a rumor began floating through the Scout camp that Valley in the Clouds Sanitarium was a psych ward in the woods.

“She walked into the middle of a Scout camp. If you look at the satellite view, it’s so forested. There’s not very many roads to get in that Scout camp. She just walked in,” Taylor said. “It makes me feel like she was running from something. You wouldn’t go in that dense of forest with a bike unless you were running. There’s so many unanswered questions.”

East Idaho News reached out to several local sources and law enforcement but none of them said they’ve ever heard of this place. We also attempted to call multiple numbers possibly associated with the landowner, Terry Stimson of Nevada, but received no response, had an incorrect number or the lines were no longer in service.

Stimson is listed as the manager of Stimson Island Park LLC, according to the Idaho Secretary of State’s Office. The Fremont County assessor’s office said Stimson Enterprises became Stimson Island Park LLC in July 2002.

It’s not clear what Stimson Island Park LLC is, or what is located on the sanitarium property. The term sanitarium is a historic name for specialized hospitals or treatment facilities for people with diseases or chronic ailments.

According to Fremont County Sheriff records which date back to 2001, there have only been three incidents called in that were associated with the address where Valley in the Clouds Sanitarium is located. All three were listed as controlled burns.

‘The wilderness has a lot of secrets’

Taylor said it was like “a real-life horror movie.” She mentioned she’s not a crier but after she lost sight of the girl, she broke down crying. The camp director called the police to report the incident.

According to the Fremont County Sheriff incident report, the deputy assigned checked the area and did not locate anyone matching the description of the girl.

The deputy said in the report he talked to the camp director and asked “if she was talking about hurting herself or anything like that, and he stated no. I asked if she acted like she was needing help, and again he stated no.”

“He was more worried about her wellbeing,” the report states. “I told them that (I) was not able to just go on the property without a reason unless we felt like there was something more.”

Taylor believes because of how young she herself was when this happened that police didn’t listen to her side of the story like she hoped they would. She expected police to do more of an investigation, and as the girl rode away on her bike, Taylor’s mindset was that police would do a welfare check and find her.

“I think (everything she told me) that is potential for an unsafe and toxic household, or something else could be going on. … The woods can hide a lot of things … The wilderness has a lot of secrets,” Taylor said. “It’s quiet out there, and can be lonely out there. My heart hopes she is OK and hopes we can shed light on this situation and maybe find out she’s doing OK and is fine or maybe put a stop to a problem also.”