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

Poplar ridge shelter. the trail seems to run east west on that section. Not far north and east of Saddleback ski area. The ATC site won't let me grap a pic.

I suspect most here have at one time or another been disoriented. I've had experiences in heavy snow/fog/darkness where I've inadvertently done a circle or not known my precise location. With knowledge of the terrain, however, I knew I'd eventually encounter fences, roads, streams, rims, drainages, ridge tops, railways, or even an ocean that would get me oriented.

I an area I've often frequented in dense fog, five bird hunters were once into their third day before being inadvertently found. If one does not consult a map in an unknown region, they likely have no knowledge of the features that can help them get oriented.

One would think most experienced hikers would equip themselves with such knowledge as well as the resources to endure or extricate themselves from such situations. Obviously this lady was short on knowledge and may not have had the will to survive either. Short of a journal, we will likely never know.

A lesser scale local situation from years ago: A traveling couple stopped on a winter's evening at one of our remote rest areas here in SE Oregon. The facility is nothing more than a fiberglass outhouse situated by a highway turnout accessing a huge sagebrush flat. One has to walk a path about 40 yards from the parking area to access the toilet. We were enduring a winter inversion with persistent fog and subzero temps. The lady exited the outhouse, missed the path in the fog and darkness, and wandered out into the elements to perish from hypothermia a couple miles out. Her mistake was she kept going as opposed to stopping to await a call or signal from her concerned spouse.

One does not leave the rig for a roadside toilet with a compass, map, GPS, sleeping bag, matches, and some shelter in hand. Still though, I can understand how even a trivial aside can have serious consequences in a remote area. Readings of some of the early Antarctic materials often mention near catastrophes for ventures involving only a few yards.

Back on subject though, it still seems amazing one could not reason there way out of the subject situation when they endured for so long.

Here's a map of the area. She spent the night at the Poplar Ridge lean-to. From the scale, she wasn't much over 2 miles from the shelter. It looks like she headed north on another ridge. She had crossed a road just before that.

Seen plenty of dead bodies in various states of decay, as wrll as skeletal remains...he'll even ordered take out over a few...they aren't a big deal

Floaters are the worst.

Mehh....kids were the worst


You just learned not to poke the floaters with sticks


Same as not rolling the ones that had been laying on the carpet for a week or so

Hind sight is always so much better.She should have done this and that.Bla,bla bla.

Rock Chuck:

Based on your images, I pulled up the PDF topo map and image (ME_Redington_20140930_TM_geo.pdf) from:

PDF map and image downloader site - USGS

Looks like a couple mile hike down and over to Redington Pond would have taken her to a road. South would have hit the Barnjam Rd. Images also suggest there's been a fair amount of human activity to the north and east.

Sad.

She could have gone in almost any direction and found something useful. Down would have been very good. This is one time when waiting for help was a poor choice. I think she just flipped out and couldn't reason it out.

Watch a few videos on youtube of AT thru-hikers documenting their journey and you'll get a better sense of how something like this could happen. Most try to go so light that they carry ZERO survival equipment. They carry a shelter and enough food to get them to the next town. That's it. I've seen posts on WhiteBlaze.net where they actually ridicule people for carrying a knife, compass, or fire-starter because it's "useless dead weight". Most thru-hikers carry less gear than I have in my pockets to go to work in an office.

I work with a guy that's thru-hiked the AT and he labels anyone who he sees on the trail with a belt knife as an idiot neophyte. Thru-hikers are no doubt a tough bunch, but they are definitely a different breed. They can lay down 20 miles a day, day after day, as long as it's on the trail. Throw most of them out in the woods with no marked trail and a lot of them would be just as lost as this lady was. They're not hunters who willing venture off into the unmarked wilderness like most responding to the thread. Of course, there are exceptions to every generalization.

I'm guessing her age and anxiety, along with the obvious lack of woodsmanship, played a large part in her demise.

She couldn't help it, she was born a woman. Most women= No common sense, No responsibility.

Ding, ding......winner.

Since everyone seems to have the bases covered pretty well on how she could easily have become legitimately lost, I'll throw out a few points on the conspiracy side of things by combining several of the already-put-forth possibilities.

First off, she died of starvation in only "26 days", but seemingly didn't expend any calories trying to help herself?

Secondly, how do we know it only took 26 days? I mean, is the only "evidence" the date in her journal? Could she not have post dated it?

Thirdly, although I'd never heard of a SPOT device, she had one, but apparently didn't activate it?

And, from Birdwatcher's NY Times link..



So we're dealing with an unstable woman on meds that could've run out or been intentionally overdosed on too.