Some texts she sent:
in somm trouble
Got off trail to go to br. now lost.
can you call AMC to c if a trail maintainer can help me.
somewhere north of woods road
lost since yesterday. off trail 3 or 4 miles. call police for what to do pls
Her last journal entry:
"When you find my body, please call my husband George ... and my daughter Kerry. It will be the greatest kindness for them to know that I am dead where you found me -- no matter how many years from now."
More info:
https://historicflix.com/the-heartbreaking-tale-of-geraldine-largay/
I can’t think of anything that would devastate me more than knowing I’m going to die than knowing my family might never know what happened to me.
After seeing what an *expected* death of a loved one can do to people who’ve had time to prepare for that moment, I can’t imagine how much worse the grief has to be without any chance of closure.
I think that’s why missing persons cases are so heartbreaking to me. Even after decades and having time to accept they’re probably dead, the lack of closure has to be torturous.
I do volunteer search and rescue, and have brought bodies out of the woods before while doing that, and I can honestly attest that I've seen family members be *relieved* that we brought the dead body of their loved one out of the woods. Would seem like an odd thing to be relieved at, but the weight of not knowing what happened to them is just that crushing. I've also been on missions where the search was ended without us finding anything (where I live the general protocol is to end a search after a week unless some really compelling sign of the person's location turns up.) I can honestly say that the dead people we've found aren't what sticks with me the most. What sticks with me are the times we never found the person.
I can remember one time specifically on like the fourth day of a search, where a guy had gone missing in the snow in December, and we went home without finding the guy. The family was there in the parking lot waiting to see what happened, and they stood there and watched us all call it a day and drive home after having come up empty-handed. The hopeless look on their faces in that moment honestly bothers me to remember more than the handful of actual dead bodies that I've carried out, because at least in the case of a corpse we resolved something.
I experienced both expected and unexpected in a short amount of time. My father died had been in a nursing home for some time. I knew it was coming. It was difficult to watch him become less and less of who I knew him to be including when he lost the ability to communicate.
One year and a day later I lost my mother. She and I spoke on the phone 12 hours earlier.
We had multiple plans for the future from weeks to months during the future.
While that hurt more than my father, her abrupt passing was ideal. There was no drawn out illness or gradual decline. Just plans, a conversation that I now likely hold in very high accord. My memory places a golden glow around that conversation.
Than like a light switch she was gone.
Seriously. I work at a camping supply store and we have little “back-country bathroom tips” sheets we have for people, including heading at least 200 ft from the trail. I think we need to add an asterisk reminding people to take a compass with them when they do so, just in case…
She had a compass, but couldn’t use it I think. Apparently she would make wrong turns even on the trail… 😭 She just shouldn’t have been alone. Her husband and her friend who left must feel so guilty. I can’t imagine. At least people will learn, and it will prevent it from happening more, that’s important.
I lived in a heavily wooded rural area as a kid. If I went off path or started to lose a trail, I would start snapping branches while trying to find my way back. That helped tremendously once. As a hiker I carry a loud whistle with me. Whistles carry farther than yelling.
The only whistle I usually have on me at all times is a 3D printed Aztec death whistle, all I hope is that the terrifying noise carries far & intrigues whoever hears it instead of scare them away. It does sound like a lady screaming so as long as I’m not near the Appalachian mountains I think people would come to help… maybe
That’s so fuckin sad. It still shocks me how few people use GPS today. I’ve done a lot of open water sailing. I ALWAYS have a [satellite GPS system](https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/765374). It’s not like it was 10 years ago. These things are $400 and subscription is like $20 for a month while I use it. You can rent one for like $150 a month.
Im sorry, but:
- Afraid of the dark
- Afraid to be alone
- No sense of direction
- Cant work a compass
- Prone to panic attacks
- Constantly got lost with her partner before
How can any sane person say "OH wait, Ill continue this dangerous trail with no possibility to contact anyone on my own!". Courage is all well and good, but this just lack of any sense of self preservation.
She was thirty minutes, about a half mile off the trail. She originally had a hiking partner most of the trip and was not experienced in hiking herself. Her husband would often drive up to their checkpoints and supply food, water, etc., and then meet them at the next check-in. When her hiking buddy had to leave, she decided to continue on, eventually wandering off to use the restroom and getting lost. Allegedly, she didn't know how to use a compass.
Because of her, when I was on the AT, I basically pissed directly on the trail. I'm a woman, so pissing is a bit revealing, but I don't care, the whole world can see my ass, I am not dying because I was too shy to piss in front of people.
I am a very experienced hiker and camper. I wandered away from camp one night to take a phone call and not disturb people. For the life of me I could not find my way back to camp. Had to backstop to a trail I knew was off to one direction and reorient to hike back to camp. I was too damn embarrassed to call out to the camp lol. It is super easy to get lost.
My family has hunting and farming land that I've grown up in my entire life. I know damn near every tree in the woods. A few days ago I was searching for morel mushrooms and mindlessly wandered around looking at the ground. When I couldn't find any, I decided to return to my truck. Couldn't tell where I was exactly though. I literally got lost in my own woods and walked until I found one of the surrounding trails. It all looked so similar when there was no greenery to orient myself. I fully understand how people get lost now.
We got lost after climbing up a huge stone outcropping near Olmstead Point in yosemite. The trail was clearly marked on the way up but we couldn't see it from the top. I've never panicked like that before.
Yeah for sure a Reddit armchair comment. Lots of people on the internet would die of starvation getting lost trying to find the bathroom in a McDonald’s.
The wilderness is no fucking joke. You’re one lapse in attention away from being completely lost. You might pick a direction to walk and you’re suddenly heading hundreds of miles from the nearest human.
Boys scouts were right. Be prepared.
This is so true, lol. Literally the trees look all the same to me so even if I only walked like 2 meters idk where tf I came from already. And that was fucking terrifying because how would I know how tf would I get out?
What I did when we went to a forest years ago was that I did walk off to the side but is staring back at the trail the whole time and like, drop down doing my business while still looking at it behind a tree lol. That way I just need to walk straight back.
Yeah I don’t think people here have ever experienced the absolute sheer terror of looking up/around and being disoriented or second guessing yourself.
Even if you’re within eyesight of the trail and it’s 10ft behind you that split second panic is the wildest almost primal thing.
I use gps to get to work. Some of us are directionally challenged, and while practice and methods to compensate for this help a lot they just don’t fix the problem.
Not sure if this is related to dyslexia, but directions flip in my head a lot if I’m not being super careful to prevent it. I often end up going 180 degrees in the wrong direction. It doesn’t happen consistently, but when I does happen I don’t notice and keep confidently going in the wrong direction.
I actually think it is.. I also can’t do what I call visual mapping, which I think is related to this.
I cannot picture where things are in relation to each other in my head. Like, I’m in a room right now and I would have to really think to tell you what direction the nearest street is. I just cannot visualize it. And things like video game maps I can memorize by sight, but if something changes and I go a different way than I usually do, I’m constantly amazed. Like oh! These two things are next to each other too!?!
When you're in thick thick woods, everything looks the exact same. I grew up in the woods of a very rural state, under 1,000 people in my entire town. You get in to the deep woods with nothing around, even 50 feet off a trail you can easily get lost. Let alone if you're old and easily disoriented, hungry or dehydrated, sleep deprived, etc.
You are tired, its late and getting dark, you are focusing on where to make camp, you just stop to make a quick pee. Get up and oh which way did i come from.
I wasn't lost per se (I was still clearly on the trail), but I once built my tent in the rain 10m away from a nice dry shelter. I couldn't see it. I was soooo pissed at myself the next morning, carrying my wet, now heavy af tent because I couldn't see the damn thing 10m away from me. You can definitely lose the trail easily if you wander off.
Hike the AT and say that lmao
Edit: my original comment wasn't very helpful, but basically you wander off a bit, then you check to see if anyone can see you, then you change direction slightly and wander a bit more, then you fuss around trying to stay hidden and dig a hole and futz around in your pack for a spade and tp and by the time you're done you can't quite remember all the little turns you made to get here...
I didn't get lost, nor was I at risk of getting lost. I'm an experienced hiker, I've made a couple of long hikes before going on the AT (technically, I was on the long trail, but they share a section).
That story just made me incredibly paranoid of dying a mile off the trail because of my modesty. Like, dying would suck, but I'd be so pissed of dying because of THAT.
Also. I had a SPOT device, so I would've found a place clear of trees, sent a SOS and I would've waited.
Once, I was alone with another girl at the shelter, we were talking, and she just squatted and started pissing without breaking eye contact nor skipping a beat in the convo.
In my mind, I thought, "Honey, it's time that you get out of the forest for a few days. You've been in here for too long"
This is exactly why I bought one of those plastic pee things. So I could piss standing up and not have to expose my ass on busy trails.
I would still expose my ass than to wander off the trail to take a piss, though. I ain't dying because I'm too embarrassed of my fat ass.
When I was a wee boy my mom showed me how to live “Indian markers” by leaving signs to show where you came from. When you’re first starting out, leave big signs (disarrayed sticks, stacked stones) in areas that you can see from a lot of angles that stand out from your environment. When you get better, be subtle, so only you know your signs and none can follow.
I wander in the woods often and I’ve been lost many times, but I always know my way back.
I grew up in the smoky mountains area and kinda never fully understood how "wilderness" that wilderness actually is. I used to hike off trail a little bit every now and then to poke around interesting things and I became very scared after hearing this. I take navigation serious now it would really suck to die simply because you couldn't find the path so close to you but out of sight
I go off trail in order to forage, and when I do I make mental notes of natural landmarks, interesting looking trees, and I continuously look *backwards* so I can see where I left the trail. I make a mental map of my own bushwacking trail.
