The Appalachian Trail is no strange to death but, Mark Richard Neopel was unique as it was not murder or an accident and instead an overdose from nonprescription drugs. Noepel was a naturalist at Shenandoah National Park and an avid hiker, who went missing along the trail somewhere around August of 1987. He was later found dead of an overdose after having been missing for three weeks on Campbell's Mountain. The role of drugs in the Appalachian Trail community furthered the "party image" that the hikers brought along which, even resulted in trail shelter closures a decade previously at the Shenandoah National Park. Furthermore in recent years with the rise of drug overdose deaths in the US, there have been numerous other cases further north of deaths along the trail by hikers and nonhikers alike. As the population of thru-hikers increases along with the rising opioid epidemic in the communities stretching alongside the Appalachian Trail is a deadly mix. According to  Black Bear Rehabilitation Lodge, the cradle of the opioid epidemic is located in Appalachia an area from Alabama at its southern tip to Pennsylvania to the north. The Appalachia region composes a large portion of the Appalachian Trail and has resulted in instances of overdose deaths in these communities at a much higher rate than other communities in the United States. The crossover between the Appalachian Trail and the opioid crisis is inevitable as the trail runs squarely through many of the rural towns that are astronomically affected by it.