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FILE 114 · VOL XIX · Nobody Came Back Out
She Got Lost Two Miles From the Trail. Her Phone Kept Sending for Her.
The text never went through. Something answered it anyway.
Based on: Lost on the Appalachian Trail
Intake record
| Recovered from | Lost-and-found bin, Appalachian Trail hostel, Monson, Maine |
|---|---|
| Contents | A waterproof phone pouch, a hiker's journal with 31 dated entries, a printout of 212 unsent text messages, a search-and-rescue incident form |
| Finder | Tess Hollander, hostel volunteer |
| Status | The 2013 case is documented and closed. The phone in this file was never registered to anyone. |
Recovered file
In July 2013, a 66-year-old retired nurse from Tennessee was hiking the Appalachian Trail through the woods of western Maine. Her trail name was Inchworm, because she was slow and steady. She had been walking north since April. Her husband drove ahead each day in their car and met her at road crossings with food and clean socks. [1]
On the morning of July 22, she stepped off the trail to go to the bathroom. When she turned back, she could not find the path. [1]
The trail was maybe a few hundred feet away. The woods there are so thick that it might as well have been a mile.
She tried to text her husband. The message said she was in trouble, had gotten off the trail, was lost, and asked him to call for help. There was no signal. The text did not go through. She tried again the next day. It did not go through. [1]
She climbed to higher ground to look for a signal. She set up her tent. She waited.
The search for her was one of the largest in Maine's history. Wardens, dogs, planes and hundreds of volunteers looked for her for weeks. [1] Search dogs came within about a hundred yards of her campsite, more than once. [1]
They did not find her.
She was found in October 2015, more than two years later, by a forester surveying the land. Her tent was about 3,000 feet from the trail. Less than a mile. She had kept a journal, and it showed she had survived for weeks. In the last entry, dated August 18, she asked whoever found her body to call her husband and her daughter, and said it would be the kindest thing they could do for them. [1]
Investigators called her death a tragic accident. She had done many things right. The woods had simply been too big, and the signal too weak. [2]
Her story changed how hikers think about getting lost. Carry a whistle. Carry a map. Carry a device that can call for help without cell service. Stay in one place. Make yourself big and visible. [2]
The rest of this file is sealed. The ending, the sources and the archivist's note unseal with the file.
Unseal File 114 ($2.99) · its volume · everything ($49.99)
Built on real, cited records. The stories are dramatized. Disclaimer · If you are in crisis in the U.S., call or text 988.