In 2015, 28-year-old Miranda Coleman from Portland, Oregon, set off on a solo trip through southeastern Alaska.

She was an experienced hiker, certified mountain guide, and had completed several challenging routes in the Cascade Mountains.

She planned to spend a week in Tongas National Forest, the largest forest in the United States, stretching for thousands of kilometers along the coast.

5 days after she set out on the trail, search parties began looking for her.

They found nothing.

4 years later, a group of geologists discovered an abandoned cabin 30 mi from the official trails.

Inside was a body and a camera that had recorded everything.

Hello everyone.

Today I’m going to tell you a story that shows how unforgiving the wilderness can be and how thin the line between life and death is in places where civilization ends.

If you’re listening to this from the safety of your home, appreciate it because there are places where help won’t come no matter how much you call for it.

Miranda Coleman was one of those people who couldn’t live without the mountains and the forest.

She worked as a graphic designer in Portland, but spent every vacation and every weekend hiking.

Her social media profiles were full of photos from mountain peaks, tents, and campfires.

Her friends described her as cautious, prepared, and never taking unnecessary risks.

In July 2015, she saved up enough money and took a twoe vacation.

She decided to fulfill a longheld dream to hike the Tongas Trail, one of the wildest and most beautiful places in North America.

Tongas is located in southeastern Alaska and covers an area of nearly 17 million acres, most of which is virgin forest, untouched by humans.

On July 23rd, Miranda flew to Juno, the capital of Alaska.

She booked a room in a small hostel and spent the day preparing for the hike.

She went to a local outdoor store, rented a GPS beacon with an emergency signal function, and checked her equipment.

She had a full set of gear, a tent, a sleeping bag, 7 days worth of food, a water filter, a first aid kit, a knife, a hatchet, and a change of clothes.

The store owner, 60-year-old Jack, later told investigators that he had talked to her for almost an hour.

She told him about her route.

She planned to take the West Glacier Trail, then turn north to lesserk known areas where she could see wild animals and enjoy absolute silence.

Jack warned her that the northern areas were poorly marked, that it was easy to stray from the trail and that the weather in the mountains changed quickly.

Miranda smiled and said she knew to be careful that she had a GPS and a beacon.

Jack nodded, wished her luck, and that was Miranda’s last conversation with anyone from the city.

On the morning of July 24th, she boarded a bus to the trail head at West Glacier, about 30 m from Juno.

The bus driver remembered her, a girl in hiking clothes with a large backpack, smiling and taking pictures of the scenery through the window.

She got off at the stop around in the morning, waved to the driver, and walked to the trail head.

Several hikers saw her on the trail that day.

She walked confidently at a good pace.

One of them, a couple from Canada, talked to her around noon.

Miranda said she planned to walk to the fork and turn onto the Northern Trail, which was less popular.

The couple warned her that few people walked there and that the trail was poorly marked.

Miranda replied that this was exactly what she wanted, solitude, the opportunity to be alone with nature.

They said goodbye and that was the last time they saw each other.

Miranda’s plan was simple.

3 days north, then back through the eastern sections, a total of about 50 mi, quite feasible for an experienced hiker.

A GPS beacon was supposed to transmit her coordinates every 6 hours to a satellite server, which her mother could track via an app.

The first two days went smoothly.

Signals came in regularly showing that Miranda was on track.

But on July 27th, the signal disappeared.

Miranda’s mother, Carol, waited until evening thinking it was a technical glitch.

But when the signal didn’t reappear the next day, she began calling emergency services.

On July 29th, a search operation was organized.

A team of eight rangers and volunteers set out along Miranda’s route.

They followed the trail to the fork, then headed north.

The weather was good, visibility was excellent, but there was no sign of Miranda.

They shouted her name, checked every section of the trail, every clearing where she might have set up camp.

Nothing.

No backpack, no traces of a campfire, no signs of human presence.

It was as if she had simply vanished into thin air.

The search continued for a week.

They brought in helicopters and dogs and expanded the search area to 50 square miles.

They checked all the gorges and all the stream beds where she could have fallen.

They checked all the known caves and shelters.

The result was the same.

Nothing.

