Death on the Appalachian Trail

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While reviewing and updating our Section Hiking the Appalachian Trail Twitter account, we discovered there has been a second death on the Appalachian Trail this year. This time its seems a hiker slipped and fell between Rangeley and Caratunk, Maine. Details are forthcoming.

While deaths on the Appalachian Trail are rare, death does come to hikers from time to time. Often while pre-planning a hike, friends and relatives become alarmed and imagine all sorts of danger that will befall their loved one. (We've been offered guns.) With today's death, this seems an opportune moment in time to start a list of deaths on the Appalachian Trail to provide a balanced perspective on how life threatening the Appalachian Trail is and is not.

2012

• February 2012 - Body of missing CT woman found near Appalachian Trail

2011

• September 2011 - 'Buffalo Bobby' dies just short of end of Appalachian Trail 
•  August 2011 - FBI investigates death of Indiana hiker of Appalachian Trail
• August 2011 - Hiker dies after falling and hitting his head in Maine
• April 2011 - Hiker passes away while asleep in tent at Davenport Gap 

2010

• May 2010 - Hiker from Michigan was found dead at the Icewater Spring shelter
• June 2010  - Hiker found dead on the Appalachian Trail in Botetourt County

  
2008

• May 2008 - Two fishermen shot

  
2001

• November 2001 -  Canadian woman murdered in the White Mountains

1996 

• June 1996 -  Tragedy in Shenandoah National Park (VA) in the A.T. Vicinity

1990

• September 1990 - Thru-hikers killed at shelter near Duncannon, PA

1988

• May 1988 - Man frightens two women off the trail and shoots them, killing one, in Michaux State Forest in PA

  
1981

• May 1981 - Two social workers hiking Appalachian Trail found murdered

  
1975

• April 1975 - Wisconsin woman hacked to death by a hiker with a hatchet in Tennessee

  
1974

• May 1974 - 26-year-old man was killed at a shelter in Georgia

  
We will continue to update this post as we discover past deaths on the Appalachian Trail.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.