Naked woman missing in Washington forest (was on spiritual quest)

[Liberal_in_LA]

Naked woman missing in Washington forest


STEVENSON, Wash. (AP) - Deputies are searching for a woman missing in a southwest Washington national forest who is naked because she was going on a spiritual quest.

Skamania County Undersheriff Dave Cox told The Columbian (http://bit.ly/190wKfW ) the 19-year-old Vancouver woman was wearing only a fanny pack with a compass and a knife about 5 p.m. Sunday when she left the Canyon Creek Campground in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest.

She was supposed to return that night. A friend reported her missing around midnight.

Cox says the weather in the area has been mild with overnight temperatures in the lower 50s.

Read more: http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/article/Naked-woman-missing-in-Washington-forest-4591664.php#ixzz2VrkRxrl9

[FarCenter]

1. No GPS? Darwin Award candidate.

[Eleanors38]

14. Her compass would help her out. If she knew how to use it.

[burnodo]

31. naked on a spiritual quest

no room for GPS

[FarCenter]

34. I'd think that a DeLorme inReach would fit in a fanny pack?

If not, I'd discard something else.

http://www.inreachdelorme.com/product-info/inreachse.php
http://www.inreachdelorme.com/why-inreach/outdoor-recreation.php

Get lost in the wild with true peace of mind.

Whether you’re hiking or biking, climbing or camping, canoeing or kayaking, hunting or fishing, the DeLorme inReach will bring the experience to life. The inReach’s true power lies in the peace of mind it brings to your adventures. Whether you worry less or whether your loved ones worry less, it enables you to go farther and to experience more without any wondering or second-guessing. And in an emergency, the inReach’s tracking and two-way SOS are the most valuable tools in your survival kit. Send messages, receive messages, track your routes, update social networks, and engage the wilderness like never before.

[burnodo]

36. I think you might be missing the point

I don't think she has a fanny pack or anything else

[FarCenter]

39. OP says "the 19-year-old Vancouver woman was wearing only a fanny pack with a compass and a knife"nt

[burnodo]

43. Oh, my bad

Still, this doesn't sound like a trip where a GPS was desired

[HiPointDem]

38. hiked all my young life in wa forests without gps. a lot of people did. darwin award is the idea

that you need high technology to enter wild lands.

[FarCenter]

40. Were you naked at night with temps in the low 50s in a rugged canyon?

She's one with nature now.

[HiPointDem]

42. your post was about gps, not nakedness. but in fact, it would be possible to survive naked

overnight in these temps. not below freezing, and plenty of growth for cover. what you're calling a 'rugged canyon' is probably not what you think it is. She climbed the 'steep canyon' to get to the logging road.





Search crews said Kelly crossed a creek and climbed up to Forest Road 54, on the other side of the canyon from the campground



Ward said Kelly's track stopped on the paved road, so search crews spent much of the day trying to find where she may have left the pavement and entered the woods.

http://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/giffordpinchot/recreation/camping-cabins/recarea/?recid=31498&actid=31

[cliffordu]

62. ^^^^THIS^^^^

[kestrel91316]

58. FAIL. A map and compass (and the knowledge of how to use them) will suffice.

How on earth did we ever survive in all our Sierra Club mountaineering trips in the Sierras before GPS even existed????

For the record: I was once a nationally ranked orienteer. No GPS in existence for that, either.

This woman's biggest failure was her lack of clothing appropriate for the environmental conditions.

[bahrbearian]

60. We did all the trail maintenance in Gifford Pinchot , 1971-1976 what is this GPS you speak of?

[FarCenter]

68. GPS + satellite comms is a technology with a potential to offset a modest amount of stupidity.

[bahrbearian]

71. but which way is north?

[FarCenter]

74. GPS hiking units show bearing, direction and speed.

[Ter]

2. Lots of sasquatch are in that area

Not claiming there's a link to violence with them, but you never know.

[Matariki]

9. And the ever elusive Pacific Tree Octopus

http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/ - and they can be dangerous to naked spiritual questers...

on edit - maybe this isn't a joke worthy topic. I hope she's found safe and whole. Then we can laugh at her.

[Shankapotomus]

20. Please tell us

you're joking. You're joking, right? Right?

[BlueToTheBone]

48. You never know.

He might be in cahoots with Big Foot!

