Brave woman hiker's last journal entries finally revealed

[Anonymous]

Reminds me of Christopher McCandless (into the wild dude.)

[Anonymous]

She apparently had no compass (and a phone GPS doesn't work if there is no cell signal), and left her emergency signal light/flares behind. Still, even in the Maine woods, she should have been able to figure out how to navigate by the sun and moon. The fact that she got lost leaving the trail to use the bathroom makes me think that she must have been otherwise disoriented. Could be something as easy as being dehydrated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand how you get lost and can't get found on the Appalachian trail. It's not that wide. If you walked in a straight line for days, you'd have to hit something. Right?

When you have no bearings and are lost in thick woods of Maine, how do you "walk in straight line"?

You use your compass and items in your environment to keep your bearings. If you don't have a compass, map and basic navigational skills you probably shouldn't be in the backcountry, and definitely shouldn't be out there solo.

I am a hiker and a member of a number of online hiking groups so have seem a lot of discussion about this, both when she first went missing and now.

From that it seems like there were a number of reasons why this *particular* hiker probably shouldn't have been hiking solo at the time she got lost, and some prior decisions that turned out to be tragic (she had been carrying a SPOT for most of her trek and at some point not too long before this had left it in her resupply box for her husband to pickup so didn't have it when this happened.)

But absolutely tragic to think of her alone out there for so long and dying alone. My heart breaks for her and all her family, and all the searchers who got so close and stopped searching before she died - I am sure the SAR folks are feeling some awful 'what ifs' and that's a hard burden.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She apparently had no compass (and a phone GPS doesn't work if there is no cell signal), and left her emergency signal light/flares behind. Still, even in the Maine woods, she should have been able to figure out how to navigate by the sun and moon. The fact that she got lost leaving the trail to use the bathroom makes me think that she must have been otherwise disoriented. Could be something as easy as being dehydrated.

Just want to correct this pont - in general this is false, and your phone GPS *DOES* work without cell signal if have open enough skylines to get a connection to the satellite (in my experience generally takes 2-3 minutes without the speed connect provided by the cell towers, and I've been able to get access in forested, steep valleys though wouldn't trust it to connect from a slot canyon.)

What you don't have without cell service is the ability to download maps on the fly, however you can pre-download tipo maps via a number of maps, so for hikers traveling at the speed of foot this isn't a big problem and just requires downloading the maps before you head out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is so sad to read! This poor woman!

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/missing-hiker-found-dead-last-year-kept-journal-of-ordeal

Just sends shivers down my spine to read of her ordeal & thinking of what must have been going through her mind towards the end. Horrible to have to end your life scared, lost, and alone. She was a brave, true, hero.

Please don't use the word hero so casually. She got lost and died, and it's tragic, but it doesn't make her a hero.

+1

[Anonymous]

Another survival technique, find a stream. Follow it downstream. Eventually, you will come to something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Reminds me of Christopher McCandless (into the wild dude.)

That guy was mentally ill.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is so sad to read! This poor woman!

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/missing-hiker-found-dead-last-year-kept-journal-of-ordeal

Just sends shivers down my spine to read of her ordeal & thinking of what must have been going through her mind towards the end. Horrible to have to end your life scared, lost, and alone. She was a brave, true, hero.

Please don't use the word hero so casually. She got lost and died, and it's tragic, but it doesn't make her a hero.

+1

AGREE.

[Anonymous]

At 66, having been hiking for months, I would imagine that she didn't have a lot of physical or mental reserves. She didn't do everything right, but it still seems like mostly bad luck.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, I don't see why she should be called brave and a true hero? What did she do that was so brave and heroic? She was unprepared because she typically would meet her husband every evening after a day of hiking and he would give her supplies and take her to a hotel to sleep. Unfortunately as she got lost, she didn't meet him and of course didn't have enough supplies to survive.

[Anonymous]

Realizing that everyone is different, my parents are retired in Maine and hike daily. They recently tried to do Katahdin - and turned around halfway through and went home, because they felt they were not adequately prepared. They learned a few things they will incorporate into the next attempt. They are 63 and 70.
I feel bad for the lady but I see more foolishness than bad luck in this story.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's a tragic, sad story. But yeah, not really brave or heroic.

It's not even tragic. Not by any meaningful definition of the word.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, I don't see why she should be called brave and a true hero? What did she do that was so brave and heroic? She was unprepared because she typically would meet her husband every evening after a day of hiking and he would give her supplies and take her to a hotel to sleep. Unfortunately as she got lost, she didn't meet him and of course didn't have enough supplies to survive.

She actually did. She was found with her full kit and her journal shows she lived for 28 days - this wasn't a death due to dehydration or hypothermia within a short time frame. Yes she didn't have skill and equipment to live off the land indefinitely, but almost nobody these days does. There were obviously reasons she didn't survive, but from what we know of the story it seems they were mostly mental and skill related, unless she had gotten injured and was incapable of walking at that point.

[Anonymous]

Well I think her mistake was not trying to hike out of the area.

After all, those guys in the Andes plane crash were only rescued after they decided to send a few of them to hike out for help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well I think her mistake was not trying to hike out of the area.

After all, those guys in the Andes plane crash were only rescued after they decided to send a few of them to hike out for help.

Agreed but those were young guys, not old ladies.

Granted, they were in VERY harsh conditions....