One of my favourite quotes is from
Carl Sagan, and it goes like this: "for all its material advantages, the sedentary
life has left us... edgy. Unfulfilled. Even after 400 generations in villages and cities, we haven't
forgotten. The open road still softly calls like a nearly forgotten song of childhood." We
were wanderers from the beginning. We know that exploring our world involves risk. Mortal
danger, even. But in the name of science, ego, sheer curiosity - we'll ignore the risks and
we'll do it anyway. Tonight I want to tell you three stories. Not of great explorers but
of ordinary people who came face to face with a terrifying reality: out there in the wild it
can take surprisingly few mistakes - sometimes just one - to become completely lost. [OLD TIMEY
TV VOICE] ln a matter of minutes we pass into a near blizzard. The wind whipped snow swirls eerily
above. The temperature drops 10° in a few minutes. His name was Hans Seiler. He was a husband, a
father, a teacher and an experienced mountaineer. He was also... a liar. And on the 15th of April
1954 10 school boys and three teachers were about to accompany him for a hike as part of their
two-week school trip to the Austrian Alps. They had very little idea of what they were about to
endure and even less that the whole thing would be documented on camera. The pictures that
you're looking at now would be their last. And when they were finally published they would
leave the world stunned. How was it possible to become so lost on a routine hike? And perhaps
more importantly... what kind of teacher would do something like this? But, I'm getting ahead
of myself. So let's start at the very beginning. The morning of the hike wasn't a morning like
any other. In fact, according to those that were there the atmosphere was electric. The
night before the boys (aged 14 to 16) had been specially selected by Hans based on their
physical fitness for a day-long hike up into the nearby mountains. The route that Hans had chosen
for the group was a tough but well established 14 km hike that would offer unforgettable views
and a chance for both the teachers and boys to challenge themselves. These kids were only 3
days into their two-week long trip to Obertraun, a small but picturesque village located in the
Austrian Alps. They travelled just under 7 hours from their small German town of Heilbron, which
most of the boys had never even left. This trip was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime, and
so far it absolutely had been. They'd hiked, they'd climbed, they'd laughed... it was all
especially exciting because it was a chance to get away from a town that was still
recovering from the ravages of war. Plus, mountaineering has always held a strong
ideological place in the German collective imagination. At the turn of the century there
was in fact an entire German film genre dedicated to 'finding oneself on the mountain': the
Bergfilm. They 'd waned in popularity by the 1950s but they'd left their mark. They were
similar in spirit to say the American Western, except with more beer, lederhosen, dancing
and, um, what you could really only describe describe as very suspicious looking goats. I
have no idea what is happening in this scene. Anyway! The goats aren't important. But what
is important is Germany's ostensibly miraculous post-war economic recovery, because this meant
that tourist agencies began to bombard the public with adverts calling Germans to break away from
it all and answer the call of the mountains. With Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary's
successful Everest summit in 1953 - just a year prior to the boy's trip - 'mountain
mania' was officially at an all-time high, and these boys were over the moon for their first
mountain adventure with their favourite teacher, no less... Hans Seiler. Who would also
be acting as their experienced guide. As the group of 10 boys and four accompanying
teachers including Hans left their Hostel at 6:00 a.m. on the dot the weather report showed
that conditions were ideal relatively mild in fact with some northwest winds, a cloudy sky,
and occasional low rainfall. Hans (or, Mr Seiler) made hostel workers aware of both their route up
the mountain and their expected time of return: 6:00 p.m. And with that, off they all went
for the adventure of a lifetime. By 6:00 p.m, the boys that hadn't been chosen for the hike
and the remaining teachers had made their way to the hostel's communal dining hall and were
waiting for the group to show up and tell them all about their exploits. But half an hour
passed and there was no sign of them. As the remaining school boys ate their dinner
and excitedly (and at the time, jealously) gossiped about the epic adventure they imagined
the group were now having up on the mountain, teachers and hostel workers began to worry.
