UKC

I'm not entirely sure I know what to think:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-36389383

I think I am going to stick with just two thoughts: there but for the grace of God go any of us, and I hope I meet my end, however it occurs, with as much dignity and courage.

Extraordinarily poignant.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

I was very moved when I chanced upon the story last night.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:
That really moved me. Poor woman, the despair she must have felt

Isn't human behaviour strange? You are miles from anywhere, not a soul within miles of you, yet some people still have instinctive desire or "privacy" when relieving themselves and wander deep off the trail to find it. On a much smaller scale it's just what a friend of mine did at Font. She needed a wee, went too far into the forest, got totally disorientated and spent the next few hours wandering around in the forest getting more and more lost. She finally re-appeared just as the rest of us, who had been searching and calling for her, were starting to get really worried.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:
How sad

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

It is an absolute tragedy no doubt and as Trangia mentions the despair and hopelessness must have been horrible!

But I couldn't help but wonder how this managed to happen, it just doesn't seem right. Looking at where she was found, by walking 15 km (no more than a day!) in any direction she would have met a road. She was also only 3 km from Redington, Maine, a location right in the middle of a ring of roads. I just don't understand the 26 days lost without any attempt to move to safety which was not far away at all, she was found roughly where she was believed to have got lost. To not know this is unusual, surely she had a map and compass, gps even? I understand that its in a dense forest but surely if you were that desperate you would make a solid effort to get somewhere?

Forgive me if my thoughts seem insensitive, dignity and courage no doubt!

In reply to GarethSL:

Yes, I was conflicted too, the story doesn't really make sense. But still...

In reply to GarethSL:

Not sure if you've ever walked much if the AT but the bits I'm familiar with cut through boggy, waterlogged beaver dam-ed overgrown undergrowth-y nightmares. Most normal folk would give up and/or be exhausted/tangled/stuck after a few hundred meters. Very easy for me to imagine this. Why you would leave the trail further than a few meters is another question though. Either way, its a very sad story.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

Good on her for giving it a go in my opinion. Having read Brysons Walk in the Woods I am not surprised how easily she got lost, these woods are on a scale it is hard to comprehend.
What I have learnt from it is, give it a go, but when you do, leave the Rosary beads behind and take a Sat Phone and a GPS instead.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

Awful.

A genuine shame they didn't put a McGuyver hat one. Mobile phone battery + tin foil or bra underwire = good fire starter.

In reply to Trangia:

Maybe it was a long wee?

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

I read this in the early hours in a slightly zombified state (woken by a neighbours alarm and couldn't get back to sleep) and so it's latched onto my head and it's been on my mind most of the day.

Really sad. Really, really sad.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

How many of us have arrived at summit, wandered round to find a place to sit, had the mist come in, then become unsure of which direction we need to go? Solved with map and compass of course.

Now imagine you do this in thick vegetation / forest. Now imagine you didn't take a beating when you left the path. Now imagine you wander in the direction you think you've come from only to go further from the path. Now imagine you're completely exhausted, cut bleeding and demoralised with no idea where the trail lies. Imagine your map doesn't quite show the roads there abouts combined with your total disorientation.

I remember descending a mountain in Alaska 16 years ago. I should have returned on the trail I ascended but I wanted to traverse the mountain. The bushes from above didn't look too big and I thought I could see a route down. Well those bushes were trees tall enough to hide any view once I was in them, the ground was steep and un trodden, and it was a battle to get down. I was cut and dripping in sweat by the time I emerged onto another trail out of there. It looked easy enough from above and looking at the map it didn't seem far. So I totally get how this happened. I think we forget how cultivated out forests are and how much easier it is to traverse them.

In reply to Lion Bakes:


It happened to me whilst climbing Pinnacle Ridge on Sgurr Nan Gillean. Got totally confused and totally disorientated.

Compass was of course utterly useless.

In reply to Matt Rees:


But it's very well signed with blazes, it's hard to imagine someone getting that lost on it.

very sad story but I'm surprised she could get so lost.

In reply to Roadrunner5:

I did some of the northern Maine bit of the AT and I can actually see how this could happen. It's incredibly easy to follow the trail if you're*on* the trail, but if you're off the trail, it's surprisingly hard to see where the trail is. I once walked out of a shelter site (for others, shelters on the AT are these 3-sided wooden structures in a clearing) the wrong way--it turned out I was just on a path to a tent site--and it was nearly impossible to see the trail when I had only gone about 10 feet off of it. It's such a faint line through the pines with no real definition to it.

On the other hand, the part about not trying to walk out makes no sense...

In reply to Matt Rees:

Yes; a mile in the Maine woods is worth ten on British hills.

In reply to alicia:

The section in Maine I did was up at Grafton Notch, I've done smaller sections further east.

I can imagine it is hard to get back once you lose it but if you've just gone 10-20 yards it seems hard to imagine it being lost so tragically.

But Americans are incredibly prudish when it comes to toilets and nakedness compared to europeans.. so I can well imagine she hiked a considerable distance off the trail.

I was bush whacking through to a trail in the catskills and the GPS showed we were almost at the summit and on the path yet it took us a good 10 minutes to finally find the path. I think we were snaking along bush whacking only a few meters to the side of the path but couldn't see it.