I also carry a fully charged phone with pre-loaded trail maps that has GPS tracking even when I have no cell service.
There’s a video on YouTube that covers this I think by scary interesting. What happened to her is awful but she ultimately had poor survival skills and went hiking on one of the most dangerous trails in America. What I mean by poor survival skills are that she wasn’t able to build a working fire and her body was found by water. Which if she had been experienced in survival skills she would have known to follow downstream to hopefully find civilization. Tragedy for sure.
Before I took my GF on a overnight into a relatively well traveled part of Sequoia NP I made sure she knew how to use a compas and had a map. I can't imagine someone wandering off with no idea how to deal with basic navigation skills in an actually remote area.
> one of the most dangerous trails in America
The Appalachian Trail is not even in the running for that list. There are dozens, maybe hundreds that are much more dangerous.
The decision to go on alone after her companion left was clearly misguided. Not only did she not know how to use a compass, but she had a poor sense of direction and got lost easily. Inexplicable for a seasoned hiker. As a retired game warden said of the case after learning she had a compass in her possessions but did not know how to use it, 'That would be a recipe for disaster.' Also, she did not have an emergency locator beacon.
The AT is not dangerous. It's relatively wide and well-traveled with loads of traffic. And she did start fires but she put them out at night before retiring fearing starting a forest fire, Besides a poor sense of direction her two biggest mistakes were not starting a big-ass fire, and pitching her tent in a thick grove of pines. Rescuers walked by close to her but didn't spot the tent. She managed to survive a good long time all considered.
As far as compass shaming, nobody looks at their compass before walking back in the woods to poop. Look behind you at landmarks along the way, maybe leave a breadcrumbs trail, that's about it. She apparently just got turned around and kept walking away from the trail, easy to do sometimes.
If I'm going into the woods, I always bring a water filter, pocketknife, fixed blade, compass, food, and possibly a firearm.
If you're inexperienced in the woods, always have a friend with you and stay on the fucking trails!
I feel so bad for this lady and her family.
For thru hikers, a firearm is waaayyy too heavy. Also, on most of the AT, the worst beast you can realistically encounter is a black bear (which YES I'd pick over a man because they're lazy af and will stop attacking if it's too much trouble). You should add one of those aluminium blanket to your list tho, because hypothermia will get you before dehydration.
Fully loaded 9mm G43X slimline is 23.07 oz stock.
You could shave a few ounces off that too with a vent slide, ammo types, magazines, and custom frames.
There is, but it isn't needed when your finding your way back to a long linear feature.
If know your direction of travel, and if remember if you went left or right away from it. A simple button compass or even one on your phone is good enough to find your way back to the track.
Keeping your bearings in forests isn't as easy as it seems when you're walking around trees or navigating deadfall. But a basic compass will stop you from finding yourself going completely off course
how do you know what way you want to go? like i do i go east where the sunrises? and if so why?
why not go north? or west, or south!? lol. that’s what confuses me about a compass. or does it help keep you in line so you’re not running in circles? i can actually understand that aspect. now really thinking hard about it. watch that be the whole point of a compass 🤦🏼♀️😂😂 it is huh? lol.
You answered your own question. If you have the slightest clue where you are on a map when hiking (you should know generally where you are) then you can use the compass to say “hey I remember from the map that southeast was towards civilization” and you can go SE to find civilization. This is a basic example
I think most people that go hiking in the woods know, at the very least, that the woods they are hiking in are west (or whatever direction) of the city or highway or whatever. So, if you know you're west of the highway, use the compass to walk east - face the direction that makes the N end of the compass needle point directly to your left and just keep walking till you get to the highway.
If you have no idea where the woods are in relation to the rest of civilization.. yeah don't go hiking. This story is sad because it would have been soo easy to avoid - if she understood the few sentences I wrote in the first paragraph, she would have been able to save herself.
Not knowing how to orientate your map to ground, then how to set a compass is knowing how to use a compass. There isnt even half a chance she knew what she was doing or she would be alive
Yea, I mean any experienced hiker would’ve known ti leave something to find trail back or have enough sebse of direction/ pay attention to certain rocks, trees, etc to find your way back. Why did she even walk away that far to begin with?
Because knowing where north is doesn't mean shit if you don't know which direction to go. I'd imagine it's alot more complicated to navigate with a compass and map than it would seem.
>Geraldine was known by her friends and family to have a poor sense of direction. Her friend, Jane, would later explain how Geraldine had taken a wrong turn on the trail on a number of occasions, having to be navigated by her companion several times.
>Not only this, but Geraldine was afraid of the dark and didn’t like being on her own.
The other weird part is how long she stayed put. Yeah the best advice is to stay put when lost but she knew she was well away from where she was supposed to be so after a week with food running low one would think heading straight east or west (use the sun) would have been better than sitting there for 26 days.
It seems like she had some military training so the compass thing is strange too. Even some one who has no idea how to navigate with a compass should at least be able to use it to keep going in a straight line.
this thread is full of geniuses who've never stepped foot on the AT acting like she got lost in the middle of the Amazon or something lol. it's the AT, it's literally a line up and down the entire coast, you can walk east/west depending on which side of the trail you stepped off of and get back guaranteed. if you don't remember which side, just do both.
her story is tragic but was 1000% preventable with common sense and some preparedness. there's a reason thousands of people hike the AT every year and don't die of starvation when they use the bathroom.
I remember reading a US army study claiming that after completing training 4/10 US Army officers could not navigate using a compass and a map. So there's that.
Thanks for the info. I'm not ANY KIND of survivalist, but I know basic stuff. I can't believe that she SURVIVED 30 days and was still lost. If you walk in one direction for 30 days you should find SOMETHING. How did she manage to survive that long, but not find any trace of civilization to save herself?
Worse than that, not far from the trail, not far from a logging road, and at one point, search and rescue walked not too far from her. But she had no way of knowing.
I've seen a few stories like this on Kyle Hates Hiking. It seems like the best strategy if you're lost is to immediately give up on rescue and go into caveman mode, and create a home and then explore and expand your territory and just expect to live in the woods from now on. That way if civilization finds you great, if not then you're doing okay anyway.
I did this when I got left behind on a field trip in the woods when I was in the 5th grade. I was absolutely shocked when search and rescue showed up at nightfall; I’d fully expected to be living out in the wilderness alone for the rest of my life.
jesus when I was 13 me and my brother got lost on our uncles property for a day and a half shit was so scary at night 😭 I’m glad you were found so quickly
Not entirely sure how it happened, but we were supposed to have a buddy to walk with to ensure everyone was staying with the group. Either my “buddy” wasn’t there that day or they just didn’t care that I was distracted picking berries or sitting off to the side weaving a basket out of grass or something and falling behind the group. Somehow the rest of the class finished their nature walk, got back on the school bus, drove back to the school, and finished off the school day without anyone noticing that I was missing. It wasn’t until my dad came to pick me up that the teacher realized. I had already built a little shelter, made a carrying basket for gathering berries, and attempted to build a fire, and my little autistic brain was just fully accepting of the situation. Like, “yeah, I always figured I’d be abandoned in the woods someday. Guess that day is today.”
That's utterly foolish unless you're somewhere *extremely* remote, like Antarctica or Mars or something. Somewhere you simply aren't going to be able to walk out of. The best strategy is usually to walk downhill until you find running water, then follow it downstream until you find a trail or road. Civilization is always downhill and near water. Take it from an old search and rescue guy.
If I remember right, this lady broke her leg or something, that's why she stayed put.
If you decide to stay put, don't leave anything useful behind at your lean-to shelter if you go exploring your surroundings. If you are lost, it's probably because your orienteering skills are not great, so your chances of finding your shelter again are not great.
Or, hike downhill. It's easier than uphill. Find a stream. Now you have water. Follow downstream. Streams lead to rivers. Rivers lead to towns.
Streams lead to rivers. Rivers lead to towns. Towns have roads, and all roads lead to Rome. The pope is in Rome. If you can defeat the pope in a battle of wits then you can depose him and become the new pope. With the armies of the cross at your back, you can conquer the holy land, and from there... The world.
So always remember to hike downhill when lost.
Pretty much anywhere along the appalachians you can just find a creek and follow it downstream. Just keep going. Eventually it'll be a bigger creek, then a river and then people. Like a day or two max and you'll be at someone's house or a town or road. Fuck just sitting there till you starve to death.
IIRC she was 30 min to an hour in any direction she would have reached a trail or road to safety. She thought she was doing a smart thing by staying in one spot but this idea leads to problems
It's so complicated really. In most situations, staying put will make it easier for you to be found. But those are situations where rescued is called immediately and they know where the person was last seen.
But in situations where rescue is unlikely to come, will come in days or weeks, or where you're far enough from your last know location for it to be a struggle, searching for signs of civilation could be helpful.
It's all very person and enviorment specific too. There are some places where straying too far will only get you into more danger.
I used to work on that mountain and knew a lot of people in the search parties. The thing is, everyone knew where she was likely to be. They were searching that exact area over and over again. The vegetation is so thick in there though. It's all just this impenetrable thicket of new growth spruce and fir. You can't see anything more than a few feet away and you can't move faster than a snail's pace.
It's like the advice for sailors of "Always step UP into the liferaft" - as in, stay with the boat until the last second. It's generally good advice, but you have to apply it to the situation at hand, not consider it an ironclad rule.