That day some unexpected snow had fallen over Obertraun but since the forecast was okay for the
mountain, nobody had been too concerned. Still, it would be dark soon and so the hostel owner
began to call around along the huts that lined the group's route. But he was met with confusion.
Because nobody had seen a group matching that description. They hadn't seen any group for that
matter. All activity had been called off because a completely unexpected snowstorm - the worst they'd
seen in years - was now raging up in the mountain. The next few hours were fraught with panic
and confusion as the remaining teachers, hostel workers, and then police, struggled
to piece everything together. Everybody was asking the same question: why didn't the group
turn around? And why wasn't there a single sign of them along their pre-agreed route? Surely,
somebody must have seen them. But the answer, it turned out, was simple: they'd never even
stepped foot on it. You see one of the teachers had overheard these panicked conversations
and was confused because the route hostel workers were talking about didn't sound like the
route Hans was talking about in the days prior, and one of the group's accompanying teachers
who had turned back around due to an afternoon meeting had done so at an inn. This definitely
wasn't the route that had been pre-agreed with hostel workers. It was then that they knew the
group was in serious trouble even though it was pitch black two small but highly experienced
search parties went out into the blizzard that night. One became lost and the other returned in
the early hours of the morning none the wiser as to where the group could have possibly gone.
Early the next morning with the blizzard still in full effect across the mountains the
largest alpine rescue to date began. But with freezing cold temperatures and visibility
of less than 5 m it was extremely slow going. In this time rescuers began to retrace
the group's steps on the date of their disappearance. It was exactly as they suspected.
Witnesses would confirmed that they had indeed taken a path up the mountain... just not the
one they were supposed to have been taking. That day at around 9:00 a.m. the already exhausted
looking group had been spotted at an inn on a path that was several miles from their original route.
At about this time the first snow had begun to fall and Hans was reportedly made aware of the
incoming storm by the innkeeper. This was when one of the teachers of the group Hildegard Mattes
needed to turn around in order to make her meeting on time at 11:00 a.m. The group was spotted by
workers a little further up the mountain. Assuming they were lost, the workers warned them against
continuing and offered to guide them back down. On both occasions Hans shrugged off any offers of
help or warnings to continue. And now I know what you're thinking if you've watched my previous
video. Surely this cannot be happening again. Surely, a well-respected and experienced teacher
isn't about to drag his students up a mountain into a storm... again. But alas, the bar is in
hell, my friends. And in an eerily similar manner to the English Calamity, just like Mr Keast,
Hans insisted that he knew what he was doing and was overheard saying things like "they're
young boys, they just need exercise" and "they just have to warm up". Beyond this last sighting
at 11:00 a.m. the group's direction was unknown. In spite of a massive rescue effort which was
broadcast across the world their direction remained a complete mystery. That was until 9
days later on Saturday the 24th of April when rescuers stumbled across something approximately
1 km east of the group's last known location. It was a makeshift shelter. Following the trail,
rescuers continued to work their way east deep into the mountains. Eventually they spotted
something else in the snow. Confused at first, as they got closer they realized what it was. A hand
reaching out of the snow. Here, they discovered the two teachers that had accompanied Hans the
newly engaged Hans Rupp and Christa Volmer. They were found lying together underneath the snow
some 3 km east from their intended destination. body of Hans, and the youngest school boy. He was
just 14. The two were found on the floor in an embrace with Han's jacket over both of them as a
blanket. Among the bodies, rescuers would find a camera with a number of photos. Photos that would
tell a haunting story. Piecing it all together, what happened here was no longer a mystery.
And, it would turn out that Hans wasn't quite the mountaineer he claimed to be. In fact,
he had been warned by hostel workers to be careful after he suggested a number of wildly
inappropriate routes in the days leading up to the fateful hike. Hans really wasn't happy about
this, but following the hostel's policy, he agreed upon a more suitable route... or so the workers
thought. The truth is, Hans lied. That morning, once he was out the door (and the workers were
out of earshot), he simply changed the route. The extent to which the group were aware of exactly
what they were getting themselves into is unclear, but they would eventually find themselves in some
of the toughest terrain in the area. It's easy to become lost or succumb to a quick change in the
weather if you don't know what you're doing and it would seem that Hans didn't. This was the story
that the photos told. Because it seemed like the hike started out fine. The boys and the teachers
are laughing but... something is amiss. There's no signage no discernible path... they're not
appropriately dressed... and the terrain looks... unforgiving. It doesn't look anywhere close to the
kind of hike that is suitable for school children. Yet, even as conditions worsen the group persists.