[Shankapotomus]

64. I can only wonder

At the risk of being intolerant, I'm afraid to press the issue. Believing in Sasquatch seems an innocent enough indulgence anyway. It's not hurting anyone. In a former life I used to be fascinated by ufo's.

[Codeine]

67. Ter believes in all that shit.

He's the Fortean Times of DU.

[struggle4progress]

3. Four hours before sunset, and the crescent moon planning to set as dusk ends, she sets off naked

into the woods, expecting to find her way back in the dark through the steep and heavily overgrown terrain?

[struggle4progress]

5. ... Search and rescue crews suspended their effort at around 8 Monday night and plan on resuming

Search and rescue crews suspended their effort at around 8 Monday night and plan on resuming Tuesday morning. Early Monday they combed the area near Forest Road 54 and found her tracks. They said her bare feet went down a steep canyon into a creek then out the other side, but that's where her trail ended ...
Naked Vancouver woman missing in a Skamania forest
Posted: Jun 11, 2013 1:34 AM EDT Updated: Jun 11, 2013 1:38 AM EDT
By Sophie Soong
http://www.kptv.com/story/22555411/naked-vancouver-woman-missing-in-a-skamania-forest

[Liberal_in_LA]

7. thanks for the additional info. hope they find her soon.

[Cali_Democrat]

6. Magic mushrooms?

[struggle4progress]

8. Officials: Missing Wash. Woman's 'Survivability Factor' at Risk

By ALEXIS SHAW (@ashaw109)
June 11, 2013

... "She had talked about doing this spiritual quest for evidently quite some time," <undersheriff Dave Cox> said. "The folks that she was with, they felt that this was something she needed to do" ...

Temperatures also have dropped since Kelly's disappearance, Cox said. While the temperature was in the mid-70s on Sunday, it has since fallen more than 20 degrees ...

"As this progresses, we get a little more concerned," he said. "Especially because she doesn't have any clothing, hypothermia can set in a lot quicker" ...

While it was "a little bit unusual" for a 19-year-old to leave a campsite nude, save for a fanny pack, Cox said there was no indication that she was on drugs at the time of her disappearance ...

http://abcnews.go.com/US/missing-wash-woman-spirtual-quest-naked-fanny-pack/story?id=19375288

[In_The_Wind]

11. Damn!

[uppityperson]

13. Aw dang, best wishes to her spirit and her body.

[apples and oranges]

10. Friends don't let friends wander off naked

in the middle of the night. Especially not in 50 degree weather. I'm guessing drugs were involved?

[Comrade Grumpy]

12. You would be guessing wrong. See post #8 above.

[FarCenter]

15. Mike57 said:

"More proof the Washington State is becoming the California of the north. Only an idiot would walk in the forest with no cloths."

Actually, naked and temps in the 40s overnight Monday-Tuesday, there is a good chance she is part of the food chain.

[Le Taz Hot]

19. "More proof the Washington State is becoming the California of the north."

Hey! I resemble that remark! We have WAY more idiots than Oregon.

LTH<--Californian.

[penultimate]

51. But she's from Vancouver... That's pretty much Portland.

I lived in both cities about 11 years ago. I don't even consider my stay in Vancouver to mean I lived in Washington.

[struggle4progress]

16. Search Resumes For Missing Vancouver Woman

June 14, 2013, 2:42 pm
By Jeremy Scott

The search for 19-year-old Maureen Kelly at the Canyon Creek Campground near Yacolt in western Skamania County will resume on Saturday morning. Searchers looked for the Vancouver woman earlier this week before putting the operation on hold.

Kelly has been missing since last Sunday afternoon when she left her campsite naked, telling others she was going on a "spiritual quest". She had only a fanny pack with a knife, compass and possibly material to start a fire.

"We will be continuing search operations from earlier this week and will be expanding the search area to attempt to locate Ms Kelly," said Undersheriff Dave Cox. "We are hopeful we will find her and bring closure."