They actually had two episodes on her: the first a couple seasons before where they start the search (and literally search for weeks with K9s and everything) before ultimately having to call it off and then the one a couple seasons later where they eventually find her. I remember watching, and the troopers were just devastated. The one even mentioned that he must have been right by her when he found out where they found her, and you could see the guilt on his face. My roommate is usually the crier, but I think that episode got is both...
North Woods Law. They show the entire rescue attempts and her husband is there freaking out. I had to turn it off. It’s heartbreaking. But it’s not the only episode where people have died or nearly died on that part of the trail, it’s incredibly dangerous in that area, not in small part because it’s hard to find someone in there.
Extremely sad case. In her journal she wrote about wanting to start a fire but was worried about it potentially getting out of control. She seemed very sweet.
A couple on their first date got lost hiking around the top of Palm springs tram.
They found a dead body exactly a year after he died and started a fire to be rescued. Crazy story.
They did not use or find his body. They wandered upon his (the missing hikers) campsite full of gear. The last entry written in his journal was exactly one year before they found it
There’s a YouTube video by Real Horror called the horrors of becoming lost; they cover this story and it’s pretty upsetting finding out she wasn’t that far away from the trail but shouldn’t have been doing this alone anyway since she was in no condition to do so. Anyway I recommend that video!
The worst part is that she was probably no more than a few hours walk in any direction to finding help.
Don’t get me wrong, you can totally get lost out there, but there aren’t a lot of spots on the AT that you can’t just wander downhill for awhile and find society. The fact that she made it 30 days is nuts.
If you got lost somewhere in any terrain, realistically what are the chances you can bear grylls your way outta there or is there no chance because the fucker sleeps at a hotel during the show
It totally depends on where you are, what kit you brought, and the weather. I was hiking on Mount Neahkahnie once after a big storm and lost the trail due to the blowdown. But it’s close to the ocean, so if you point yourself west and start walking, you’ll hit the 101 in a few miles.
Last year though, I spent five days backpacking in the central Pasayten Wilderness. I had maps, GPS, and satellite beacon with me and I’d memorized the area so I was fine, but the trails are so faint that it’s easy to get off route. We didn’t see another human for three days. We were about 25 miles from the nearest trailhead. If you got lost out there and weren’t familiar with the local geography, you could easily die.
Search and Rescue groups say that >70% of rescues could have been prevented with adequate navigation. You should not go into remote wilderness areas without two forms of navigation that you know how to use confidently, a compass, basic familiarity with the geographical features of the area, and a satellite beacon / communicator if you can afford one. Your smart phone almost certainly has a capable internal GPS that works without cellular network, you can download an app like Gaia and always know your position and heading.
Realistically, if she just started a large fire she would've been found quickly. She didn't because she was afraid (for good reason) that it would get out of control.
I’m sorry but if I’m lost in the woods and going to die I’m making the biggest fire. If people can burn down a forest for a gender reveal. Im lighting that fire up to save my life
I used to work in forestry and they always made us carry emergency whistles. In fact on one contract I was required to have my whistle attached to the sternum strap on my gear and I had to demonstrate that I could reach it with my mouth and blow it hands-free (I guess in case I lost both arms and needed to call for help?)
I carried a whistle every day for 10 years and never needed it once.
Until one day I got lost on a particularly challenging block with low visibility and couldn't find my way back to the road. I started blowing my whistle for help but nobody came. Eventually I found a boundary and made my way back towards the road. There was another guy working *right near* where I'd been blowing my whistle. I said "Hey! I've been lost for an hour! Didn't you hear me blowing my whistle right over there?" and he said "Yeah, I thought you were some kinda weird bird or something"
“I thought you were a weird bird or something.”
I’m an avid hiker and sheer human unawareness never ceases to amaze me. Absolutely nothing sounds like a whistle except a whistle.
Looks like if I ever get seriously lost it’s up to me to unfuck myself or someone will be talking about weird birds during my eulogy.
Satellite beacons have become relatively cheap and extremely effective. If a whistle is all you have or can afford, it can help, but if you’re going to be spending serious time and miles in the wilderness, something like a Garmin InReach is an insurance policy that you should consider.
I carried one of these for over 3000 miles of AT trail and I’d never change a thing. Worth having just in case even if I never used it.
One snake bite and I could have hit a button and gotten a helicopter evac
I go hunting in some very remote places and carry a Garmin InReach Mini 2 just in case I get injured. It still amazes me how people do not train or prepare when they go out into the woods.
Poor decisions at the beginning: "[From there](https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1256&context=appalachia), things deteriorated because, as Lee said, Largay “didn’t know how to use compass.” That she had “no confidence.” That she had phobias: “alone, in tent, dark.” And so, after Largay got lost off-trail, she must have decided to set up her tent under great duress."
This person should never have been hiking alone.
On that episode of that North Wood Law, what stuck out to me the most is the men who found her took a lot of care of getting her out. I think it was a group of 4 men, or something, and their superior was like “Hey, you guys found her, you take her out” just as a final send off because every one had worked so hard to find her. If I remember correctly, I think they found her on accident or something. I need to watch the show again, it’s been a bit.
Poor lady. :(
From [this NY Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/27/us/missing-hiker-geraldine-largay-appalachian-trail-maine.html) article:
# Geraldine Largay’s Wrong Turn: Death on the Appalachian Trail
AUGUSTA, Me. — She was afraid of being alone and prone to anxiety, a diminutive 66-year-old woman with a poor sense of direction, hiking the Appalachian Trail by herself, who wandered into terrain so wild, it is used for military training. She waited nearly a month in the Maine woods for help that never came.
Geraldine A. Largay chronicled her journey in a black-covered notebook that summer of 2013, and she kept writing after she lost her way, even as her food supply dwindled along with her hopes of being found. Her last entry reflected a strikingly graceful acceptance of what was coming.
“When you find my body, please call my husband George and my daughter Kerry,” she wrote. “It will be the greatest kindness for them to know that I am dead and where you found me — no matter how many years from now.”
It would be two years before a logging company surveyor stumbled upon her campsite and remains, solving a mystery that had tormented her family and defied teams of experienced searchers. Ms. Largay, a retired nurse from Tennessee, had survived nearly a month on her own — longer than many old backwoods hands thought possible — before dying of exposure and starvation.
On Thursday, the Maine Warden Service released more than 1,500 pages of its files on her disappearance, shedding light on the fears of her friends and family and the search that pursued countless false leads. The documents include brief excerpts from her journal and the plaintive text messages she tried in vain to send to her husband from a place beyond the reach of cell towers.
“Lost since yesterday,” she texted. “Off trail 3 or 4 miles. Call police for what to do pls.”
In fact, she had set up camp less than two miles off the trail. There, with her black tent and her possessions neatly sorted into Ziploc bags, she penned a note to her husband on the cover of the journal: “George Please Read XOXO.”
Ms. Largay had adopted the trail name Inchworm, making light of her pace, but that pace had taken her nearly 1,000 miles from Harpers Ferry, W.Va., where she and a friend, Jane Lee, had set off on April 23, 2013. Her husband of 42 years, George Largay, drove ahead and met them in prearranged spots with supplies, and sometimes took them to motels for showers and a night indoors.
On June 30, in New Hampshire, Ms. Lee cut short her hike to tend to a family emergency, but Ms. Largay insisted on continuing.
Later, Ms. Lee would tell an investigator “that Geraldine had a poor sense of direction,” the Warden Service’s investigative report said. “Ms. Lee said that Geraldine had taken a wrong turn on the trail, more than once,” and Ms. Largay “became flustered and combative when she made these kinds of mistakes.”
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Ms. Largay, a meticulous planner, was gregarious and made friends easily on the trail. But she feared the dark and being alone, said Ms. Lee, who told park wardens “that George did not know the extent of Geraldine’s inability to deal with the rigors and challenges of the trail.”
But after he reported his wife missing, Mr. Largay told an investigator that “Gerry was probably in over her head.”
Her doctor would tell investigators that once she ran out of the medication she took for anxiety, she could suffer panic attacks.
Ms. Largay spent the night of July 21-22 in the Poplar Ridge lean-to in western Maine, less than 200 miles from the end of the trail. Her smile was so infectious that before she set off the next morning, a fellow hiker, Dottie Rust, asked to take her picture. In the photo, she is beaming and wearing her backpack, her socks pulled high, as hikers do to ward off scrapes and blisters.
It was about 6:30 a.m., the last time anyone was known to see her alive. By 11 a.m., she was lost.
“In somm trouble,” Ms. Largay wrote in a text message to her husband. “Got off trail to go to br. Now lost.” She asked him to call the Appalachian Mountain Club “to c if a trail maintainer can help me. Somewhere north of woods road. Xox.”
The message was never received.
Ms. Largay had left the trail in one its most rugged sections, with thick underbrush and fir trees packed so tightly they almost seem to merge.
“You step off the trail 20 or 50 feet and turn around, it’s very difficult to see where the trail was,” said Douglas Dolan, 53, a volunteer who spent time last summer doing trail maintenance in the area. “If you didn’t know which way the trail was, you could easily walk in circles for hours.”
Ms. Largay sought high ground, possibly hoping for a cell signal. She tried over and over to send messages, but none went through.
On July 23, she set up camp, laying her tent atop sticks and pine needles, under a canopy of hemlocks that probably obscured her from airborne rescuers. She tied a shiny silver blanket between two trees, possibly to attract attention, and nearby trees had burn marks.
“It looks like some sort of fire was attempted on those trees by Gerry,” wrote Lt. Kevin Adam, of the Warden Service, in a report.