In the final photos, the laughter is gone. They're cold and exhausted. The snow is up to their knees.
And then we see the beginnings of a white out. The photo that you're looking at now is the very last
photo found on the camera. From here visibility reduced at a break neck speed. According to some
reports it was just a few meters. At this point, becoming completely lost was inevitable. Now
there was really only one question left to ask: why would Hans do something like this?
Looking at those photos it's hard to know what the hell he was thinking. Though, perhaps
unsurprisingly, it would later come to light that Hans had a few notable character flaws
including (according to some) a pathological dislike of authority. While his students loved
him some of his peers were not quite so keen. Before he had left that morning Hans was warned
by the hostel owner about how fickle the weather could be in April to which he angrily retorted:
"why don't you worry about your own affairs?" As the question of guilt was hotly debated in the
media the families of those lost would initiate a civil lawsuit against the school but this lawsuit
would later be dropped. The question of liability was difficult - this was technically a community
trip (one which many from outside of the school attended) so finding the school responsible was
tricky. Plus the school administration had some important findings to point the parents to in
a not so dissimilar incident that took place in Freiberg in April of 1936 where the teacher
was found to be - you guessed it - innocent. In the end, some parents felt such a lawsuit
would only degrade the tragedy into a topic of conversation for the public. So they dropped
it. Aside from the flurry of reports in the days and weeks after the group were discovered
the question of guilt - specifically the extent to which Han's actions constituted gross
negligence or even intention to harm - has been mostly ignored. It wasn't until 2014 when some
of those present that day were reinterviewed for a documentary that would later be aired
on German television that a darker side to Han's character emerged. This for some cast
Hans decisions that day in a different light. But whether Hans was the kind of person you'd like
to drink a beer with is to me at least irrelevant. Because the basic facts have always been evidenced
in the archival material. He exaggerated his experience, he changed the route without advising
the hostel owner, and he ignored several warnings not to continue. And while it is true that the
weather did change rapidly, unexpectedly even, it wasn't the weather that was leading the group
that day. It was Hans. In the end perhaps such questions are not unanswerable so much as they
are... immaterial. After all, as many have argued, Hans also paid the ultimate price. And nothing...
I can't even... nothing brings those kids back. [Music]
0:15:58.600,1193:02:47.295
[Music] [OLD TIMEY VOICE, YORKSHIRE ACCENT]
"...the sensation on first going underwater was of such a strange world.
You get your head underwater and all of a sudden the way on looked very,
very dark and intimidating." [Music] The full history of cave diving is long and
complicated, so for the sake of brevity here's an extremely brief summary. Technically there was
never anything stopping anyone jumping into an underwater cave and attempting to swim to the next
air pocket except for common sense. To that end, cave free diving has always existed. But the first
successful cave dive with breathing apparatus would be performed by the British who, in 1935
said what I can only assume was something along the lines of "hold my beer and watch this" before
crawling on their hands and knees along the floor of a submerged section of a pitch black limestone
cavern in a pair of 190 lb naval diving suits, one of which had been patched with tape. Dragging
their breathing hoses behind them and praying they didn't get tangled, they eventually
emerged in an air pocket unscathed and well, cave diving as we know it was born. Cave diving
has come a long way since then and while it has obvious utility in certain fields, it's now also
practiced as an extreme sport of which it is statistically speaking the second most dangerous.
Just behind base jumping, which is the act of literally throwing yourself off any high point
if your choosing. Cave diving in a word can be wildly dangerous, especially the competitive type.
