Last picture taken of Geraldine (Gerry) Largay. 

Geraldine Largay, July 2013

Geraldine Largay was last seen leaving the Poplar Ridge Lean-to early morning Monday July 22, 2013. She had spent the previous evening speaking talking to newfound friends, Dottie Rust and her hiking companion Regina Clark. Before she left, Dottie Rust a photo of her new friend because the sweater Largay was wearing would have been perfect for a Christmas card. 

She was never seen again. 

Gerry Largay's disappearance captured the media's attention and also brought the Appalachian Trail's many dangers to the forefront of people's minds; North Woods Law, a reality television show that followed the investigators, even featured an episode on Largay. 

The Maine Warden Service was placed in charge of searching for her, using their special airplane division to search the mountain sides, and even continuing to search two years after she vanished.When she was eventually found, investigators were able to piece together Largay's final days based on messages attempted to be sent from her phone the state of her campsite. 

Doris Dean, April 1944

Largay wasn't the first one, nor the last one, to be lost along the trail. Many others have lost their way in the woods that the Appalachian Trail makes its way through. According to the April 1944 Patomac Appalachian Trail Club bulletin, there was a little girl, four year old Doris Dean, who was walking back to her home and somehow lost her way. On the day she was found, over 200 searchers gathered at the little girl's house to search for her. 

She had been missing for 125 hours. 

Much like Largay, Doris had wandered for a few days before she was eventually found. From what she remembered and told her mother after she came too at the hospital, Doris had a different experience than Largay's. The little girl had been frightened by the searchers and had continued to ascend the mountain. Unlike in Largay's case, airplanes would not have been effective as that would have required searchers to leave the area for a time for fear that the would be suspected to be Doris.