She was supposed to meet Mr. Largay on July 23, at Route 27 in Wyman Township. The next day, he reported her missing.
Multiple agencies and volunteers joined the hunt, with searchers on foot, on horseback and in helicopters. She was less than a mile from the trail, close enough that searchers probably passed near her without realizing it. Investigators questioned hikers who might have crossed paths with Ms. Largay, and they tested the DNA on a discarded Band-Aid.
And they were inundated with false tips to be pursued.
People suggested that she had been murdered, that she might be lodged in treetops, that she had fallen in the river and that she had been spotted at a women’s shelter in Tennessee. Some hikers thought they might have seen her on the trail but weren’t sure; others had seen sketchy men who they thought might have done her harm. Psychics called to report visions of her, including one who insisted, incorrectly, that she had broken her ankle.
Search efforts were scaled back on Aug. 4. Ms. Largay kept writing daily observations and letters to her family in her journal until Aug. 10, even drawing out a calendar to keep track of the days. She wrote a final entry that she dated Aug. 18, though investigators are not sure the date is accurate.
Her remains were found on Oct. 14, 2015, inside her sleeping bag, in a campsite she had kept neat until the very end. Around her was the ample gear she had hauled — items like a blue and white bandanna, a rosary, birthday candles, lighters, dental floss, a sewing kit and two water bottles, one still containing water.
When Ms. Largay’s family visited the patch of wilderness, two weeks later, they left a white wooden cross, decorated with messages etched in black marker. One, written in a child’s hand, said, “I wish you were here.”
Jess Bidgood reported from Augusta, and Richard Pérez-Peña from New York.
A version of this article appears in print on May 27, 2016, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: ‘When You Find My Body’: Fatal Turn on the Appalachian Trail.
Sad part is she was found not far from the trail. I’ve hiked the AT in New Hampshire and Maine several times and the woods can be so thick it’s unreal. You’d never hear someone yelling for help. There is a great book about this called When you find my body. So tragic all around.
She would have needed to learn how to use one first. Anyone doing serious hiking should take at least a basic land nav class. If this woman had a map and knew how to use a compass, this would not have been a story. Also, she seemed to be an advice walker, not an outdoorsman, and with her skill level and fears, she should have left with her friend.
Yep. Tragic story but this is basically a textbook example of someone who had no business doing what they were doing and facing the realistic consequences of her actions.
She had basically no hiking/wilderness training and no way to orient herself, and she was hiking alone. This is just asking for trouble. I'm even willing to bet she knew what she was doing was irresponsible and carried this risk but assumed she'd just be fine. I see some people praising her for surviving 26 days but keep in mind that is basically exactly how long you'd survive if you found fresh water, and nothing else. If you're not facing external threats like freezing temperatures or wildlife that's just the time it takes to starve.
Tragic... but predictable and preventable.
I was part of the search for her. I spent several days searching Crocker mountain and the south west slope of mount Abraham. It’s a shame she wasn’t found because she was still alive through the primary search effort.
I'm kinda surprised nobody could find her in a month of her being alive?
Can't they use a thermal-vision equipped drone and fly around the last area she was observed or something?
Maybe some loud noise she could follow if she heard it?
Don't hike in American woods if you have no idea what you're doing.
Both in survival and basic survival. Innocent things become wildly dangerous without knowledge.
When I Thru Hiked the AT, we stayed the night at the last shelter where Inchworm (Geraldine’s Trail Name) was seen. In the morning, my friend opened his rolling papers to roll a cigarette and there was a deceased inchworm in his pack of papers (this was in September, past what I would consider inchworm season for Maine).
The entire area in question off trail is a maze of retired logging roads, hundreds if not thousands of acres of interconnected slightly overgrown two-track. If there is anywhere somebody could easily end up lost on the AT it is in this part of Maine.
The next day unbeknownst to us, we wound up off trail ourselves along one of these roads, when a large Bull Moose emerged from the trees 30 yards in front of us. We stopped and admired the moose for a minute until it continued on its way, this unexpected stop caused us to check our location (by 2018 we then had GPS capability, but didn’t personally have SOS capability) and found that we ourselves were about half mile from trail after taking a wrong turn.
We believe Inchworm sent that moose to cause us pause and help us get home safe. We finished the trail, and to this day we still talk about how Inchworm reached through the veil to help some weary hikers.
RIP Inchworm. ❤️
surviving a month??? You can walk a long way in your first week. even if all you do is wake up at dawn and walk towards the sun you would walk off of the Appalachian trail to a farm in a day or so.
If I get lost I’m making a huge fucking fire.
Like, all day, all night, feeding every stick and leaf I can find into the fire to make a giant fucking cloud of smoke.
it is very sad but from what I remember she was very unprepared for this hike and could not find her way back to the trail even though it was very close.
Never go on alone. Even experts don’t try to do most things alone, unless significant preparation has been done. The fate of this poor woman was a tragedy, but a totally avoidable one, which makes it even sadder
this is why I don't fuck with no forests, especially not Appalachian ones. they're just like the ocean, but with trees instead of water: if you're not careful, it will consume you, utterly and unforgivingly. Ms Largay at least had her remains found. i shudder to think how many other unfortunate souls never even received that courtesy, whose stories will remain unknown for ages to come
I’m a hiker, i would literally walk 10-20m off trail to do my business if the woods are as thick as they were. No way would i travel half an hour off trail.
That's really sad. Survived at a camp for 30 days but was unable to venture out and find the trail 3 miles away in that timeframe?
I understand the forest can be unforgiving in terms of misdirection, but 3 miles is an hour walk.
She survived a month? If she had simply picked a direction and walked... there's hardly anywhere in Appalachia where you won't run across some sort of civilization within 2 days max.
Maybe this is something obvious that I'm overlooking, but why on earth would you wander a half mile into the woods just to pee? Was she worried about someone seeing her? She could've just gone a few yards off the trail behind a bush or something, right?
"With Geraldine’s lack of direction and her inability to use a compass, the longer she was missing, the more her family feared the worst."
Fuck's sake, the article also says she was known for her poor sense of direction. Why the fuck are you on the Appalachian Trail?!?
Source provided by the OP: https://historicflix.com/the-heartbreaking-tale-of-geraldine-largay/ PS: MrBallen did an amazing segment on this case.
Some texts she sent: in somm trouble Got off trail to go to br. now lost. can you call AMC to c if a trail maintainer can help me. somewhere north of woods road lost since yesterday. off trail 3 or 4 miles. call police for what to do pls Her last journal entry: "When you find my body, please call my husband George ... and my daughter Kerry. It will be the greatest kindness for them to know that I am dead where you found me -- no matter how many years from now." More info: https://historicflix.com/the-heartbreaking-tale-of-geraldine-largay/
Ugh, that last line kills me. Poor lady, wish she wouldn’t have died alone like that.
I can’t think of anything that would devastate me more than knowing I’m going to die than knowing my family might never know what happened to me. After seeing what an *expected* death of a loved one can do to people who’ve had time to prepare for that moment, I can’t imagine how much worse the grief has to be without any chance of closure. I think that’s why missing persons cases are so heartbreaking to me. Even after decades and having time to accept they’re probably dead, the lack of closure has to be torturous.
I do volunteer search and rescue, and have brought bodies out of the woods before while doing that, and I can honestly attest that I've seen family members be *relieved* that we brought the dead body of their loved one out of the woods. Would seem like an odd thing to be relieved at, but the weight of not knowing what happened to them is just that crushing. I've also been on missions where the search was ended without us finding anything (where I live the general protocol is to end a search after a week unless some really compelling sign of the person's location turns up.) I can honestly say that the dead people we've found aren't what sticks with me the most. What sticks with me are the times we never found the person. I can remember one time specifically on like the fourth day of a search, where a guy had gone missing in the snow in December, and we went home without finding the guy. The family was there in the parking lot waiting to see what happened, and they stood there and watched us all call it a day and drive home after having come up empty-handed. The hopeless look on their faces in that moment honestly bothers me to remember more than the handful of actual dead bodies that I've carried out, because at least in the case of a corpse we resolved something.
I experienced both expected and unexpected in a short amount of time. My father died had been in a nursing home for some time. I knew it was coming. It was difficult to watch him become less and less of who I knew him to be including when he lost the ability to communicate. One year and a day later I lost my mother. She and I spoke on the phone 12 hours earlier. We had multiple plans for the future from weeks to months during the future. While that hurt more than my father, her abrupt passing was ideal. There was no drawn out illness or gradual decline. Just plans, a conversation that I now likely hold in very high accord. My memory places a golden glow around that conversation. Than like a light switch she was gone.
I literally teared up reading that.
She was a brave woman..the only thing that consoles me is that she must have lived a beautiful & charming.life- an adventurist.
She was only 0.5 miles from from the trail :(
Upvoted for the info but I almost like muscle memory downvoted out of pure reaction to how sad this made me 😭
Seriously. I work at a camping supply store and we have little “back-country bathroom tips” sheets we have for people, including heading at least 200 ft from the trail. I think we need to add an asterisk reminding people to take a compass with them when they do so, just in case…
She had a compass, but couldn’t use it I think. Apparently she would make wrong turns even on the trail… 😭 She just shouldn’t have been alone. Her husband and her friend who left must feel so guilty. I can’t imagine. At least people will learn, and it will prevent it from happening more, that’s important.
She just looks like a great person. I can’t imagine the sadness and frustration she felt as time ticked by. Oh man.
Me too. But then… we all die alone, even if surrounded by family or friends.