But the cave diving story we're going to look at today wasn't supposed to be like that. It was
a simple, straightforward, well-rehearsed dive. And yet it would become one of the cave diving
community's most viscerally horrifying stories. It was 1984 and three divers were standing
confidently at the entrance of Sterkfontein cave, just an hour's drive outside of Johannesburg,
South Africa. A number of incredible discoveries had been made at the cave in previous years, but
it was a large, complicated and mostly unexplored wet and dry caving system, so it hadn't yet been
mapped. But Nuno, Malcolm and Pieter - three science students at the local university and
members of its diving club - had plans to change all of that. Having already completed
a number of preparation dives in the cave, Nuno would be taking the lead. He'd be leading
Pieter and Malcolm through a 125 metre submerged section of the cave via an underground lake where
the water would be no more than 4 metres deep. The goal was simple: establish a permanent guideline
for future dives. They'd be in and out in less than half an hour. According to Nuno the dive was
so straightforward it was almost recreational. But in spite of the dive's simplicity there was
(to quote Nuno) the "excitement of exploration" in the air. After all, here were three science
students about to explore somewhere of exceptional paleoanthropological importance. No one was
expecting a fully intact pre-hominid skeleton to jump out and shake their hands but who knows
what they might find? Nuno gave the obligatory pre-dive brief to the group and - armed with
one torch and one oxygen cylinder each, both lasting approximately 70 minutes or so - the three
made their way inside, with Nuno leading the way. Even though he was carrying one spare oxygen
cylinder, Nuno admits that "by modern standards, we were probably poorly equipped". Though, to
be fair, back then there were no formal courses for cave diving, only common sense rules laid out
by various diving clubs and caving associations. After what was about to happen at Sterkfontein
though... that would all change. The first half of the dive went well. The group navigated
their way to the small air pocket, surfaced, secured the end of the line, admired the cave's
spectacular beauty and made their way back. It seems that at some point though curiosity got
the better of Pieter because on their way back he went off the guideline. Something he had, at
least according to Nuno who has described him as "somewhat of a loner", been quite prone to doing
in their previous dives - which at points had really annoyed his fellow divers. I'm no caving
expert so I asked Nuno if this was breaking one of the common sense rules that he had laid out at
the beginning of the dive, to which he responded unequivocally yes. He told me that quote "when
one enters a cave the water may be clear but in very tight caves the silt gets disturbed. Even if
you're very careful, soon the water becomes very murky. It's very difficult to find your way out
if you leave the line and there's no visibility." This time though Pieter got lucky. He would
be found just out of view observing something with his torch. Within minutes, Nuno
managed to locate him and guide him back to the line. He wasn't shaken up
so checking everyone was behind him, Nuno continued to lead the group back
through the cave to the room containing the lake where they had begun the dive.
And when they emerged... Pieter was gone. At first there was confusion. But Nuno and
Malcolm had more than enough oxygen left, so they just went back in to find him. Four
hours passed and Pieter was nowhere to be seen. And then confusion turned to panic and
they eventually called the police. It would be fire brigade divers that would arrive and they
took one look at the cave and refused used to go in. They had no experience of technical
cave dives so Nuno and Malcolm took their oxygen tanks and went back in once more, while
they waited for specialist divers to arrive, which they did at some point late that evening.
By that point Pieter had been missing for 10 hours and the rescue team had become organized
chaos. Nuno and Malcolm were exhausted, but they were keen to emphasize to rescuers that
the cave system was complex and that Pieter may have surfaced in one of its many air pockets,
along many of its unexplored passageways. But by that point -owing to the number of divers that
had gone in and out and kicked up sediment - the visibility was practically zero. So Nuno and
Malcolm, defeated, went home and just left the rescuers to do their jobs. The next morning
they desperately hoped to wake up to good news, but there was none. With all civilian divers
banned from entering the cave that day, Nuno and Malcolm (and a few others) met up with Pieter's
wife Shirley. Pieter wasn't prone to panicking, they reassured themselves. He was smart, in
good shape, an incredibly experienced dry caver, in fact. He'd dealt with much more challenging
caves than Sterkfontein. There was still hope that he'd make it out alive. To quote Nuno: "it
was really hard to believe that someone could die at Sterkfontein". But any hope they had would
slowly fade. With no official map, police were not interested in a possible connection between
the wet and dry cave system. Instead, they kept their searches close to the original guideline.
