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Navigation and why it’s a useful skill

Geraldine Largay was a retired air force nurse who had hiked long trails near her home in Tennessee. In 2013, she’d set out to hike the length of the epic 2,168-mile Appalachian trail. Known to her friends as Gerry, she’d taken a trail name like many other hikers, hers, was “Inchworm”. Largay had already walked more than 1,000 miles of her route by the 22nd July 2013 when she left the trail to relieve herself.

She remained missing for over two years. 

Gerry’s body was found on Oct. 14, 2015, less than a kilometre (3,000 feet) from the Appalachian Trail, investigators read through her journal to piece together what happened. The last passage was dated 18th August.

Largay survived for 26 days after disappearing

She wrote desperate journal entries and text messages. In a notebook entry dated 6 August 2013, two weeks after she lost her way, Largay made a desperate plea: “When you find my body, please call my husband George and my daughter Kerry,” she wrote. “It will be the greatest kindness for 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 one of them.”

Now, we’re not here to pick holes in Gerry’s actions after she became “Geographically embarrassed.” Though, she did make some obvious mistakes. For example, Gerry’s final camp saw her having pitched her tent under a tree so that it was harder to spot from the air. Largay had a SPOT locator beacon, sadly, in her husband’s car.

There is a simple truism, that the best way to get out of a survival situation is to not get into one. So how could Gerry have helped herself to stay found?