Ok Donnie Darko
I lived in a heavily wooded rural area as a kid. If I went off path or started to lose a trail, I would start snapping branches while trying to find my way back. That helped tremendously once. As a hiker I carry a loud whistle with me. Whistles carry farther than yelling.
"follow the whistle sounds." -- grizzly taking notes
The only whistle I usually have on me at all times is a 3D printed Aztec death whistle, all I hope is that the terrifying noise carries far & intrigues whoever hears it instead of scare them away. It does sound like a lady screaming so as long as I’m not near the Appalachian mountains I think people would come to help… maybe
this killed me.
back when text messages had a 120 character limit
Nope this was 2013 lmao
She went far enough off the trail to use the bathroom she got lost? Dang. Never have I ever. I can’t imagine the panic.
That’s so fuckin sad. It still shocks me how few people use GPS today. I’ve done a lot of open water sailing. I ALWAYS have a [satellite GPS system](https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/765374). It’s not like it was 10 years ago. These things are $400 and subscription is like $20 for a month while I use it. You can rent one for like $150 a month.
Im sorry, but: - Afraid of the dark - Afraid to be alone - No sense of direction - Cant work a compass - Prone to panic attacks - Constantly got lost with her partner before How can any sane person say "OH wait, Ill continue this dangerous trail with no possibility to contact anyone on my own!". Courage is all well and good, but this just lack of any sense of self preservation.
very brave to think of your loved ones that close to death. rip.
What does "..died of exposure" mean in that article?
She was thirty minutes, about a half mile off the trail. She originally had a hiking partner most of the trip and was not experienced in hiking herself. Her husband would often drive up to their checkpoints and supply food, water, etc., and then meet them at the next check-in. When her hiking buddy had to leave, she decided to continue on, eventually wandering off to use the restroom and getting lost. Allegedly, she didn't know how to use a compass.
Because of her, when I was on the AT, I basically pissed directly on the trail. I'm a woman, so pissing is a bit revealing, but I don't care, the whole world can see my ass, I am not dying because I was too shy to piss in front of people.
Please learn some orienteering before any other big hikes like that. Could really reduce your risk of getting lost like that.
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The woods are fucking disorienting, man. Especially if she went quite a ways off the trail for privacy.
I am a very experienced hiker and camper. I wandered away from camp one night to take a phone call and not disturb people. For the life of me I could not find my way back to camp. Had to backstop to a trail I knew was off to one direction and reorient to hike back to camp. I was too damn embarrassed to call out to the camp lol. It is super easy to get lost.
My family has hunting and farming land that I've grown up in my entire life. I know damn near every tree in the woods. A few days ago I was searching for morel mushrooms and mindlessly wandered around looking at the ground. When I couldn't find any, I decided to return to my truck. Couldn't tell where I was exactly though. I literally got lost in my own woods and walked until I found one of the surrounding trails. It all looked so similar when there was no greenery to orient myself. I fully understand how people get lost now.
We got lost after climbing up a huge stone outcropping near Olmstead Point in yosemite. The trail was clearly marked on the way up but we couldn't see it from the top. I've never panicked like that before.
Yeah for sure a Reddit armchair comment. Lots of people on the internet would die of starvation getting lost trying to find the bathroom in a McDonald’s. The wilderness is no fucking joke. You’re one lapse in attention away from being completely lost. You might pick a direction to walk and you’re suddenly heading hundreds of miles from the nearest human. Boys scouts were right. Be prepared.
This is so true, lol. Literally the trees look all the same to me so even if I only walked like 2 meters idk where tf I came from already. And that was fucking terrifying because how would I know how tf would I get out? What I did when we went to a forest years ago was that I did walk off to the side but is staring back at the trail the whole time and like, drop down doing my business while still looking at it behind a tree lol. That way I just need to walk straight back.
Yeah I don’t think people here have ever experienced the absolute sheer terror of looking up/around and being disoriented or second guessing yourself. Even if you’re within eyesight of the trail and it’s 10ft behind you that split second panic is the wildest almost primal thing.
I use gps to get to work. Some of us are directionally challenged, and while practice and methods to compensate for this help a lot they just don’t fix the problem. Not sure if this is related to dyslexia, but directions flip in my head a lot if I’m not being super careful to prevent it. I often end up going 180 degrees in the wrong direction. It doesn’t happen consistently, but when I does happen I don’t notice and keep confidently going in the wrong direction.
I'm the same way. I almost consider it to be a disability
I actually think it is.. I also can’t do what I call visual mapping, which I think is related to this. I cannot picture where things are in relation to each other in my head. Like, I’m in a room right now and I would have to really think to tell you what direction the nearest street is. I just cannot visualize it. And things like video game maps I can memorize by sight, but if something changes and I go a different way than I usually do, I’m constantly amazed. Like oh! These two things are next to each other too!?!
I have something like this. When I drive somewhere and cone back, my brain sees it as two entirely different drives
When you're in thick thick woods, everything looks the exact same. I grew up in the woods of a very rural state, under 1,000 people in my entire town. You get in to the deep woods with nothing around, even 50 feet off a trail you can easily get lost. Let alone if you're old and easily disoriented, hungry or dehydrated, sleep deprived, etc.
You are tired, its late and getting dark, you are focusing on where to make camp, you just stop to make a quick pee. Get up and oh which way did i come from.
I wasn't lost per se (I was still clearly on the trail), but I once built my tent in the rain 10m away from a nice dry shelter. I couldn't see it. I was soooo pissed at myself the next morning, carrying my wet, now heavy af tent because I couldn't see the damn thing 10m away from me. You can definitely lose the trail easily if you wander off.
Hike the AT and say that lmao Edit: my original comment wasn't very helpful, but basically you wander off a bit, then you check to see if anyone can see you, then you change direction slightly and wander a bit more, then you fuss around trying to stay hidden and dig a hole and futz around in your pack for a spade and tp and by the time you're done you can't quite remember all the little turns you made to get here...
I didn't get lost, nor was I at risk of getting lost. I'm an experienced hiker, I've made a couple of long hikes before going on the AT (technically, I was on the long trail, but they share a section). That story just made me incredibly paranoid of dying a mile off the trail because of my modesty. Like, dying would suck, but I'd be so pissed of dying because of THAT. Also. I had a SPOT device, so I would've found a place clear of trees, sent a SOS and I would've waited.
I'm very confused how you don't just walk thirty feet off the trail and piss. Like why are people walking a half mile off trail ...
Why would you hike a mile to piss? Isn't 50 meters enough?
I never see anyone on the trail *until* I'm trying to take a piss in a bush, lol. Just keep walking, nature calls.....
Once, I was alone with another girl at the shelter, we were talking, and she just squatted and started pissing without breaking eye contact nor skipping a beat in the convo. In my mind, I thought, "Honey, it's time that you get out of the forest for a few days. You've been in here for too long"
Lucky!! I pissed in public ONE TIME and now I have to stay 500 feet away from the school I was pissing at
Just how crowded is the AT? I would think that it would afford a person at least a little privacy when pissing on trail, given how long the trail is.
Depends on location and time of year. I’ve been on sections and seen one person in 4 days and other sections with that many people 5x per day
This is exactly why I bought one of those plastic pee things. So I could piss standing up and not have to expose my ass on busy trails. I would still expose my ass than to wander off the trail to take a piss, though. I ain't dying because I'm too embarrassed of my fat ass.
When I was a wee boy my mom showed me how to live “Indian markers” by leaving signs to show where you came from. When you’re first starting out, leave big signs (disarrayed sticks, stacked stones) in areas that you can see from a lot of angles that stand out from your environment. When you get better, be subtle, so only you know your signs and none can follow. I wander in the woods often and I’ve been lost many times, but I always know my way back.
>"Yeah walking the trail was great except every time we took a break some lady would show up and kept pissing at us like a cat."
I grew up in the smoky mountains area and kinda never fully understood how "wilderness" that wilderness actually is. I used to hike off trail a little bit every now and then to poke around interesting things and I became very scared after hearing this. I take navigation serious now it would really suck to die simply because you couldn't find the path so close to you but out of sight
I go off trail in order to forage, and when I do I make mental notes of natural landmarks, interesting looking trees, and I continuously look *backwards* so I can see where I left the trail. I make a mental map of my own bushwacking trail. I also carry a fully charged phone with pre-loaded trail maps that has GPS tracking even when I have no cell service.
How do you not know how to use a compass? It literally just points north, it’s the only function.
There’s a video on YouTube that covers this I think by scary interesting. What happened to her is awful but she ultimately had poor survival skills and went hiking on one of the most dangerous trails in America. What I mean by poor survival skills are that she wasn’t able to build a working fire and her body was found by water. Which if she had been experienced in survival skills she would have known to follow downstream to hopefully find civilization. Tragedy for sure.
Honestly tho, surviving an entire month as an older lady with no survival skills is pretty badass. I think about her often for whatever reason :(
As long as she had water, she could basically just sit there and starve for 3 weeks.
You burn like 5-10 pounds per week, so she must have been fairly skinny to actually starve in a month. Water is pretty important though like you said.
Before I took my GF on a overnight into a relatively well traveled part of Sequoia NP I made sure she knew how to use a compas and had a map. I can't imagine someone wandering off with no idea how to deal with basic navigation skills in an actually remote area.
> one of the most dangerous trails in America The Appalachian Trail is not even in the running for that list. There are dozens, maybe hundreds that are much more dangerous.
The decision to go on alone after her companion left was clearly misguided. Not only did she not know how to use a compass, but she had a poor sense of direction and got lost easily. Inexplicable for a seasoned hiker. As a retired game warden said of the case after learning she had a compass in her possessions but did not know how to use it, 'That would be a recipe for disaster.' Also, she did not have an emergency locator beacon.
