Search For Missing Maine Hiker Now Focuses On Trail Near Stratton, ME

The Associated Press reports that the search for a missing Maine hiker now focuses on a short section of trail near Stratton, ME:

 

“The Maine Warden Service is narrowing the search area as it tries to determine what happened to 66-year-old Geraldine Largay of Brentwood, Tenn. She contacted her husband on July 21 from the top of Saddleback Mountain but failed to meet up with him as planned the following day.  Authorities are focusing on a 14-mile section of the trail in Carrabassett Valley, but believe the best chance of finding the missing hiker is in a nine-mile stretch between Lone Mountain and a dirt road west of Sugarloaf Mountain.”

 

Largay was last heard from on July 22nd and the search is now focused on a steep section of trail near Caribou Valley Road.  I know this area well because I hiked it with my son only three weeks earlier during a trip to Maine this July.  

 

 

Steep section of the Appalachian Trail near Caribou Valley Road

 

 

It is a very rocky section of trail that makes a steep descent and is quite challenging.  My son fell numerous times, and it's plausible that Largay could have done the same.  Rescuers say they are baffled by her disapperance and have had help from Maine Warden Service aircraft, Civil Air Patrol, Mahoosuc Search and Rescue, Franklin County Search and Rescue, Acadia National Park Search and Rescue, and the Maine Search and Rescue.  

 

Caribou Valley Road near Sugarloaf Ski Resort

 

 

Largay was an experienced hiker that had carried a backpack from Harper's Ferry, WV.  to this area near Sugarloaf Ski Resort.  So she would be better prepared than most to wait out a rescue, but nearly a week in to the effort her fate remains unknown.