Searchers had found signs on Monday that she crossed a creek and climbed up to Forest Road 54 on the opposite side of the very steep canyon. Her track stopped on a paved road. Authorities believe that she went back into the woods at that point ...

http://www.kxl.com/06/14/13/Search-Resumes-For--Missing-Vancouver-Wo/landing.html?blockID=693391&feedID=10446



Crews to resume search for woman on 'spiritual quest'
Posted: Jun 14, 2013 5:41 PM EDT Updated: Jun 14, 2013 10:56 PM EDT
By FOX 12 Staff

... Earlier this week, Kelly's brother told KPTV that Kelly is comfortable and capable in the outdoors, but she wasn't as prepared as he would have liked ...

http://www.kptv.com/story/22596564/maureen-kelly-spiritual-quest

[Warren DeMontague]

17. Sounds sort of like this story:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_McCandless

[NaturalHigh]

49. I had to check your link, but I remember that story now.

As appealing as it may sometimes sound to get in some quiet time in solitude, having a reliable food supply should also be part of the plan.

[Warren DeMontague]

52. The movie was worth a watch.

Great soundtrack, too. Interesting story. Tragic, obviously, but also thought-provoking.

[Buns_of_Fire]

18. I hope it ends well, but I fear the odds are not in her favor. nt

[gateley]

46. Agree and agree.

[Eddie Haskell]

21. One positive note ... they have a record number of volunteers searching

[B Calm]

22. Hope she has mosquito repellent. .

Damn, thinking to myself, imagine myself hiking in the woods and finding a totally naked young women. . .

I hope she's okay!

[struggle4progress]

23. UPDATE: Daylong search finds no trace of missing Vancouver hiker

By Marissa Harshman
Columbian Staff Reporter
Saturday, June 15, 2013

Amboy, WA — AMBOY — A daylong search in the dense woods of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest on Saturday failed to turn up any trace of a 19-year-old Vancouver woman who left her campground on Sunday, June 9, and never returned.

The search for Maureen Kelly was called off about 6 p.m. Saturday after about 75 volunteers from 17 search and rescue teams combed a four square mile search area in rugged terrain near Canyon Creek. Communications were coordinated by the Communications Unit from Yacolt Fire District 13 ...

One searcher received an ankle injury, and one of the search K-9’s split one of its paws.

“We are very fortunate that we did not receive any more injuries today, based upon the terrain we asked our search personnel to work in,” Cox said. The area was rough and steep with some areas covered in thick underbrush and wet moss, he said ...

http://www.columbian.com/news/2013/jun/15/search-resumes-missing-vancouver-hiker/

[hobbit709]

24. She has qualified for a Darwin and is in spiritual communion with other evolutionary failures.

[struggle4progress]

26. She's nineteen. Lots of us look back to that time of life and wonder how we survived.

[hobbit709]

27. I did a lot of crazy things but walking into the deep woods naked was not one of them.

I've been so fried on drugs(mostly LSD) that I had to look at my ID to remember who I was but I never did anything that stupid.

[Warren DeMontague]

54. You should be glad, then.

I did many potentially life-endangering things, pretty much all of them under the influence of alcohol.

No one has a monopoly on stupid, particularly at that age. I hope she's found ok.

[Warren DeMontague]

53. No shit.

I find the lining up to snark off about what an idiot she is, pretty damn distasteful.

[Cleita]

25. Really? As goofy as it sounds, it's even goofier to me that her friends

actually let her go and didn't question how irrational her decision was to do this.

[RedstDem]

28. if she's still missing

I fear she has died by now

[texanwitch]

29. I did some stupid things back when I was a kid.

Walking naked in the woods was not one of them.

I can understand a need for a walk in the woods, buy why naked.

I hope she is found safe and has a story to tell twenty years from now.

[penultimate]

41. I was thinking the same thing...

I totally get the part about wanting to go through the woods and whatever, but the naked part is a bit strange. Kinda reminds me of that Christopher McCandless thing, but stupider.

[texanwitch]

44. Was he the guy in desert.

I remember reading about a guy walking off into the desert and never found.

[penultimate]

50. I believe the one I'm referring to ultimately ended dying in Alaska.

The movie 'Into the Wild' is based on his story. It's not exactly the same, but it's similar to someone going out with the bare minimum. This girl went out there even less prepared it seems. Hopefully she didn't become some animal's meal or some creep's victim.

[texanwitch]

63. She went out with nothing but her skin.

I was thinking the same as you.

I am hoping for best but the chance of her being found is slim.

Some creep could have her locked up someways.

Or some animals lunch.

I feel for her family.