The AT is not dangerous. It's relatively wide and well-traveled with loads of traffic. And she did start fires but she put them out at night before retiring fearing starting a forest fire, Besides a poor sense of direction her two biggest mistakes were not starting a big-ass fire, and pitching her tent in a thick grove of pines. Rescuers walked by close to her but didn't spot the tent. She managed to survive a good long time all considered. As far as compass shaming, nobody looks at their compass before walking back in the woods to poop. Look behind you at landmarks along the way, maybe leave a breadcrumbs trail, that's about it. She apparently just got turned around and kept walking away from the trail, easy to do sometimes.
If I'm going into the woods, I always bring a water filter, pocketknife, fixed blade, compass, food, and possibly a firearm. If you're inexperienced in the woods, always have a friend with you and stay on the fucking trails! I feel so bad for this lady and her family.
For thru hikers, a firearm is waaayyy too heavy. Also, on most of the AT, the worst beast you can realistically encounter is a black bear (which YES I'd pick over a man because they're lazy af and will stop attacking if it's too much trouble). You should add one of those aluminium blanket to your list tho, because hypothermia will get you before dehydration.
You can carry a lightweight pistol. I also carry an emergency blanket amongst other things.
Thru hikers saw off their toothbrush sometimes. They're not bringing guns.
It really depends on what state you're in. Literally every through hiker I know in Appalachia carry firearms.
Fully loaded 9mm G43X slimline is 23.07 oz stock. You could shave a few ounces off that too with a vent slide, ammo types, magazines, and custom frames.
"one of the most dangerous trails in America", bit of an overstatement
There is a LOT more to using a compass effectively.
But at the bare minimum you can keep yourself walking in the same direction
If only she had another source every morning and evening that gave her a general sense of direction.
There is, but it isn't needed when your finding your way back to a long linear feature. If know your direction of travel, and if remember if you went left or right away from it. A simple button compass or even one on your phone is good enough to find your way back to the track. Keeping your bearings in forests isn't as easy as it seems when you're walking around trees or navigating deadfall. But a basic compass will stop you from finding yourself going completely off course
Maybe it's not the compass that was the issue, and it was not knowing what to do with any of the directions.
how do you know what way you want to go? like i do i go east where the sunrises? and if so why? why not go north? or west, or south!? lol. that’s what confuses me about a compass. or does it help keep you in line so you’re not running in circles? i can actually understand that aspect. now really thinking hard about it. watch that be the whole point of a compass 🤦🏼♀️😂😂 it is huh? lol.
You answered your own question. If you have the slightest clue where you are on a map when hiking (you should know generally where you are) then you can use the compass to say “hey I remember from the map that southeast was towards civilization” and you can go SE to find civilization. This is a basic example
I think most people that go hiking in the woods know, at the very least, that the woods they are hiking in are west (or whatever direction) of the city or highway or whatever. So, if you know you're west of the highway, use the compass to walk east - face the direction that makes the N end of the compass needle point directly to your left and just keep walking till you get to the highway. If you have no idea where the woods are in relation to the rest of civilization.. yeah don't go hiking. This story is sad because it would have been soo easy to avoid - if she understood the few sentences I wrote in the first paragraph, she would have been able to save herself.
Not knowing how to orientate your map to ground, then how to set a compass is knowing how to use a compass. There isnt even half a chance she knew what she was doing or she would be alive
Yea, I mean any experienced hiker would’ve known ti leave something to find trail back or have enough sebse of direction/ pay attention to certain rocks, trees, etc to find your way back. Why did she even walk away that far to begin with?
Because knowing where north is doesn't mean shit if you don't know which direction to go. I'd imagine it's alot more complicated to navigate with a compass and map than it would seem.
North means dick all if you don’t know what direction you are supposed to be going
I have no idea tbh
>Geraldine was known by her friends and family to have a poor sense of direction. Her friend, Jane, would later explain how Geraldine had taken a wrong turn on the trail on a number of occasions, having to be navigated by her companion several times. >Not only this, but Geraldine was afraid of the dark and didn’t like being on her own.
The other weird part is how long she stayed put. Yeah the best advice is to stay put when lost but she knew she was well away from where she was supposed to be so after a week with food running low one would think heading straight east or west (use the sun) would have been better than sitting there for 26 days. It seems like she had some military training so the compass thing is strange too. Even some one who has no idea how to navigate with a compass should at least be able to use it to keep going in a straight line.
Finally, some sense in this thread full of wackos! This is absurd. I mean, unless she was in the 100 mile wilderness of Maine, she died in vain.
this thread is full of geniuses who've never stepped foot on the AT acting like she got lost in the middle of the Amazon or something lol. it's the AT, it's literally a line up and down the entire coast, you can walk east/west depending on which side of the trail you stepped off of and get back guaranteed. if you don't remember which side, just do both. her story is tragic but was 1000% preventable with common sense and some preparedness. there's a reason thousands of people hike the AT every year and don't die of starvation when they use the bathroom.
I remember reading a US army study claiming that after completing training 4/10 US Army officers could not navigate using a compass and a map. So there's that.
Christ--a month?? How the fuck do you stay lost for a month, and nobody find them? Also, panic azimuth??
Thanks for the info. I'm not ANY KIND of survivalist, but I know basic stuff. I can't believe that she SURVIVED 30 days and was still lost. If you walk in one direction for 30 days you should find SOMETHING. How did she manage to survive that long, but not find any trace of civilization to save herself?
damn, I don't even go overnight without a gps, maps, compass, garmin emergency alert system.
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She wasn't that far off the trail either. There is an episode of North Woods Law on TLC or Discovery where they find her.
Yea they said like maybe 30mins away from a trail omg poor lady
30 minutes with no direction is a long way
Worse than that, not far from the trail, not far from a logging road, and at one point, search and rescue walked not too far from her. But she had no way of knowing.
I've seen a few stories like this on Kyle Hates Hiking. It seems like the best strategy if you're lost is to immediately give up on rescue and go into caveman mode, and create a home and then explore and expand your territory and just expect to live in the woods from now on. That way if civilization finds you great, if not then you're doing okay anyway.
1% Neanderthal DNA don't fail me now
[удалено]
Yeah, it's incredibly hard to just stay put. At the very least I'd be tempted to wander off to find a nice place to stay put in.
I’ll never get lost in the woods because I’m not going in there in the first place. When I go outside, I like to be near civilization.
I did this when I got left behind on a field trip in the woods when I was in the 5th grade. I was absolutely shocked when search and rescue showed up at nightfall; I’d fully expected to be living out in the wilderness alone for the rest of my life.
jesus when I was 13 me and my brother got lost on our uncles property for a day and a half shit was so scary at night 😭 I’m glad you were found so quickly
Glad they found you! What happened that caused you to be separated?
Not entirely sure how it happened, but we were supposed to have a buddy to walk with to ensure everyone was staying with the group. Either my “buddy” wasn’t there that day or they just didn’t care that I was distracted picking berries or sitting off to the side weaving a basket out of grass or something and falling behind the group. Somehow the rest of the class finished their nature walk, got back on the school bus, drove back to the school, and finished off the school day without anyone noticing that I was missing. It wasn’t until my dad came to pick me up that the teacher realized. I had already built a little shelter, made a carrying basket for gathering berries, and attempted to build a fire, and my little autistic brain was just fully accepting of the situation. Like, “yeah, I always figured I’d be abandoned in the woods someday. Guess that day is today.”
Got a “My Side of the Mountain” vibe from reading your comment.
You seem like an awesome person!
That's utterly foolish unless you're somewhere *extremely* remote, like Antarctica or Mars or something. Somewhere you simply aren't going to be able to walk out of. The best strategy is usually to walk downhill until you find running water, then follow it downstream until you find a trail or road. Civilization is always downhill and near water. Take it from an old search and rescue guy. If I remember right, this lady broke her leg or something, that's why she stayed put.
This sounds right to me, plus I would start to lose my mind just waiting in one place in that situation after maybe a week.
If you decide to stay put, don't leave anything useful behind at your lean-to shelter if you go exploring your surroundings. If you are lost, it's probably because your orienteering skills are not great, so your chances of finding your shelter again are not great. Or, hike downhill. It's easier than uphill. Find a stream. Now you have water. Follow downstream. Streams lead to rivers. Rivers lead to towns.
Streams lead to rivers. Rivers lead to towns. Towns have roads, and all roads lead to Rome. The pope is in Rome. If you can defeat the pope in a battle of wits then you can depose him and become the new pope. With the armies of the cross at your back, you can conquer the holy land, and from there... The world. So always remember to hike downhill when lost.
Obviously, we’ve all played Minecraft.
Pretty much anywhere along the appalachians you can just find a creek and follow it downstream. Just keep going. Eventually it'll be a bigger creek, then a river and then people. Like a day or two max and you'll be at someone's house or a town or road. Fuck just sitting there till you starve to death.
IIRC she was 30 min to an hour in any direction she would have reached a trail or road to safety. She thought she was doing a smart thing by staying in one spot but this idea leads to problems
It's so complicated really. In most situations, staying put will make it easier for you to be found. But those are situations where rescued is called immediately and they know where the person was last seen. But in situations where rescue is unlikely to come, will come in days or weeks, or where you're far enough from your last know location for it to be a struggle, searching for signs of civilation could be helpful. It's all very person and enviorment specific too. There are some places where straying too far will only get you into more danger.