Investigators studied the last point where the GPS signal was recorded.

It was about 12 mi north of the fork on a section of the trail that ran along the ridge overlooking the valley.

The place was open with no obvious dangers.

They couldn’t explain why the signal disappeared there.

GPS beacons are designed to work for weeks, so the battery couldn’t have just run out.

One theory was that Miranda could have fallen into a crevice or a hole hidden by moss.

These forests are full of such places, old mines, sinkholes, and pits covered with vegetation.

A person could step and fall dozens of meters down and nothing would be visible from above.

But search dogs should have smelled the body if it was in the search area and they found nothing.

Another theory was an animal attack.

Tongus is home to grizzly bears, black bears, and wolves.

But attacks on humans are extremely rare and usually leave traces, blood, torn clothing, pieces of equipment.

There was nothing here.

By mid August, the search was officially called off.

Too large an area, too few clues.

The case was classified as a disappearance under unknown circumstances.

Miranda’s family was offered condolences and told that in such cases, a person is considered dead even if the body is not found.

Miranda’s mother did not accept this.

She came to Alaska three more times, hired private trackers, put up posters, and offered rewards for information, but nothing worked.

In 2016, the case was officially closed.

Miranda Coleman was listed as missing in US national parks, and there are hundreds of such cases every year.

Most of them are never solved.

In the summer of 2019, four years after Miranda’s disappearance, a geological expedition from the University of Alaska was working in Tongas.

They were studying rock samples in the northern part of the forest in an area rarely visited by tourists.

The expedition was led by Professor David McNeel, a specialist in glacial geology.

On June 8th, a group of four people traveled about 20 miles from the nearest trail, making their way through dense forest along old bear trails and stream beds.

They were looking for outcrops of a specific type of rock to collect samples.

Around in the afternoon, one of the students, Chris, saw a structure among the trees.

It was a hut, small, about 3×4 m.

It was made of logs.

The roof had partially collapsed.

One wall was leaning, but the main structure was still standing.

The hut stood in a small clearing surrounded by a dense wall of spruce and cedar trees.

The place was so remote that McNeel couldn’t understand who would have built a shelter here and why.

They approached.

The door of the hut was a jar hanging on a single hinge.

McNeel looked inside, shining his flashlight.

He saw a mess.

Broken furniture, pieces of fabric, trash on the floor, and in the far corner by the wall sat a figure.

A person, or what was left of one.

McNeel stepped back and told the students not to approach.

He called the rescue service on his satellite phone.

He explained that they had found a body in an abandoned hut and gave them the coordinates.

They told him to stay where he was and wait.

A helicopter with rangers arrived 3 hours later.

They surveyed the area, recorded the coordinates, and entered the hut.

The body was indeed there.

Skeletal remains partially mummified due to the dryness and cold.

The man was sitting with his back against the wall, his legs stretched out, his head bowed to his chest.

The body was clothed in a hiking jacket, pants, and boots.

Everything was faded and covered with mold.

but still recognizable.

Next to the body lay a half empty backpack.

It contained personal items, a wallet with documents, a phone dead, the battery long since drained, a notebook, and a pen.

The documents identified the body as Miranda Coleman.

The same tourist who had disappeared four years ago.

But the strangest find was a camera.

Not Miranda’s camera that was found in her backpack, broken.

It was another camera, small, mounted on a ceiling beam in the hut, pointing toward the center of the room.

A wire led from the camera to a solar panel installed on the roof of the cabin.

The panel was old and covered with moss, but it still worked.

It was strange.

Very strange.

Why would an abandoned cabin 30 mi from civilization have a professional surveillance camera with its own power source? The camera was carefully removed and taken to the lab.

The SD card inside was intact.

The data on it was partially damaged by time and moisture, but experts were able to recover 11 video files.

They were dated from late July to November 2015.

The investigators reviewed the recordings.

What they saw made even experienced officers look away.

The first video is dated July 28th, 2015 around p.m.

The camera shows the interior of the hut.

Bare walls, earthn floor, broken table, several boxes in the corner.

Miranda appears in the doorway.

She looks tired and wet, apparently having been caught in the rain.

She has a backpack on her shoulders.