After 6 weeks, there was no sign of Pieter and the search was called off. Pieter, they concluded,
had long since drowned... but they were wrong. Six weeks after Pieter had gone missing
Sterkfontein was reopened and Nuno and Malcolm along with other members of the local cave diving
community headed back into the caves to continue the search. Within a few hours Nuno had retraced
the route and found a connection between the wet and dry caves. Meanwhile volunteers made their way
back down to a previously unknown dry passageway. It wasn't long before they broke through a
small hole in the wall, and in doing so they too uncovered extensive dry passages linking to
the wet cave system. As the volunteers began to explore they noticed something strange on the
ground. Taking a closer look with their torches they realized that what they were looking at
was, in fact, human footprints. Eventually, they would come across an opening to a small
area connected by a number of dry and submerged passageways. It took them a second before they
could process what they were seeing. Because lying there on the ground next to the water was Pieter's
emaciated, lifeless body. Pieter hadn't drowned. He'd starved to death. And as they looked at the
clues throughout the cave, it didn't take them long to realize how Pieter had spent his final
weeks. There were marks along the walls indicating that Pieter had desperately tried to get the
attention of rescuers. His brand new cylinder and regulator were severely scratched from his efforts
in trying to squeeze himself through the many many tight passageways. And somewhat confusingly,
his oxygen cylinder was almost full. Pieter had enough oxygen to return but it seems that
he chose not to even attempt it. To quote Nuno: "in the fading light he watched the water's
surface while calculating if it would be better to dive and never find his way back again or sit
in the darkness and wait. He chose the latter." With about an hour's worth of light in his torch,
for Pieter it was a choice between getting back in the water and hoping to find the guideline
again or staying put and hoping rescuers would just find him. And they almost did. It was later
revealed that police divers had surfaced in a submerged passageway just 30 metres away. But
for one reason or another - possibly because the rescuer didn't make enough noise, possibly
because Pieter was attempting to find a way out through one of the other passageways - the
two missed each other. It would later be found that Pieter had survived for 3 weeks in almost
pitch black darkness, the effects of which are terrifying. In absolute darkness most people
begin hallucinating within a matter of days. Now, of course, it was Pieter's decisions that
got him into this situation but make no mistake, cave diving is inherently dangerous and
even Nuno (who would eventually go on to become a world record holder) has lost track
of that all important guideline. In his case, he eventually found himself alone on a rock
deep inside a cave just like Pieter. He took a 50/50 guess at which way to go and
just took the plunge. Luckily for him, he guessed correctly. But when you're face to
face with the horrors of becoming completely lost whilst deep within a cave, in spite of all
the training in the world, in Nuno's own words: "it's impossible to completely tame the fear which
could grow second by second at a relentless pace. Everyone has a breaking point when things start
to go wrong. There's no doubt about that. It's only a matter of time until the monster hiding in
the big black of the cave will come and get you." As Pieter's body was removed, rescuers would
discover a message scratched into the wall. It read: "I love you, Shirl and Ma". As a result of
the accident, Sterkfontein was permanently closed to divers and diving courses became mandatory
in South Africa from then on. In the weeks and months after Pieter's body was discovered,
Nuno was hassled non-stop by media. Wracked with what ifs and unable to concentrate,
he had to abandon his studies for the year. The death was eventually ruled misadventure
and of course nobody was deemed responsible, but even though it was Pieter's decision to
let go of that rope - as Nuno has written in his book - this is something that he'll
have to live with until the end of his days. [Music] [REPORTER] ...mountain, looking out towards
Spalding mountain, and the Appalachian Trail this is the path that Geraldine Largay
would have taken into this valley what you can see is just a vast wilderness... they are
absolutely puzzled as to what may have happened. [HIKER] "There's where we just came off
of and there... is where we're goin'!" [NARRATOR] The Appalachian Trail or the A.T. as
it's often known is one of the quintessential American hiking trails. Lined with a plethora
of sleepy red brick 'trail towns' which tick along humbly amidst the immensity of the
mountains and forests that surround them, the trail can be traced along a route of hand
painted directional signage and wooden camping huts built and maintained by its many volunteers.
