Body of missing Texas man found at waterfall in Great Smoky Mountains, park says
A body found at Abrams Falls in Great Smoky Mountains National Park has been identified as missing hiker Sahil Jilani of Texas, according to the National Park Service.
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His cause of death was not released, but a GoFundMe campaign created by his family reports “divers recovered Sahil’s body from the waters at Abrams Falls.”
“While we await official reports, we believe Sahil tragically drowned after becoming caught in powerful hydraulic currents near the waterfall,” his sister, Asma Jilani Bustamante, wrote on the campaign page.
“Waterfalls are breathtakingly beautiful, and many visitors naturally want to stand beneath them and feel the pressure of the falling water. What many don’t realize Abrams Falls drops approximately 25 feet into a deep pool of water the hydraulic currents can pull a person underwater and trap them in recirculating water, making escape extremely difficult, even for experienced swimmers.”
Sahil Jilani’s abandoned vehicle was found Wednesday, Oct. 7, at the Abrams Falls trailhead, the park said in a Facebook post.
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Jilani, 24, was last seen around 8 p.m. Monday, Oct. 5, west of the park’s Tennessee boundary at the privately-operated Riverstone Campground in Townsend, park officials said. The campground is about a 15-mile drive from the Abrams Falls trailhead, maps show.
The trail to Abrams Falls is a 5-mile “roundtrip through rhododendron, hemlock, and pine-oak forest,” the park says.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park covers 522,427 acres, “divided almost evenly between the states of North Carolina and Tennessee,” the park says. It was the nation’s busiest popular National Park in 2025, with 11,527,939 visitors.
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