Her hair is tousled and there are scratches on her face.

She enters, looks around, and mutters something to herself.

The camera doesn’t pick up the sound very well.

Her words are indistinct, but her intonation is clear.

Relief.

She has found shelter.

She takes off her backpack, takes out a sleeping bag, and spreads it out on the floor.

She takes something out of her backpack and eats it, probably energy bars.

She drinks water from a flask.

Then she notices the camera.

She stands up, comes closer, looks straight into the lens.

Her face fills the screen.

She frowns, clearly not understanding what it is or why it is there.

She touches the wire, follows it to the solar panel on the roof.

She shrugs and walks away.

The camera continues to record for a few more minutes, but Miranda just goes to sleep.

The video ends.

The second video is from the morning of July 29th.

Miranda wakes up and packs her things.

She leaves the hut but returns 10 minutes later.

Her face is tense and worried.

She takes out a map, a compass, and a GPS beacon.

She looks at the beacon, shakes it, clearly trying to turn it on.

It doesn’t work.

She throws it on the floor in irritation.

She studies the map for a long time, tracing different routes with her finger.

It is clear that she is trying to determine where she is.

The problem is that this hut is not marked on any map.

She does not know her exact coordinates.

She decides to try to retrace her steps.

She packs her backpack and leaves.

The camera records the empty hut for several hours.

In the evening of the same day, Miranda returns.

She looks even more tired and upset.

She sits down on the floor and wraps her arms around her head.

Then she gets up, walks over to the camera, and looks straight into the lens.

Her lips move.

She is saying something.

Experts have restored the sound and read her lips.

I’m lost.

I can’t find the trail.

Everything looks the same.

The third video is from July 30th.

Miranda spends the whole day in the cabin.

She studies the map and makes notes in her notebook.

At some point, she goes outside and returns an hour later with some brushwood.

She tries to build a fire inside the cabin in a makeshift stone hearth.

The fire doesn’t burn well.

Smoke fills the cabin.

She coughs, extinguishes the fire.

She decides not to risk having a fire inside.

She eats from her supplies.

It’s clear that she doesn’t have much food.

Canned food, dried fruit, nuts.

She drinks water.

Then she goes back to the camera and stares at it for a long time.

She says, “If anyone is watching this, I’m Miranda Coleman from Portland.

I got lost on the Tongas Trail.

I found this cabin by accident.

I don’t know where I am.

My GPS isn’t working.

I’m trying to find my way back, but all the trees look the same.

I’m going in circles.” The fourth video is from July 31st.

Miranda looks worse.

Her face is gaunt, her movements slow.

She takes inventory of her food, laying everything out on the floor and counting it.

It’s clear that she has little left, maybe 5 days worth if she’s careful.

She writes something in a notebook, probably calculations of how long she can last.

She leaves the hut in the morning and returns in the evening.

Again, she has not found the trail.

She sits on the floor and cries.

The camera records this impassively.

A woman in the corner of the hut hugging her knees, rocking back and forth.

The fifth video is from August 2nd.

Miranda decides to stay in the hut and not waste her energy wandering around uselessly.

She rations her food.

It’s clear that she eats very little in small portions once a day.

She drinks water from a stream that flows about 100 m from the hut.

She leaves with an empty flask and returns with a full one.

She spends most of the day lying in her sleeping bag, conserving energy.

Sometimes she approaches the camera and talks to it as if it were a friend.

She talks about her life, her family, and what she planned to do after this trip.

Her voice is weak and intermittent.

She clearly understands that her chances of getting out are dwindling.

The sixth video is from August 5th.

Miranda is barely moving.

She is lying on the floor covered with a sleeping bag.

She has almost no food left.

You can see her eating her last energy bar slowly in small pieces stretching it out for the whole day.

She drinks water, nothing else.

She addresses the camera.

Third day with almost no food.

I feel very weak.

I tried to shout for help.

I shouted for an hour.

No one answered.

only the echo in the forest.

The seventh video is from August 8th.

Miranda is barely visible.

She is lying motionless in a corner.

Only occasionally does she move, changing position.

She does not approach the camera.

She does not leave the hut.

She just lies there.

The eighth video is from August 12th.

