Rescued hiker recounts six days lost in mountains

It didn’t take Ken Knight long to realize he had gotten himself lost on April 26.

On that Sunday, Knight, an experienced hiker who is legally blind, was headed south from Punchbowl Mountain along the Appalachian Trail on a group hike toward the Peaks of Otter. Somewhere, nearly seven miles south of the shelter on Punchbowl, he realized he had stepped off the trail and couldn’t find his way back on.

It wasn’t until Saturday evening nearly a week later when a signal fire Knight set turned into a two-acre brush fire that firefighters from Big Island stumbled upon him.

During the intervening six days, the 41-year-old slept at a makeshift camp somewhere on the Little Rocky Row mountainside in the corner between Hercules Road near the James River Foot Bridge and Snowden.

“I don’t know that I ever, I wouldn’t say I panicked, no,” Knight said. “The tough times were during … you’re wondering how come no one has found you yet. Is anyone looking? There was that time when they weren’t, but I didn’t know that. And you’re wondering. You get down on yourself for that, but panic, no.”

Knight wasn’t reported missing until he missed a flight home on April 28.

But back on the Sunday he lost the trail, he had a crucial decision to make.

He could decide to stay put, hoping he wasn’t too far off the trail and that someone would pass by close enough to him to point him toward the John’s Hollow trail shelter, get him back on the Appalachian Trail and to a water supply.

“But, I’m out of water, so the other option is to head down the mountain to the James River, toward where you hope to find some streams,” he said. “Water is plentiful only if you find streams.

“I opted for the latter choice and I went down the mountain, south and I did find a stream. I was able to get water. I followed that downstream to eventually where I ended up.”

Knight believed with a water supply, which he treated before drinking, and a place to set up his shelter, he could last “quite a long time.”

For the first several days, he set up small signal fires, which went unseen largely because no one was looking for him, he said. During daylight, he tried to explore the area around his campsite to see if there might be a better way out of the woods. During these trips, he would leave notes at the site.

“On (Saturday), I decided to set a bigger fire. I set that downstream of my campsite up on a ridge so that my campsite would be reasonably safe from the fire should it get larger,” said.

Within two hours, he said, volunteers from the Big Island Fire Department on their way to fight the brush fire saw him.

“It was a tremendous relief,” Knight said.

This was not his first time going off the trail. Knight said that when he loses his path, he has always found his way back on again.

“I call them micro-detours,” he said.

He said it’s nearly impossible for him to explain to a person with average vision what and how he sees. He can’t see the large E at the eye doctor’s office, but he can see and feel the trail, he said.

He said he knows plenty of people with good eyesight who have lost their way on the trail. And, he said, he doesn’t believe his experience supports those who say hikers shouldn’t venture out by themselves because “something could happen.”

“You could die in a traffic accident today,” he said.

Knight said it is true that it’s easier for him to lose the trail compared to others, but he thinks the more important factor is what a hiker does after getting lost.

“Some people go off and they’re not prepared,” he said. “That has nothing to do with vision.”

Knight refused to address comments that suggest he should be held financially liable for the cost of his search and rescue or liable for the damage caused by the fire he set.

He did praise and thank everyone who aided in his rescue.

“There’s a lot of backseat hiking going on,” he said.

Knight said he will continue backpacking. Had he been found a few days earlier, he said, he likely would have gone on a planned hike in Scotland. In the future, he said, he may consider using a satellite beacon to either allow interested people to track his progress, or to allow searchers to find him more quickly, should he get lost.

“Even if I do carry something like a … locator beacon, that’s just a tool,” he said “You can’t just rely on your tool, or (a beacon) or a cell phone. … Had my cell phone not been dead, they could have zeroed in … but my cell phone was virtually dead. That could happen with the (beacon). You still have to have the skills.”

Knight said Monday he is visiting family in Rhode Island before returning to his home in Ann Arbor, Mich.