Less romanticized than its longer and wilder cousin the Pacific Crest Trail, the A.T. offers
a more navigable and user friendly route that's marked by a strong sense of community and an
abundance of what is referred to as 'trail magic'. Just like the PCT, however, it is also acted
as a sort of emotionally transformative liminal space where people come to live, laugh, love and
light any remaining notions that life is fair on fire. Media tropes aside, it's not exactly a
bad plan. Because clocking in at around 2,000 miles over 14 states, if you can't figure it out
on the A.T. then you are probably out of luck. More than 2,000 people will attempt to hike the
trail in full each year and as whimsical as I'm probably making it all sound... [HIKER] "if ya
fall... ya die!" [NARRATOR]...make no mistake, this trail is no joke, and it's not for the
faint-hearted. But 66 year- old Gerry Laray - a retired army nurse who'd been preparing for months
to tick this trail off her bucket list - wasn't the faint of heart. Her plan for tackling the
Appalachian Trail was simple. She and her hiking partner would start on the 23rd of April in West
Virginia. Her destination was Baxter State Park in Maine. Her husband George (also retired and not
really one for the outdoors) would resupply the pair every few days. She was excited! This was
a lifelong dream of hers and she'd been updating her family and friends with her progress in
preparing for the hike writing in one email: "an update from 'Inchworm' and 'Sherpa':
trail names officially chosen! I've picked 'Inchworm' as that's how I feel going up any
ascent. No matter how well I feel I'm doing, I'm always humbled and new on the ups. 'Sherpa'
is perfect for George... except he has a car, not llama." [NARRATOR] She signed off all her emails
with: "all the best, Gerry the A.T. Dreamer." Reading through all the diary entries and letters
and emails that she left behind I grew to really like her. Gerry was the kind of person that
put other people at ease. She was funny, and she wasn't afraid to look silly. To sing
the wrong words at the top of her lungs. To stitch big clownish pockets on her shorts so
she could hold more bird food on a research trip in the South Pacific. "Those shorts looked
so silly," remembered her best friend Betty, "but Jerry didn't care." If it got her closer
to the birds, then so be it. As many of the unlikely friendships she made on the trail would
attest to, Gerry possessed a streak of radical, almost intransigent idealism that often took
people aback. Even if you didn't really think you could be pals with the spry old gal approaching
70, she didn't really care. Gerry started on the assumption that you were interesting and worth the
time, even if you didn't think you were. I know what you're thinking, 'everyone lit up a room'...
yada, yada, yada... but from what I've read, I can assure you: Gerry really did. That was, at least,
until one rainy day in July. When she vanished. [OMINOUS MUSIC] Up until that point the hike had actually been
going pretty well, until the 29th of June (just 2 months after they'd begun) when Gerry's hiking
partner Jane would be called away due to a family emergency. Perhaps Gerry should have just given up
then, but that wasn't who she was. So, determined, she made the decision alongside her husband George
to carry on alone. And then just like that - on Wednesday the 24th of July - (about a month after
Jane had left the hike and about 3 months after the hike had begun) Gerry failed to meet George
at their pre-agreed resupply point. Initially, this wasn't a big deal since it's not unusual
for hikers to get held up due to bad weather for example and it had been raining heavily.
But when there was no sign of Gerry the next day George understandably grew concerned, and that
afternoon he called the police. The searches began that day and rescuers were initially confident.