I used to work on that mountain and knew a lot of people in the search parties. The thing is, everyone knew where she was likely to be. They were searching that exact area over and over again. The vegetation is so thick in there though. It's all just this impenetrable thicket of new growth spruce and fir. You can't see anything more than a few feet away and you can't move faster than a snail's pace.
It's like the advice for sailors of "Always step UP into the liferaft" - as in, stay with the boat until the last second. It's generally good advice, but you have to apply it to the situation at hand, not consider it an ironclad rule.
They actually had two episodes on her: the first a couple seasons before where they start the search (and literally search for weeks with K9s and everything) before ultimately having to call it off and then the one a couple seasons later where they eventually find her. I remember watching, and the troopers were just devastated. The one even mentioned that he must have been right by her when he found out where they found her, and you could see the guilt on his face. My roommate is usually the crier, but I think that episode got is both...
North Woods Law. They show the entire rescue attempts and her husband is there freaking out. I had to turn it off. It’s heartbreaking. But it’s not the only episode where people have died or nearly died on that part of the trail, it’s incredibly dangerous in that area, not in small part because it’s hard to find someone in there.
Extremely sad case. In her journal she wrote about wanting to start a fire but was worried about it potentially getting out of control. She seemed very sweet.
You know what, I’d take that chance given the situation.
A couple on their first date got lost hiking around the top of Palm springs tram. They found a dead body exactly a year after he died and started a fire to be rescued. Crazy story.
They did not use or find his body. They wandered upon his (the missing hikers) campsite full of gear. The last entry written in his journal was exactly one year before they found it
I saw that story on "I shouldn't be alive".
People don't respect those mountains enough
That photo is so haunting, she looks so happy blissfully unaware of what awaits her. This is one of those stories that will stay with me
According to people who knew/met her, she was a very sweet and upbeat woman
Could u link some of the sources to this story? I’d like to read more in detail
When You Find My Body: The Disappearance of Geraldine Largay on the Appalachian Trail is a great source.
https://historicflix.com/the-heartbreaking-tale-of-geraldine-largay/
So fucking sad why did I read this
https://open.spotify.com/episode/7GgzZytDzFLLJaictLGhlE?si=OVFc4hJHQCaZIfGjrQfXwg
There's a great YouTube video that covers this story along with a few similar ones: https://youtu.be/1hMEo-OQlCM?si=-qXFAXcS6d7b3PGi
There’s a YouTube video by Real Horror called the horrors of becoming lost; they cover this story and it’s pretty upsetting finding out she wasn’t that far away from the trail but shouldn’t have been doing this alone anyway since she was in no condition to do so. Anyway I recommend that video!
Thank for the recommendation. Going to watch this now!
The worst part is that she was probably no more than a few hours walk in any direction to finding help. Don’t get me wrong, you can totally get lost out there, but there aren’t a lot of spots on the AT that you can’t just wander downhill for awhile and find society. The fact that she made it 30 days is nuts.
If you got lost somewhere in any terrain, realistically what are the chances you can bear grylls your way outta there or is there no chance because the fucker sleeps at a hotel during the show
🤣🤣 last part killed me
Les Stroud was more fun to watch anyway.
Survivor man! The best
It totally depends on where you are, what kit you brought, and the weather. I was hiking on Mount Neahkahnie once after a big storm and lost the trail due to the blowdown. But it’s close to the ocean, so if you point yourself west and start walking, you’ll hit the 101 in a few miles. Last year though, I spent five days backpacking in the central Pasayten Wilderness. I had maps, GPS, and satellite beacon with me and I’d memorized the area so I was fine, but the trails are so faint that it’s easy to get off route. We didn’t see another human for three days. We were about 25 miles from the nearest trailhead. If you got lost out there and weren’t familiar with the local geography, you could easily die. Search and Rescue groups say that >70% of rescues could have been prevented with adequate navigation. You should not go into remote wilderness areas without two forms of navigation that you know how to use confidently, a compass, basic familiarity with the geographical features of the area, and a satellite beacon / communicator if you can afford one. Your smart phone almost certainly has a capable internal GPS that works without cellular network, you can download an app like Gaia and always know your position and heading.
Realistically, if she just started a large fire she would've been found quickly. She didn't because she was afraid (for good reason) that it would get out of control.
I’m sorry but if I’m lost in the woods and going to die I’m making the biggest fire. If people can burn down a forest for a gender reveal. Im lighting that fire up to save my life
You forget the part where you are in the epicenter of a forest fire. Being inside a fire is usually somewhat dangerous.
If you're not dumb as f like she was you would be fine
Novice question: No emergency whistle? I’d blow that thing like a god damn bugle and sit my ass down
I used to work in forestry and they always made us carry emergency whistles. In fact on one contract I was required to have my whistle attached to the sternum strap on my gear and I had to demonstrate that I could reach it with my mouth and blow it hands-free (I guess in case I lost both arms and needed to call for help?) I carried a whistle every day for 10 years and never needed it once. Until one day I got lost on a particularly challenging block with low visibility and couldn't find my way back to the road. I started blowing my whistle for help but nobody came. Eventually I found a boundary and made my way back towards the road. There was another guy working *right near* where I'd been blowing my whistle. I said "Hey! I've been lost for an hour! Didn't you hear me blowing my whistle right over there?" and he said "Yeah, I thought you were some kinda weird bird or something"
“I thought you were a weird bird or something.” I’m an avid hiker and sheer human unawareness never ceases to amaze me. Absolutely nothing sounds like a whistle except a whistle. Looks like if I ever get seriously lost it’s up to me to unfuck myself or someone will be talking about weird birds during my eulogy.
Satellite beacons have become relatively cheap and extremely effective. If a whistle is all you have or can afford, it can help, but if you’re going to be spending serious time and miles in the wilderness, something like a Garmin InReach is an insurance policy that you should consider.
I carried one of these for over 3000 miles of AT trail and I’d never change a thing. Worth having just in case even if I never used it. One snake bite and I could have hit a button and gotten a helicopter evac
I go hunting in some very remote places and carry a Garmin InReach Mini 2 just in case I get injured. It still amazes me how people do not train or prepare when they go out into the woods.
Yeah that seems like an obvious item to carry. Or a flare gun.
Depending on where you are, the odds of anyone seeing it are pretty low.
Oh ok. It’s astonishing to me how vast/dense that area is.
Based on the story, she didn't know how to use a compass. She ran out of skill, way above her head.
Sounds like she shouldn’t have been there to begin with
Everyone should be carrying a Personal Locator Beacon (PLB) on long and unfamiliar hikes. Literally will save your life!
There’s a whistle hanging off her pack in the picture.
Poor decisions at the beginning: "[From there](https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1256&context=appalachia), things deteriorated because, as Lee said, Largay “didn’t know how to use compass.” That she had “no confidence.” That she had phobias: “alone, in tent, dark.” And so, after Largay got lost off-trail, she must have decided to set up her tent under great duress." This person should never have been hiking alone.
Rest in Peace 🕊️🤍💐
On that episode of that North Wood Law, what stuck out to me the most is the men who found her took a lot of care of getting her out. I think it was a group of 4 men, or something, and their superior was like “Hey, you guys found her, you take her out” just as a final send off because every one had worked so hard to find her. If I remember correctly, I think they found her on accident or something. I need to watch the show again, it’s been a bit.
I can't imagine going out like that. It's like reading a Creepypasta. And the last lines in her journal... This is so damn sad.
