LOST HIKER IN Spaulding mountain area maine.

John H Swanson said:

I remember seeing the posted consolidated searcher tracks and they showed one passing close to the location where she was found.

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A user on whiteblaze.net overlayed this map in caltopo. The post itself is quite interesting as it appears to give first-hand description of the area: http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/showthread.php/97087-Wardens-seek-hikers-aid-in-finding-woman-lost-from-Appalachian-Trail-Kennebec-Jour?p=2029189&viewfull=1#post2029189

iAmKrzys said:

A user on whiteblaze.net overlayed this map in caltopo. The post itself is quite interesting as it appears to give first-hand description of the area: http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/showthread.php/97087-Wardens-seek-hikers-aid-in-finding-woman-lost-from-Appalachian-Trail-Kennebec-Jour?p=2029189&viewfull=1#post2029189

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In looking at why Inchworm was found relatively far off the AT I have wondered what map(s) Inchworm was using for Maine - what level of detail did they have, how current were they. What is interesting is that she was found just off a tote road that had intersected the AT not far from where the reroute starts (the reroute SE up toward Lone Mt).

In one scenario - she had a decent and current map that showed the reroute as well as the old route of the AT. It is conceivable that she thought the tote road was the old route which on the map would appear to take a shorter course with less elevation gain to her next stop the Spaulding lean-to (or even a course toward the CVR and her husband). In this scenario she had deliberately decided to take the old route as a short-cut.

In another scenario she didn't have a map with the current reroute and thought she was going in the general direction of the old route. Most freely available online topos only show the old route, like on Google Terrain or CalTopo. Is it possible she had one of these downloaded on her phone?

In both cases by the time she noticed something was wrong (no blazes or route is leading in a very 'off' direction) it is possible she decided to stay put, pitching a tent off trail (in this case off the tote road) following normal LNT guidelines (or at least out of sight of the trail/road) before taking further action. As to why she then didn't proceed the following day(s), move downstream for example, and what caused her to be immobilized one can only speculate.

When I was in the general area - coming down off Abraham, crossing the AT and taking various herd paths and skidder roads toward Caribou Pond I found the area to be quite challenging (some of these would have also been parts of the old AT). It wasn't so much the thickness of the woods themselves but the multitude of paths and roads that offered an abundance of options to proceed. I had studied topo and satellite maps of the area beforehand and I was aware that the area like so many areas with relatively recent logging activity would be tricky to navigate. I forced myself to consult my compass frequently and a number of times avoided being lured by routes that only seemed to be going in the right direction.

In short I could see someone easily getting lost in this area, especially someone not expecting this many route options and someone perhaps not being aware of the reroute. In addition the section of the AT where she went off course either unintentionally perhaps thinking she was on the old route or deliberately seeking to go on the old route as a short-cut sees far less hiker traffic than sections just to the North (after the spur to Abe) and South (up to the Horn) that are frequented by peakbaggers..

It's been ~5 years since I've been on that part of the trail, but isn't the White Blaze everywhere??

More Info

rup said:

It's been ~5 years since I've been on that part of the trail, but isn't the White Blaze everywhere??

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What will the conspiracy theorists make of this latest info?

cb

This raises the question of why are they releasing this new information now. Why were they holding it back and what else are they holding back. Not that we all need to know everything. But what has made the change of what they are now saying. What has driven these new details out of the box?

Inside a sleeping bag, inside a tent is the place of choice to be protected from the environment (cold) when backpacking. To think a person can die from exposure in this position shakes my mental security blanket.

Exposure would not be the cause I would consider - vs say a traumatic illness.

erugs said:

This raises the question of why are they releasing this new information now. Why were they holding it back and what else are they holding back. Not that we all need to know everything. But what has made the change of what they are now saying. What has driven these new details out of the box?

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Coroner's report was just released. Many details were not made public prior.

egilbe said:

Coroner's report was just released. Many details were not made public prior.

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The answer to "why now" is the first sentence of the second paragraph of the article:

Those details are included in a report from the chief medical examiner, released to the Morning Sentinel on Friday under a public records request.

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We have these new facts because the newspaper, recognizing a good story, exercised its legal right to dig them out. Her tent and sleeping bag foiled the dogs, which is poignant.

Some Closure?

This article in the Portland Herald might provide some closure to those of us still wondering why and how.

What continues to haunt me is why this very experienced thru-hiker did not extricate herself from this situation and died in her tent. It recalls for me the completely debilitating food poisoning scenario that took the life of Supertramp in "Into the Wild."