The statistics were on Gerry's side: 97% of those that go missing on the trail are found within
24 hours, after all, and multi-day searches are extraordinarily rare. But those 24 hours
came and went and there was no sign of Gerry, but it wasn't long before rescuers were able
to narrow down the area of search. At first there was a ping from Gerry's phone on Monday
afternoon which was about 7 miles as the crow flies from the area Gerry was supposed to meet
George. Not exactly accurate due to the many, many miles between towers in that area but it was
something. However, it was also discovered that Gerry had spent the evening of Monday the 22nd of
July with three female hikers and they had had the photo to prove it. Typical Gerry, she'd stayed up
chatting with them and they'd all gotten on like a house on fire so they remembered her well. Gerry
was then supposed to have gone on to stay at a second lean to on Tuesday before meeting George on
Wednesday... but there was no evidence that she'd ever made it to that second lean-to. It wasn't
exactly perfect intel, but it was enough. One of the largest search and rescue operations in the
history of Maine was about to begin. [REPORTER] "Rangers and aircraft, wardens and volunteers
on foot, spent a second straight day searching a roughly 25 square kilometre section of the
Appalachian Trail." [NARRATOR] Over the next few weeks the search significantly ramped up.
Wardens, volunteers, K9 units, and even Marines from a nearby military facility were now carrying
out one of the largest searches in the history of Maine in some of the region's toughest and densest
terrain. They were working themselves to the bone to try and find Gerry but the clock was ticking
and if Gerry was still out there she was running out of supplies. Both media and the subsequent
speculation around the case exploded. What if she'd been swept away by a river? Could there be
foul play? Had anyone looked closely enough at her husband, George? What if there was a killer on
the loose? Are other hikers now in danger? Now most missing person cases will inevitably attract
a certain amount of interest but with Gerry the speculation felt unusually farcical. The tip line
was quickly bombarded by an unusually high number of psychics and clairvoyant who - clearly not
satisfied with mainlining the secrets of the universe in private - began inserting themselves
into the investigation with suggestions of caves, nearby towers, bears and of course,
Bigfoot. Light comic relief for rescuers, perhaps. But mostly just an egregious waste of
potentially life-saving human resources. In some instances these tips had to be investigated,
just in case there was the remotest possibility that someone was secretly confessing to
something. But, ya know, big shocker here so I hope you're sitting down: not a SINGLE one of
these tips turned out to be even remotely useful. Weeks had now passed. The searches continued
daily. And Gerry was still missing. [REPORTER] "...so far searchers have still found
no sign of Geraldine Largay. While authorities continue to interview hikers, post flyers, probe
for information on A.T. websites and blogs, they admit: they're baffled. While they're not
ready to announce any end date to the search they reluctantly know it can't last forever."
[NARRATOR] After those first few weeks... the mood changed. Rescuers knew the chances of finding
Gerry alive were now very slim. Eventually there was no choice but to drastically scale operations
back, but to their absolute credit volunteers and local rescuers never stopped searching for
Gerry. As the winter of 2013 came and went, yet more searches were carried out. And then
came 2014. More searches... more nothing. The conspiracy theories grew darker and more
outlandish, including one local paper who asked: "is it just a coincidence that the baffling
vanishing of this person took place a stone's throw from a place closely associated at with
programs designed to make people disappear?" The place he was referring to was the nearby military
training facility and the answer to his question was an emphatic 'yes' since they had literally
been involved in the rescue operations from day one. I can only imagine just how exhausting
this non-stop speculation would have been for the family. They just wanted closure. And on
Thursday the 15th of October 2015 - 2 years after Gerry went missing - they would get it. Because
that day a surveyor happened across a sodden, collapsed tent. And they immediately knew
who it was. In and around that tent would be a number of personal items including a
diary and a phone. Those items would tell a harrowing story. And to understand it in
full... we need to go back to the beginning. On Tuesday the 22nd of July 2013, after leaving
the wooden lean-to where she'd had her photo taken Gerry had walked off the trail to go to
the bathroom (but a little further than she normally would since she no longer had a hiking
partner to watch out for her). She stood up, she walked confidently back to the trail, and
the trail... wasn't there. So she picked another direction. No trail, more forest. And just like
that... she was lost. Unable to get her bearings, she began walking in what we can only assume
she felt was the correct direction but it was deeper still into the extremely dense and
seemingly endless Maine forest. [OMINOUS MUSIC] It was here that she sent text... but there was
no service. At that point her plan seemed to be to get to higher ground to either get her bearings
or to get signal or probably both. Calm at first, but then panicked, Gerry exhausted herself working
her way through the undergrowth becoming more and more lost. Eventually she would find a small
hill near a brook, and here she would send yet more messages. They would all fail to send.
