More than a week after his vehicle turned up empty at the Sugarlands Visitor Center, an Illinois man remains missing in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and the search for him has grown into one of the largest recent operations in the park straddling Tennessee and North Carolina.
Marcin Bachleda-Blaszczak was last known to be in the Sugarlands Visitor Center parking lot on Aug. 22, 2025, according to the National Park Service. He was reported missing two days later, and rangers subsequently found his vehicle still parked there.
The National Park Service describes Bachleda-Blaszczak as 5 feet, 6 inches tall, about 170 pounds, with brown hair and blue eyes.
What began as a search of the area immediately around Sugarlands has since widened into the surrounding national park. By Saturday, 47 park rangers and volunteers were involved; by Sunday, that number had grown to 57, per the National Park Service.
Crews are combing both established trails and off-trail terrain, and are using drones to cover ground that would otherwise be difficult to reach on foot. Drones are ordinarily banned inside Great Smoky Mountains National Park, but officials have granted a temporary exception to support the search.
A normal day, then nothing
Relatives say there was no warning sign before Bachleda-Blaszczak disappeared. His cousin, Corrina Auten, told CBS Chicago that he had spent time with his father the day before.
“The day before, I believe, was when he had pizza with his dad, you know, chatted with him, said he might pick up a shift the next day at work,” Auten said. “It was very, you know, like a normal, normal conversation. There wasn’t anything strange or amiss.”
“The next thing we knew, he didn’t show up for work, and he was missing.”
Authorities have not said what may have happened to Bachleda-Blaszczak after he was last seen at Sugarlands, and the circumstances of his disappearance remain unclear.
A daunting landscape
Great Smoky Mountains National Park is among the most visited national parks in the country, encompassing vast backcountry, dense forest, and extensive trail networks across two states. That terrain has complicated the search, with crews methodically expanding their range beyond Sugarlands and checking both marked paths and remote, off-trail areas.
As of Sunday, the search remained active, with dozens of rangers and volunteers on the ground supported by aerial drone surveillance.
Anyone with information about Bachleda-Blaszczak, or who believes they may have seen him, is asked to contact Great Smoky Mountains National Park dispatch at [email protected].
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