Strange.
cb

Was just told about this - Medical Examiner's report:

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2700463/Largay-Medical-Examiner-s-Report.pdf

thanks for posting the Medical Examiner's report - very interesting

Hard for me to tell why they said "inanition" as opposed to some other peaceful natural cause. All they had was bones, no soft tissue, and a well-made campsite. There was no mention of any clues about how long the campsite had been occupied. Might well have been a sudden natural cause (cardiac, vascular, you name it), just no evidence to say anything either way.

Its my understanding that she left a journal. Probably something in there that confirmed, or reinforced, the idea in the ME's mind about cause of death.

In this context, "inanition" basically means "laid down and died without obvious proximate cause".

First I've heard about a journal.

The ME didn't personally examine the campsite and there's no mention in this report of the ME looking at anything other than the body (and the sleeping bag, and whatever clothing was on the body): all other "artifacts" went to the Crime Lab. It'd be hard to know how long she was alive at the campsite, especially after two years, but maybe you could hazard a guess - if there were full cans of food or fuel, she didn't survive long enough to use them.

We're all interested either for backcountry lessons or a morbid sense of curiosity but I suspect the family would rather remember her for her lively days instead of her dieing days. Do we need to make a public spectacle of every misfortune?

Amen...............................................

TCD said:

Also, a good point about being close to something and not seeing it in dense woods. I've done a bit of wilderness SAR (mostly grid search line stuff). We teach that to get really good search coverage when looking for clues such as dropped items, you should be able to see the feet of the next searcher in line. But that's rarely practiced thoroughly; in dense woods that requires searchers to be quite close together, and greatly reduces how much area a team can cover. So there's usually a compromise with search coverage and search efficiency. So it's easy for a search team to miss something in dense woods. No scale on that map, but the "location found" dot looks to be at least a couple hundred feet off that "trail" on the map. At a couple hundred feet in dense spruce, even a blaze orange tent would not be detectable.

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One of my favorite moments as a SAR dog handler helping to train other handlers was to watch them walk past me, as they attempted to find me during practice. On one memorable occasion, I was able to reach out and grab the handler by the ankle.

OTOH, one of our unit's favorite moments came when a dog insisted during an actual search that someone was under a downed tree. Two very experienced handlers standing next to the dog could see nothing of interest. It wasn't until one of them pulled away some roots and dirt that they saw the five-year-old object of their desire. He'd spent the night there, seeking refuge from wild animals that he feared. A party of ground pounders had passed by him during the previous evening, CALLING HIS NAME, but he'd been trained not to talk to strangers.

TCD said:

As I said earlier, it does seem that someone has an axe to grind.

I'm not familiar with that area, but John makes a good point about maps. Many "trails" that appear on topo maps are not detectable at all in the woods; and also there are many trails in the woods that do not appear on any maps. An "armchair map reader" can reach a lot of wrong conclusions about what's really out there on the ground.

Also, a good point about being close to something and not seeing it in dense woods. I've done a bit of wilderness SAR (mostly grid search line stuff). We teach that to get really good search coverage when looking for clues such as dropped items, you should be able to see the feet of the next searcher in line. But that's rarely practiced thoroughly; in dense woods that requires searchers to be quite close together, and greatly reduces how much area a team can cover. So there's usually a compromise with search coverage and search efficiency. So it's easy for a search team to miss something in dense woods. No scale on that map, but the "location found" dot looks to be at least a couple hundred feet off that "trail" on the map. At a couple hundred feet in dense spruce, even a blaze orange tent would not be detectable.

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I can't speak to the Wardens protocols in ME but textbook (SP Manual for Police) in NY for missing/manhunt is a 3 to 10 yard separation determined by the OIC after taking the topography, weather, and skill set of the group. If you've ever done it, you know how easy it can be to miss a valuable clue in dense woods.

Just heard that 'the Bollard' has another installment.

http://thebollard.com/2016/03/03/m-i-a-on-the-a-t-inanition/

Update in the Boston Globe:

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...d-for-weeks/KAcHuKSdYVHNTNu0qQobvK/story.html

Hiker who died after disappearing from trail survived for weeks

A hiker who died after going off the Appalachian Trail in 2013 in western Maine survived for weeks and kept a journal, the Maine Game Warden Service believes.

Geraldine Largay, 66, went off the trail on July 23, 2013. The game warden service on Wednesday released its file on her mysterious disappearance, which prompted one of the largest searches in the agency’s history...

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