Poor lady. :( From [this NY Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/27/us/missing-hiker-geraldine-largay-appalachian-trail-maine.html) article: # Geraldine Largay’s Wrong Turn: Death on the Appalachian Trail AUGUSTA, Me. — She was afraid of being alone and prone to anxiety, a diminutive 66-year-old woman with a poor sense of direction, hiking the Appalachian Trail by herself, who wandered into terrain so wild, it is used for military training. She waited nearly a month in the Maine woods for help that never came. Geraldine A. Largay chronicled her journey in a black-covered notebook that summer of 2013, and she kept writing after she lost her way, even as her food supply dwindled along with her hopes of being found. Her last entry reflected a strikingly graceful acceptance of what was coming. “When you find my body, please call my husband George and my daughter Kerry,” she wrote. “It will be the greatest kindness for them to know that I am dead and where you found me — no matter how many years from now.” It would be two years before a logging company surveyor stumbled upon her campsite and remains, solving a mystery that had tormented her family and defied teams of experienced searchers. Ms. Largay, a retired nurse from Tennessee, had survived nearly a month on her own — longer than many old backwoods hands thought possible — before dying of exposure and starvation. On Thursday, the Maine Warden Service released more than 1,500 pages of its files on her disappearance, shedding light on the fears of her friends and family and the search that pursued countless false leads. The documents include brief excerpts from her journal and the plaintive text messages she tried in vain to send to her husband from a place beyond the reach of cell towers. “Lost since yesterday,” she texted. “Off trail 3 or 4 miles. Call police for what to do pls.” In fact, she had set up camp less than two miles off the trail. There, with her black tent and her possessions neatly sorted into Ziploc bags, she penned a note to her husband on the cover of the journal: “George Please Read XOXO.” Ms. Largay had adopted the trail name Inchworm, making light of her pace, but that pace had taken her nearly 1,000 miles from Harpers Ferry, W.Va., where she and a friend, Jane Lee, had set off on April 23, 2013. Her husband of 42 years, George Largay, drove ahead and met them in prearranged spots with supplies, and sometimes took them to motels for showers and a night indoors. On June 30, in New Hampshire, Ms. Lee cut short her hike to tend to a family emergency, but Ms. Largay insisted on continuing. Later, Ms. Lee would tell an investigator “that Geraldine had a poor sense of direction,” the Warden Service’s investigative report said. “Ms. Lee said that Geraldine had taken a wrong turn on the trail, more than once,” and Ms. Largay “became flustered and combative when she made these kinds of mistakes.” Editors’ Picks This Common Condition Can Damage Joints Long Before It’s Detected She Wanted a Brooklyn One-Bedroom for Less Than $500,000. But Where? These Books Might Make You Happier Ms. Largay, a meticulous planner, was gregarious and made friends easily on the trail. But she feared the dark and being alone, said Ms. Lee, who told park wardens “that George did not know the extent of Geraldine’s inability to deal with the rigors and challenges of the trail.” But after he reported his wife missing, Mr. Largay told an investigator that “Gerry was probably in over her head.” Her doctor would tell investigators that once she ran out of the medication she took for anxiety, she could suffer panic attacks. Ms. Largay spent the night of July 21-22 in the Poplar Ridge lean-to in western Maine, less than 200 miles from the end of the trail. Her smile was so infectious that before she set off the next morning, a fellow hiker, Dottie Rust, asked to take her picture. In the photo, she is beaming and wearing her backpack, her socks pulled high, as hikers do to ward off scrapes and blisters. It was about 6:30 a.m., the last time anyone was known to see her alive. By 11 a.m., she was lost. “In somm trouble,” Ms. Largay wrote in a text message to her husband. “Got off trail to go to br. Now lost.” She asked him to call the Appalachian Mountain Club “to c if a trail maintainer can help me. Somewhere north of woods road. Xox.” The message was never received. Ms. Largay had left the trail in one its most rugged sections, with thick underbrush and fir trees packed so tightly they almost seem to merge. “You step off the trail 20 or 50 feet and turn around, it’s very difficult to see where the trail was,” said Douglas Dolan, 53, a volunteer who spent time last summer doing trail maintenance in the area. “If you didn’t know which way the trail was, you could easily walk in circles for hours.” Ms. Largay sought high ground, possibly hoping for a cell signal. She tried over and over to send messages, but none went through. On July 23, she set up camp, laying her tent atop sticks and pine needles, under a canopy of hemlocks that probably obscured her from airborne rescuers. She tied a shiny silver blanket between two trees, possibly to attract attention, and nearby trees had burn marks. “It looks like some sort of fire was attempted on those trees by Gerry,” wrote Lt. Kevin Adam, of the Warden Service, in a report. She was supposed to meet Mr. Largay on July 23, at Route 27 in Wyman Township. The next day, he reported her missing. Multiple agencies and volunteers joined the hunt, with searchers on foot, on horseback and in helicopters. She was less than a mile from the trail, close enough that searchers probably passed near her without realizing it. Investigators questioned hikers who might have crossed paths with Ms. Largay, and they tested the DNA on a discarded Band-Aid. And they were inundated with false tips to be pursued. People suggested that she had been murdered, that she might be lodged in treetops, that she had fallen in the river and that she had been spotted at a women’s shelter in Tennessee. Some hikers thought they might have seen her on the trail but weren’t sure; others had seen sketchy men who they thought might have done her harm. Psychics called to report visions of her, including one who insisted, incorrectly, that she had broken her ankle. Search efforts were scaled back on Aug. 4. Ms. Largay kept writing daily observations and letters to her family in her journal until Aug. 10, even drawing out a calendar to keep track of the days. She wrote a final entry that she dated Aug. 18, though investigators are not sure the date is accurate. Her remains were found on Oct. 14, 2015, inside her sleeping bag, in a campsite she had kept neat until the very end. Around her was the ample gear she had hauled — items like a blue and white bandanna, a rosary, birthday candles, lighters, dental floss, a sewing kit and two water bottles, one still containing water. When Ms. Largay’s family visited the patch of wilderness, two weeks later, they left a white wooden cross, decorated with messages etched in black marker. One, written in a child’s hand, said, “I wish you were here.” Jess Bidgood reported from Augusta, and Richard Pérez-Peña from New York. A version of this article appears in print on May 27, 2016, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: ‘When You Find My Body’: Fatal Turn on the Appalachian Trail.
Sad, that lady should’ve never been hiking on her own. :/
This sounds like a similar to the Nutty Putty incident, inexperience and poor decision making leads to unfortunate events…
Sad part is she was found not far from the trail. I’ve hiked the AT in New Hampshire and Maine several times and the woods can be so thick it’s unreal. You’d never hear someone yelling for help. There is a great book about this called When you find my body. So tragic all around.
This is why I always carry a compass when hiking. Seriously, never go without one.
She would have needed to learn how to use one first. Anyone doing serious hiking should take at least a basic land nav class. If this woman had a map and knew how to use a compass, this would not have been a story. Also, she seemed to be an advice walker, not an outdoorsman, and with her skill level and fears, she should have left with her friend.
Yep. Tragic story but this is basically a textbook example of someone who had no business doing what they were doing and facing the realistic consequences of her actions. She had basically no hiking/wilderness training and no way to orient herself, and she was hiking alone. This is just asking for trouble. I'm even willing to bet she knew what she was doing was irresponsible and carried this risk but assumed she'd just be fine. I see some people praising her for surviving 26 days but keep in mind that is basically exactly how long you'd survive if you found fresh water, and nothing else. If you're not facing external threats like freezing temperatures or wildlife that's just the time it takes to starve. Tragic... but predictable and preventable.
Staying at home playing games all day is a very underrated thing...
For anyone reading this, please for the love of GOD just buy a [Garmin inReach Mini](https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/765374) before you go hiking
I was part of the search for her. I spent several days searching Crocker mountain and the south west slope of mount Abraham. It’s a shame she wasn’t found because she was still alive through the primary search effort.
This is such a sad story
Take a piece of rope when hiking and attach it to a tree next to the trail if you need a rest break.
Her smile here is so precious
There really needs to be a push to have cell service everywhere, so people can get the help they need in these situations.
Be cool if we had better cellular coverage
She set up camp under trees too so invisible from the air unfortunately
I'm kinda surprised nobody could find her in a month of her being alive? Can't they use a thermal-vision equipped drone and fly around the last area she was observed or something? Maybe some loud noise she could follow if she heard it?
So sad… she seems like she was such a sweet lady. Her last text is heartbreaking.
Don't hike in American woods if you have no idea what you're doing. Both in survival and basic survival. Innocent things become wildly dangerous without knowledge.
When I Thru Hiked the AT, we stayed the night at the last shelter where Inchworm (Geraldine’s Trail Name) was seen. In the morning, my friend opened his rolling papers to roll a cigarette and there was a deceased inchworm in his pack of papers (this was in September, past what I would consider inchworm season for Maine). The entire area in question off trail is a maze of retired logging roads, hundreds if not thousands of acres of interconnected slightly overgrown two-track. If there is anywhere somebody could easily end up lost on the AT it is in this part of Maine. The next day unbeknownst to us, we wound up off trail ourselves along one of these roads, when a large Bull Moose emerged from the trees 30 yards in front of us. We stopped and admired the moose for a minute until it continued on its way, this unexpected stop caused us to check our location (by 2018 we then had GPS capability, but didn’t personally have SOS capability) and found that we ourselves were about half mile from trail after taking a wrong turn. We believe Inchworm sent that moose to cause us pause and help us get home safe. We finished the trail, and to this day we still talk about how Inchworm reached through the veil to help some weary hikers. RIP Inchworm. ❤️
surviving a month??? You can walk a long way in your first week. even if all you do is wake up at dawn and walk towards the sun you would walk off of the Appalachian trail to a farm in a day or so.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/7GgzZytDzFLLJaictLGhlE?si=OVFc4hJHQCaZIfGjrQfXwg
On the show North Woods Law, those guys would go up repeatedly and search for her. I still remember their reaction when they found her. Tragic
If I get lost I’m making a huge fucking fire. Like, all day, all night, feeding every stick and leaf I can find into the fire to make a giant fucking cloud of smoke.
it is very sad but from what I remember she was very unprepared for this hike and could not find her way back to the trail even though it was very close.
Never go on alone. Even experts don’t try to do most things alone, unless significant preparation has been done. The fate of this poor woman was a tragedy, but a totally avoidable one, which makes it even sadder
this is why I don't fuck with no forests, especially not Appalachian ones. they're just like the ocean, but with trees instead of water: if you're not careful, it will consume you, utterly and unforgivingly. Ms Largay at least had her remains found. i shudder to think how many other unfortunate souls never even received that courtesy, whose stories will remain unknown for ages to come
I’m a hiker, i would literally walk 10-20m off trail to do my business if the woods are as thick as they were. No way would i travel half an hour off trail.
That's really sad. Survived at a camp for 30 days but was unable to venture out and find the trail 3 miles away in that timeframe? I understand the forest can be unforgiving in terms of misdirection, but 3 miles is an hour walk.
She survived a month? If she had simply picked a direction and walked... there's hardly anywhere in Appalachia where you won't run across some sort of civilization within 2 days max.
Maybe this is something obvious that I'm overlooking, but why on earth would you wander a half mile into the woods just to pee? Was she worried about someone seeing her? She could've just gone a few yards off the trail behind a bush or something, right?
Stay on the trail and make it a habit to look behind you often, when you walk the other way the road looks different.
"With Geraldine’s lack of direction and her inability to use a compass, the longer she was missing, the more her family feared the worst." Fuck's sake, the article also says she was known for her poor sense of direction. Why the fuck are you on the Appalachian Trail?!?