[struggle4progress]

55. Back in my college days, I had some friends who regularly backpacked naked

They were affable folk, and from time to time they reported back their pleasant interactions with various park rangers, who seemed not to care much one way or another whether they were formally attired

[penultimate]

56. Did they ever explain the reasoning behind it?

Is it to get in touch with their primal nature or something like that? Even early-man covered themselves up with something. The thought of going through thick brush with no clothes on doesn't like a great idea. Even with clothes on, I get nervous that something is going to into my pants leg and infect me with a flesh eating disease. Then again, I also go to sleep every night fearing that an asteroid is going to crash into my bed in the middle of the night. Or that I'm going to be sucked through the drain at the bottom of a pool while I'm swimming. I also fear that the government is recording my phone calls, chats, texts and emails into a large database, and that they have easy to use tools that allow private contractors to have access that data... That's just crazy talk though.

[Orrex]

30. Guess it's bare season.

[texanwitch]

33. I hope that is the only bare in the woods.

I wish her well.

I hope she doesn't end up lunch.

[burnodo]

32. she's either courageous, troubled, or both

I think she'll be all right

[texanwitch]

35. I hope so.

I bet she has some trouble in her life, trying to find a little peace.

[Motown_Johnny]

45. She has been missing a week.

She was last seen last Sunday.

I hope for the best here too but I am much more worried than you seem to be.

[burnodo]

47. People have to make their own decisions

Nt

[Nay]

65. Man, I sure hope she's OK, but a week? Whew. I'm sure her family is going crazy with

worry.

[Skeeter Barnes]

37. Best to carry a Spot tracker if you are going into remote areas, especially when you're alone.

http://www.findmespot.com/en/index.php?cid=102

I hope they find her soon.

[kestrel91316]

59. I wish they'd had that sort of thing back in my solo backpacking days. Would have

helped me to relax and enjoy myself a bit more.

[Major Nikon]

72. I know a few people that have them

They are popular with private pilots because they work well at altitude and it allows them to share their travels with family and friends. I've heard they don't work all that well in wooded areas, which has led some to believe they aren't all that great as a survival tool. I'd rather have a good PLB for that purpose.

[Lugal Zaggesi]

57. She's very pretty, she's 19, she's naked, she's on a "spiritual quest"...

... but the drunken hikers that run into her in the woods won't care about the "spiritual quest" thing.

Did this young lady not know about crazy, violent men?
Did that never come up in her experiences?
Did she not read the news of that insane guy in Ohio with women locked up in his basement?

Take some LSD - it's safer than walking around naked in a forest.

[struggle4progress]

66. Sadly, that was exactly my reaction, when I learned they could trace her trail

down a canyon to a creek and across, back up the other side of the canyon, to a road -- where they lost her trail

[Matariki]

75. "drunken hikers"?

like that happens all the time.

[Lugal Zaggesi]

76. I've seen

many a hiker carry in a six pack or a few bottles of wine in their backpack, for when they make camp at dusk.
I myself have enjoyed a few trips with wine and a college female friend or two - but admittedly, that was awhile ago.
And longer ago still was some high school trips with the guys, and lots and lots of beer (that's the worrisome scenario).

Usually just overnighters or weekenders bring drinks, but it's very common.
You should get out more, enjoy Nature. Look at the stars on a moonless night on the top of a mountain.
And savor a few drinks.

Anyway, the story of this naked beauty seems to show she disappeared on a road through the woods.
You've heard of drunken drivers, right ?

[chervilant]

61. She has been missing for a week.

Has anyone heard any more recent news?

[pnwmom]

69. Sadly, the search has been suspended.

http://www.kxl.com/06/16/13/Search-For-Missing-Vancouver-Woman-Suspe/landing.html?blockID=693391&feedID=10446

The search for 19-year-old Maureen Kelly at the Canyon Creek Campground near Yacolt in western Skamania County was suspended on Saturday evening. 75 volunteers combed a four square mile area of the forest before putting the operation on hold.

SNIP

[texanwitch]

70. Still hope she is alive somehow.

[Gravitycollapse]

73. It's very possible to die from exposure at such temperatures when one is naked.

[alp227]

77. Saddest episode of "Portlandia" ever. n/t

[catbyte]

78. Jesus. I hope she had a can of DEET with her...