The camera records the empty hut for several hours.

Then Miranda appears in the frame.

Crawling from the corner to the door slowly with pauses.

She crawls to the threshold and looks outside.

Sunlight falls on her face.

She lies there for about an hour, then crawls back.

Her strength is running out.

The ninth video is from August 17th.

Miranda is lying against the wall, leaning on it.

She doesn’t move.

The camera records her for several hours.

only her chest rises and falls slowly.

She is still breathing.

The 10th video is from August 21st.

Miranda is in the same position, but at some point she opens her eyes and turns her head toward the camera.

She stares directly into the lens for a long time.

Her lips move.

Experts reconstructed the words.

Mom, I’m sorry.

I tried.

I held on.

I didn’t give up.

The 11th video is from November 3rd.

The camera records the hut.

It is dark inside.

Only a faint light penetrates through the cracks.

A figure sits by the wall, motionless.

Miranda Coleman is dead.

An examination of the body showed that death was caused by exhaustion and dehydration complicated by hypothermia.

Based on the condition of the remains, the approximate time of death was determined to be late August to early September 2015.

This means that Miranda lived in this hut for about a month after she got lost.

Entries were found in her notebook.

The first pages contained a root plan, notes about the landscape, and sketches of plants.

Then other entries began.

Day three.

Can’t find the trail? All directions look the same.

GPS is broken.

Fell on rocks.

Screen cracked.

Won’t turn on.

I have food for 5 days.

Maybe six.

I need to conserve.

Day five.

I’m going in circles.

Yesterday I found a stream.

Today I found the same stream again.

Or is it a different one? I don’t know.

I decided to stay in the hut and wait.

Maybe someone is looking for me.

My mom has definitely raised the alarm.

Day seven.

There’s not much food left.

Very little.

I tried eating berries from the bushes near the cabin.

I threw up all night.

They must be poisonous.

I won’t do that again.

Day 10.

Hunger.

Constant nagging hunger.

I drink a lot of water to fill my stomach.

It helps for a little while.

Day 12.

I scream today.

I scream names.

I scream for help.

I scream for no reason.

My throat hurts.

No one came.

Day 15.

Weakness.

It’s hard to get up.

I crawl to the stream.

I crawl back.

There is no food at all.

Only water.

Day 18.

I don’t know what day it is today.

I forgot to count.

Time is blurring.

I sleep.

Wake up.

Sleep again.

I dream of home.

Mom is making breakfast.

I eat.

I wake up.

And there is no food.

Day.

Mom, if you’re reading this, I love you.

I didn’t give up.

I fought until the end.

I’m sorry it turned out this way.

The last entry was almost illeible.

Shaky handwriting, letters overlapping each other.

Cold.

Very cold.

I want to go home.

The investigation attempted to answer the main question.

How did Miranda end up so far from the trail? They reconstructed her approximate route based on her last GPS points.

She was walking along the northern trail as planned, but at some point she turned off.

Maybe she saw something interesting, a deer, a beautiful view, an unusual tree.

Maybe she just took the wrong fork in the road.

It’s easy to get lost in the Tongas forests.

The trails are poorly marked and many sections look exactly the same.

Endless spruce trees, moss, fallen trees.

There are no landmarks and visibility is limited to 50 meters.

Even an experienced hiker can walk in circles and return to the same spot without realizing it.

Miranda lost her way probably on July 27th.

She tried to return but couldn’t find the trail.

She wandered for a day, maybe two.

Then she found a cabin by accident.

She stumbled upon it in the forest.

She decided it was her chance, a shelter, a place to wait it out, gather her thoughts, and make a plan.

But she underestimated the situation.

The cabin was 30 mi from the nearest trail in an area where almost no one goes.

Search parties looked for her within a 50-mi radius of her last GPS location, but they didn’t reach this place.

It was too far, too difficult to traverse.

Miranda waited for rescue, but it didn’t come.

She ran out of food after a week.

She tried to survive on water and berries, but it wasn’t enough.

Her body began to waste away, her strength fading.

By mid August, she could no longer walk, only crawl.

By the end of August, she couldn’t even do that.

She died alone in an abandoned hut surrounded by endless forest.