There was no phone service for miles. It seems then that she decided 'enough was enough, no more
moving'. It was time to set up camp and wait for help to arrive. That was, after all, the general
advice that hikers are given: if you get lost, stay put. So she did. It's hard to know what
was going through Gerry's head at this point, but the incident report indicates that she did
make multiple attempts to try and draw rescuers to her location. She set up her emergency
space blanket so that it would catch the sun, she set trees on fire, and the diary that she kept
(which consisted mostly of personal messages) also indicated that she had attempted to use her
sweater to attract attention. But it was all in vain. This is where Gerry had made her camp.
It was some of the most difficult terrain in the area. She saw the planes flying overhead,
but they couldn't see her. The terrain was so poor in fact that even highly experienced
sniffer dogs couldn't pick up her scent. But there were times when they got so close.
By some estimates as close as 200 metres. When she went missing Gerry had just two days
worth of food on her. Even though she had access to water from a stream, the reality was that it
wouldn't have been long before she was battling significant cognitive decline. On the 22nd
of August (2 weeks after she'd gone missing) Gerry carefully packed up her personal effects
and wrote: "when you find my body, please call my husband George and my daughter Kerry. It will
be the greatest kindness from them to know that I am dead and where you found me. No matter how
many years from now please find it in your heart to mail the contents of this bag to them." She
then wrote her loved ones letters apologizing: she made a mistake, but no hike was as important
as them to her. Her last two entries were dated August the 10th and August the 18th, though
Gerry likely had become extremely confused by this point and that last date is unlikely to
be correct. The medical examiner's report would list the cause of death as 'inanition'.
Death from exposure. Gerry had starved. In the wake of the discovery of Gerry's
tent people were understandably confused. Without full access to her diary it's hard to
know what precisely motivated her decisions, but one thing is clear Gerry made a number of
mistakes and together they amounted into something much greater than the sum of their parts. For
example, Gerry was easily turned around - at least according to her hiking partner. And there is
some debate as to whether or not she knew how to use a compass properly. Sadly, even if she did the
tiny toy compass she carried just wasn't accurate enough to actually navigate with. Even though she
undertook a number of practice runs read countless books on the trail and even sought guidance
from trail experts, Gerry didn't actually know any basic survival techniques. For example, she
didn't know how to start a fire or keep it going, and she didn't know to follow water downstream.
Plus, due to ongoing back issues Gerry was only able to carry limited gear and a spot GPS tracker
wasn't on this stripped down gear list. And she didn't stay put from the minute she realized she
was lost, but only after hiking for several hours to find signal. By then it was too late. She
was completely lost and she started to panic. When it comes to surviving in life or death
situations, one thing is clear: fear is quite literally the mind killer. In the end, the camp
was less than 2 miles from the Appalachian Trail. If she knew where to walk, that walk would have
been around half an hour. But alas, she didn't. I've been thinking about the best way to conclude
a video like this, and I've gotta say... I've struggled. It would be easy, I suppose, for
me to conclude by ascribing blame or with some sanctimonious bit about respecting the forces
of nature. But I don't wanna do that. So... I'll finish where we started, with a quote from Carl
Sagan, who said: "exploration is in our nature, we began as wanderers... and we are wanderers still".
Elegantly worded, but I find the corollary... bittersweet. Because if we are fallible, destined
to make mistakes, to misjudge, to act irrationally (or... arrogantly), then there IS no exploration
without the risk of becoming... completely lost.
