Dying on the Appalachian Trail: A hiker’s final message

Geraldine Largay: ‘It will be the greatest kindness for them to know . . . I am dead’

She was a 66-year-old woman who wandered off the Appalachian Trail in the thick Maine evergreen forest and waited for nearly a month for help that never came.

"When you find my body, please call my husband George and my daughter Kerry," Geraldine Largay wrote in her black journal, about two weeks after she got lost and set up camp on high ground, as hikers are trained to do. "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."

When Largay, a retired nurse from Tennessee who called herself "Inchworm" in a nod to her slow pace, vanished in late July 2013, authorities sent helicopters, horses and up to 130 searchers to comb dozens of miles of briery and thick woods. The search was intense but fruitless and rescue efforts were scaled back in early August. It baffled the Maine Warden Service, an agency that knew the woods and was experienced in finding people who were lost.

Largay’s remains would be found two years later, in terrain so wild it is used for military training exercises. A 1,500-page case file released this week by the warden service suggests that she survived for nearly a month, longer than many thought possible.

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Largay tried to text her husband to tell him she was lost. She got herself to high ground, perhaps hoping to be seen by an airborne searcher. And she kept a diary, in which she seemed to come to terms with the idea that she would not be found alive.

Fight for survival

The file, which was first reported by the Boston Globe, is a detailed account of one of the biggest search operations in this state's history that offers a glimpse of Largay's month-long fight for survival, and her calm preparation for the end. Rescuers have said they believe they came maddeningly close to Largay – perhaps as near as 100 yards – but, in Maine's impermeable forests, even that distance might as well be miles away.

Largay had started the Appalachian Trail at its midpoint, in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, with a companion, Jane Lee, earlier that year. It is common practice for thru-hikers to take on a name for the trail, and Largay chose "Inchworm". She could not carry the heavy backpacks required for a long-term trek, so her husband followed the two women by car, meeting them with supplies or taking them to a motel to rest or shower.

Lee was called away from the hike when the two women were in New Hampshire, but Largay was determined to press on. On July 23rd, she was to meet George Largay where the trail intersected with Route 27, a welcome respite after the rough terrain, studded with mountain peaks, of the previous two days.

There would be fewer than 200 miles left before the end of the trail, at Mount Katahdin. But Geraldine Largay never arrived; George Largay reported her missing the next morning.

According to the case file, Geraldine Largay knew she was lost the day before she was supposed to meet her husband. On July 22nd, she attempted to text him, but the message was never delivered, probably because of bad reception. “In somm trouble,” read the message. “Got off trail to go to br. Now lost. Can u call AMC to c if a trail maintainer can help me. Somewhere north of woods road. Xox.”

Texting

The following day, she tried to text again. “Lost since yesterday,” Largay wrote. “Off trail 3 or 4 miles. Call police for what to do pls. Xox.”

By July 26th, the Maine Warden Service had established a command post at Sugarloaf Mountain, a nearby ski resort, and said 60 game wardens and trained searchers, plus a helicopter, were looking for Largay. The following day, the service called on hikers by their trail names, like “Marathon”, “Crunchmaster”, and “.com/Queen”, hoping to ask if they had seen her, and requested that the area’s bear baiters be vigilant.

A statement said 130 people were looking for Largay that day.

On August 4th, with no sign of her, the search was scaled back. Largay’s remains were found in October, about 3,000 yards away from the trail, in a private area the military uses for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape training. An autopsy confirmed that she died of exposure and a lack of food, according to the Portland Press Herald.

“These findings are conclusive in that no foul play was involved,” said her family, in a statement at the time, “and that Gerry simply made a wrong turn”.

New York Times