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‘When you find my body, please call my husband,’ wrote dying hiker lost along the Appalachian Trail
washingtonpost ^ | 26 May 2016 | M Miller

Posted on 05/26/2016 1:18:25 PM PDT by DUMBGRUNT

Geraldine Largay knew she was doomed.

It had been two weeks since she left the Appalachian Trail to go to the bathroom and lost her way; two weeks since she had wandered deeper and deeper into the woods of northwest Maine in search of a cellphone signal to message for help; two weeks since she had pitched her tent underneath a copse of hemlock trees atop a ridge; two weeks since she was supposed to meet her husband, waiting for her in his SUV on Route 27.

Largay’s food was running low. Her water, too.

So the 66-year-old retired nurse sat down and wrote a note to whoever might find her — after she was dead.

“When you find my body, please call my husband George and my daughter Kerry,”

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Hobbies; Outdoors
KEYWORDS: geraldinelargay; gerrylargay; hike; hiker; hiking; largay; lost
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To: DUMBGRUNT

I don’t understand this. She had a compass, waterproof matches, plenty of dry wood, a nearby stream w/water, a pocketknife, string, a whistle, and on and on and on. I suppose she got so wrapped up in getting a cell signal ...

But still... She pitched a tent after being lost for one day and then didn’t move from under those trees. I just don’t get it. Even w/o a compass, just look at the sun and head south back to the trail!

May she RIP and God bless her family and friends. I just wish there was more we could learn from this. (And there’s a pdf file at the link that has photos of the scene, for anyone who missed it. Very sad to read that report.)


121 posted on 05/26/2016 2:52:19 PM PDT by Nita Nupress
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To: Romulus

You remind me (see my previous reply), she also had a map, extra batteries, a first aid kit, and more (besides the whistle and compass i already mentioned.)


122 posted on 05/26/2016 2:54:40 PM PDT by Nita Nupress
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To: Enchante

I have been lost in the woods and lived to tell the tale. Clearly the woman was only experienced in walking on well marked trails for brief periods of time. She did not consider this a “wilderness” experience or she would have been more prepared. Much of the Appy trail is well traveled and friendly. Some is not, at all, particularly off trail.


123 posted on 05/26/2016 2:54:47 PM PDT by Louis Foxwell (Stop the Left and save the world.)
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To: Boogieman
"She had also tried to make fires using the matches and lighters she kept in her backpack."

Fire Puck:

1400 degrees F. You'd better want fire, because that's what you will get.

124 posted on 05/26/2016 2:55:48 PM PDT by PLMerite (Compromise is Surrender: The Revolution...will not be kind.)
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To: fruser1

I once got lost on a land navigation course at Fort Knox, and I did go down - and has able to use a shallow creek as a very high speed route through some thick woods, and back to a place where I was oriented...so I’ve used the ‘go down’ theory with some success.

But I still think going up to high ground has some merit. Where I am now (Kansas), it is not heavily wooded, and I am convinced that finding high ground would get me on track faster.

Now, when I hiked the AT, in North Carolina, from just about every peak you could see a fire tower (its paper pulp country and they used to have people stationed in towers on the mountain tops watching for fire). So, I figure I could always get to a tower, and climb it and see for miles and miles.

Another aspect of those mountains is that they have all been successfully surveyed. The benchmarks on the maps always fascinated me. Having done a lot of surveying with modern equipment, I can appreciate the amazing ‘mountain to mountain’ shots the survey parties took, and I loved to find the brass markers in the ground. Anyway, wherever you see a bench mark on the map, it likely represents a bald outcrop on the mountain, where you can indeed see a great distance. Nineteenth century surveyors were able to find enough of these spots to map the entire mountain range, and I’d like to think that I could find a few myself, and take a look around.

And finally, this being the AT, I know that it goes where the views are...as in the peaks. I’d say that the odds of stumbling back onto the trail are more likely if you go to the high ground.

I’ve never hiked in Maine, and don’t claim to know exactly why this woman couldn’t find her way. But I’d say that you have to adjust your strategy to your surroundings. If I were lost in Maine, I’d have to make an assessment of which direction is the best, based on the situation.


125 posted on 05/26/2016 2:57:10 PM PDT by lacrew
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To: wideminded; miss marmelstein

She had waterproof matches AND 2 disposable lighters.


126 posted on 05/26/2016 2:59:16 PM PDT by Nita Nupress
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To: Nita Nupress

Solo hiking doesn’t have to be dangerous. I have done it on the AT, as well as in the Alps. But I was careful not to over-estimate my competence, especially in bad weather. This poor woman was just incompetent. “Taking classes” is not what gives you outdoor skills. Maps and compasses can be baffling to a beginner, but come on. This death was totally unnecessary.


