Geraldine Largay, Appalachian Trail
A 66-year-old thru-hiker stepped off the trail in western Maine in July 2013 and got lost; her tent and remains were found in 2015, with a journal showing she survived for weeks.
2013 CE · 45.01, -70.43 · status: explained
The account
Geraldine Largay, trail name 'Inchworm', was last seen on 22 July 2013 at the Poplar Ridge lean-to north of Saddleback Mountain. A huge search by the Maine Warden Service found nothing. On 14 October 2015 a forestry contractor on US Navy land in Redington Township found her campsite, about two miles from the trail. Her journal and phone showed she had stepped off the trail (reportedly to relieve herself), became disoriented, tried to text her husband without signal, and lived at least 26 days. The death was ruled accidental.
The sceptical view
A textbook lost-person case: a short step off the path, no compass skills, no signal, and a camp in dense forest that searchers passed nearby without seeing.
Connections in the atlas
- Kris 'Sherpa' Fowler, Pacific Crest Trail
- The Missing 411 'profile points'
- Robert Koester, 'Lost Person Behavior'
- 'Missing 411' and Yosemite