Lost

Dozens of Adirondack hikers and hunters go missing every year. Modern technology is no match for bad luck

by Adam Federman
photo by Aaron Hobson

Jack Coloney was last seen on June 6, 2006. He vanished several days later in the Moose River Plains Wild Forest, one of the most remote yet accessible regions of the Adirondack Park. A 10-day search, totaling more than 4,000 man-hours by a team of 56 Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) forest rangers and assistant rangers, the New York State Police, the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department and scores of volunteers who combed an approximately 35-square-mile area, failed to turn up a single clue. A slightly heavyset man in his 40s, Coloney had told family and friends that he was planning an eight- to 10-day camping trip. An assistant ranger fishing on his day off passed Coloney’s campsite near the Lost Ponds trailhead on June 14. When he returned two days later and saw that nothing had changed he notified his superiors. The search commenced on the morning of June 17, a dispiritingly windy and rainy day.

The Moose River Plains, and particularly the area north of the Lost Ponds trailhead where rangers focused their search, is challenging terrain. The brush and forest cover are so dense that, off trail, you can travel no faster than half a mile per hour. Greg George, a forest ranger with 26 years of experience in the central Adirondacks, said that searchers on opposite sides of Sumner Stream were unable to spot each other. Coloney’s younger brother Jay, who joined the search, said that pockets of spruce were so thick that “he could have been lying five feet away and you never would have seen him.” In addition to being the largest expanse of backcountry easily accessible by motor vehicle in the Adirondacks, the Moose River Plains is bordered by wilderness areas on three sides, including the 168,920-acre West Canada Lake tract, which has been described by the DEC as “some of the remotest lands and waters” in the park. They also seem to be some of the most bewildering. Over the years, the area between Blue Mountain Lake, Indian Lake and the West Canada Lake Wilderness Area has accounted for a disproportionately high number of missing hikers.

Read the full story in the September/October issue of Adirondack Life, on newsstands now.