127 posted on 05/26/2016 3:00:51 PM PDT by Romulus
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To: Yaelle

I see people hiking in central Utah’s red rock desert frequently. Usually in just shorts and a tshirt and a bottle of water in their hand. Sometimes no bottle of water. I’m surprised more don’t die out there. You need a couple of gallons per day in summer. The Rangers tell me that Europeans want the “real” desert experience. They have to rescue a lot of them. Myself I wouldn’t dream of doing the desert in Summer. But then I’m just a stupid clinger to guns and Bibles.


128 posted on 05/26/2016 3:04:47 PM PDT by Seruzawa (If you agree with the French raise your hand. If you are French raise both hands)
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To: Enchante

She had a compass.


129 posted on 05/26/2016 3:05:14 PM PDT by VerySadAmerican (The day Trump is sworn in I'm changing my screen name.)
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To: dhs12345
Do you know how to use it?

I think so.I was *fascinated* by it when I first got it.So fascinated that I decided to take it on a trip I took to Hong Kong and Dubai.While in Dubai I went on a "dune bashing" safari which took us about 75 miles into the Arabian desert...*truly the middle of nowhere*.Long story short...I stored a "reading" from when we passed what I think was a prison and then,entering the coordinates into google maps it came up exactly at the structure in the middle of nowhere.

130 posted on 05/26/2016 3:05:22 PM PDT by Gay State Conservative (Obamanomics:Trickle Up Poverty)
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To: DUMBGRUNT

Go to take a leak and and become hopelessly lost? Ok, whatever, but if worse comes to worse light the damn woods on fire...


131 posted on 05/26/2016 3:07:01 PM PDT by TalBlack (Evil doesn't have a day job....)
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To: VerySadAmerican

and evidently had no idea how to use it


132 posted on 05/26/2016 3:08:17 PM PDT by Enchante (Hillary Clinton: Hamas puts its rockets and ammo in schools and hospitals because Gaza is small)
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To: Psalm 73

I resemble that remark.

I really do get lost often but I seem to have some kind of homing beacon if I just calm down.


133 posted on 05/26/2016 3:08:35 PM PDT by tiki
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To: miss marmelstein

I wouldn’t do it alone.


134 posted on 05/26/2016 3:09:37 PM PDT by tiki
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To: miss marmelstein

. Weirdly, I had an idea it was her exotic version of suicide.

Well, then that makes two of us. She didn’t seem to be trying.


135 posted on 05/26/2016 3:11:03 PM PDT by TalBlack (Evil doesn't have a day job....)
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To: Nita Nupress

You know, the amazing thing is that an experienced hiker would want the useless weight of a cell phone. They lose their charge in a few days, and getting through the hundred mile wilderness in Maine might take a week.

According to the WaPo article, she did have a whistle. She had hiked 1,000 miles already. How can you come that far and be so incompetent? It’s a mystery.


136 posted on 05/26/2016 3:12:59 PM PDT by Romulus
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To: DUMBGRUNT
So lemme see if I got this right:

She has a lighter

She has matches

She has a compass

She has a trail map

She has food

She has water

She has a tent

She has a solar blanket

She has weather gear

She has a whistle

She's NEAR a body of water

And STILL, with all these advantages she couldn't find help, attract attention or find her want to someone or somewhere?

This is truly bizarre

I'll grant that she's in the center seat on this one not me, but she can't light a fire even with both matches and lighter and keep it going in the middle of a forest where the problem in general is NOT to keept it all going up in flames?

She can't follow the river/creek/lake to civilization?

How much brains or energy does it take to keep that whistle planted in your mouth and permanently blowing?

Must be me. don't make no sense at all

137 posted on 05/26/2016 3:20:47 PM PDT by HeartlandOfAmerica (How can God bless a country that's BUTCHERED 53 million babies?? Almost as many as ALL killed inWWII)
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To: miss marmelstein

“I had an idea it was her exotic version of suicide”

I had the same idea as I read the article and I believe that’s what it was.


138 posted on 05/26/2016 3:22:10 PM PDT by Helicondelta
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To: Yaelle

We camp in a very rainy place so everything is always wet. My husband uses gas it is fastest but we have taught the kids and grandkids how to start fires. Steel wool, newspaper or dryer lint dipped in wax make great fire starters and are very light.


139 posted on 05/26/2016 3:24:40 PM PDT by tiki
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To: HeartlandOfAmerica

The refusal to light a fire puzzles me too. Maybe she was a greenie and was afraid she would start a forest fire.


140 posted on 05/26/2016 3:25:29 PM PDT by Ditter (God Bless Texas!)
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