Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire There are some holes in this lost woman's story

Six decades ago (in boy Scouts), I was told that one could generally survive 3 days without water and 30 days without food.

The moral of the story...

Does a bear schit in the woods?

Why yes. Yes, it does....ON THE TRAIL!


(Hint)

If she was stupid, so was everyone involved with her Search & Rescue. She was in a tent a half mile from the trail and none of the highly trained and experienced searchers ever found her. Maybe any of us would have made it out under the circumstances, maybe not. But we'll never know because none of us were there.

If it had been so easy for her to walk out, why didn't anyone walk in and save her? From the comments in this thread, I suspect few have ever experienced being well and truly lost

I think it would be hard to pass judgement without knowing all the facts like previous health history, possible injuries on the hike, ect. A couple of wrong turns, wet matches, a sprained ankle or broken limb and you can be toast in no time. We'd all like to think that we could make it out alive if in a similar situation but we might be surprised at how few of us would if faced with some setbacks.

A lot of people who are unfamiliar with the Eastern woods, the Applachians in particular, have no idea how thick the woods are. Pretty much everywhere is filled with rhododendron or mountain laurel, and foilage and vegetation otherwise so thick as to be unable to see more than 100 yards. The exception is during the winter when leaves are off the trees. Even then, there is more contour and relief in the geology than the Rocky Mtns. Long distance views are rare.
It is easy to get "turned around" if you venture off a trail. But a lot of the landscape is so think it is difficult to even travel unless there is a trail.

Having been out west, it is relatively easy to use a map and compass, do a small amount of triagulation and figure out where you are. Assuming that is, you have enough understanding to even use a map and compass. My way of thinking is rather than get lost, be constantly aware of where you ARE in the first place.

Having said that, it is bothersome that this person's death would be blamed on stupidity. Ignorance perhaps. Obviously she was woefully unprepared to be in the woods alone and certainly unprepared for an emergency.
Perhaps that is stupid.

Unlike out west, there is precious little landscape in the Applachians that is more than 10 miles from some type of road. Realistically you could shorten that distance to 5 miles. Walk in a relatively straight line and you're going to hit a trail or road in a few miles.

Sounds to me like she just was totally unprepared, ignorant and mentally, just shut down.

From an article:


I also read that her tent was black. It would have been almost impossible to spot it from the air in that stuff.

She suffered from anxiety attacks and her former hiking partner said she had a lousy sense of direction. If she didn't have a compass, it wouldn't be a bit hard for her to get just a little bit off the trail and freak out.

The brain can do some weird stuff when you're frightened. Years ago, one of my dad's co-workers got lost while hunting in so. Idaho. This is very open country compared to Maine. This guy was lost for about a week. He freaked out. He later said that at one point he stood on a ridge top and saw cars on a road below him but his brain was fried and he went the opposite direction.

Really? That is because you have never found a rotten skeleton.
When I was a paramedic, we had a guy go missing on the river. Found him 10 months later, he had been swept 8 miles downstream and snagged up on a log in the river. Still had the tennis shoe on but there was a skeleton foot inside. Blue jeans pretty much intact. A little dried muscle and gristle still on the skull, catfish had eaten his eyes.

That was 30 years ago and I am still trying to forget it.

Great article. Makes it obvious that she wasn't mentally up to the challenge. Weakness has it's consequences.

.......the brain can do weird stuff...

Guess we'll never know and there is much that makes no sense in this story.

It could be that the lady suffered a stroke of some sort. I have had a little experience with stroke affected people and they do odd things and they do not reason correctly. In one cases the person did not realize he had had a stroke. It was that everything "just got so confusing."

Maybe old folks need "minders."

TF

simonkenton7,

You are imputing to others your experience. I asked my daughter and son-in-law. My daughter got a little squeamish but my s-i-l said he felt about like me.

About forgetting it. I wouldn't try to forget it. It would be one of my unusual memories.

I've totally lost my sense of direction, twice, so I can see if she went off trail far enough not to be able to see trail, and wasn't paying attention, how she could get turned around quite easily. BUT still don't see how after that many days she wasn't able to walk into a trail or road some where.
And watching the northwoods show, there certainly was no lack of search effort put in to find her. Amazes me that with as much effort as they put in that they didn't find her. Almost makes me think she didn't want to be found.

TRnCO: Yes, it makes me think she didn't want to be found. Hell, she had a tent, she didn't have matches. Couldn't light a fire and burn it all night?

Very fishy story.

Article said there was evidence that she at least tried to start fires. Charred trees, etc, but not real specific on the details.

If they didn't know which section of the trail she was on, it would be more difficult to search thoroughly

The links birdwatcher provided give some very interesting insights. It would be interesting to see a topo map of the exact location her tent and body was found in relation to not only the a-trail, but as well as any roads located with in the water shed she was in.

I've been in places so thick a person could be within 20 feet and not be visible. Hell I've had trouble finding deer that I KNEW were just yards from me in the thick stuff.

If her tent hadn't of coincidently been directly in the site line of the surveyor she would still be out there....

Trail runs north South, Sun goes East to West (generally speaking) Should take no more than a sunrise to find your way.

Here's a map of the trail through ME. She was about 200 miles from it's end but that doesn't locate it very close. There's a lot of twisting and turning in there and on a larger scale map we'd see a lot more. She was last seen about 5 hrs before she left the trail at a shelter where some people took pics of her. She moved pretty slow so she was probably within 10 or 15 miles of the shelter when she got lost. Maybe someone on here can pinpoint the shelter for us.

I went to the Appalachian Trail conservancy web site and looked up the position of the shelter she stayed at the night before she got lost. From there I went to google earth and found the trail but that's all and just an approximation. From the ATC map with contours and the photo from google earth, It looks to me as though if she had pointed her toes down hill and walked, crawled, dragged herself about two miles DOWN HILL she'd have found a road. Period. I don't know what her problem was, and I'm sorry for the families grief.

The map kinda blows the trail running north and south deal.