And the only witness to her last days was a camera on the ceiling.

The second question of the investigation was where did the camera come from? Who installed it and why? The hut was thoroughly inspected.

It was built around the 1990s judging by the type of logs, nails, and construction technology.

It was probably a hunting shelter or temporary dwelling for poachers.

In those years, there was a lot of illegal hunting in Tongas for bears and deer.

Poachers built such huts in remote areas and used them as bases.

The camera was more modern, a model from around the 2000s, industrial-grade, used for surveillance in warehouses and construction sites.

It was connected to a solar panel, also not a household one, but a professional one designed to operate autonomously for years.

Someone had installed this system deliberately.

But why monitor an empty hut in the middle of the forest? There were various theories.

The first was that it was a trap or a hunting observation point.

Perhaps someone was hunting bears illegally and had installed the camera to monitor bait or traps.

An old bear trap was indeed found near the cabin, a metal structure with spikes banned in the United States since the 1990s.

But the trap was rusted, non-functional, and clearly hadn’t been used in decades.

The second version is that it was a hideout for observing illegal activities.

Maybe marijuana was grown here or contraband was stored or it was used as a transit point.

The camera was needed for security to know if a stranger was approaching, but no traces of such activity were found.

The third version is that the camera was installed by a local resident or ranger to monitor wildlife.

Sometimes they do this.

They put cameras in remote places to observe animals and study their behavior, but they checked all the official monitoring programs.

None of them had cameras in that area.

They tried to trace the camera by its serial number.

The model was old, the manufacturer no longer existed, and sales records had been lost.

A dead end.

The conclusion was that the camera had been installed by an unknown person for unknown purposes at some unspecified time between 2000 and 2015.

And by chance, tragically by chance, it recorded the last days of Miranda Coleman.

Miranda’s body was returned to her family.

She was buried in Portland in September 2019.

More than 200 people attended the funeral.

Friends, colleagues, people who had been following her story for the past four years.

Miranda’s mother, Carol, gave an interview to the local media.

She said that despite the pain, she was glad to have learned something about her daughter’s fate.

That four years of uncertainty were worse than knowing the truth.

That the video from the camera, although terrible, showed her that Miranda was strong, that she fought.

that she did not give up until the end.

The video from the camera was not made public at the request of the family.

It remained in the police archives, but transcripts of what Miranda said to the camera were leaked to the media.

People read her last words and many cried.

Miranda’s story became a warning to anyone planning to go on a solo hike in the wilderness.

Her case is studied in survival courses and used as an example of what can go wrong.

even if you are experienced and prepared.

Miranda’s main mistake was that she continued moving after she lost her way.

The number one rule of survival is if you get lost, stay where you are.

Especially if people will definitely be looking for you.

Search parties start from the last known location and expand their radius.

If you keep moving, you leave the search area.

Miranda panicked.

It’s understandable why.

Alone in the woods, her GPS broken, her bearings lost, she tried to find her way back on her own, wandered and strayed further and further away.

By the time she found the cabin, she was already too far from the area where they were looking for her.

The second mistake was that she underestimated the seriousness of the situation.

She had food for a week.

She thought that during that time she would either find her way out or be found by rescuers.

But when it became clear that neither was happening, it was too late.

Her strength was gone and it became impossible to move.

The third mistake was that she did not build a signal fire.

The smoke from a large fire can be seen for many miles, especially in the mountains.

She tried to build a fire inside the hut for warmth, but it was dangerous.

She needed to build a large fire outside with green brushwood for smoke.

Maybe someone would have seen it, but she didn’t do it.

Perhaps because she was afraid of a forest fire or simply didn’t have the strength.

The case was officially closed in 20 to 20.

The cause of death was exhaustion and hypothermia due to disorientation in the wilderness.

No criminal activity, no violence, a tragic accident.

The cabin where Miranda died was marked on maps.

The National Park Service placed a warning sign there stating that the area is dangerous and caution should be exercised.

The camera was removed and the solar panel was dismantled.

The cabin itself was left behind as it would be too costly and impractical to dismantle a structure located 30 mi from civilization.

Sometimes tourists who know the story make a point of visiting the cabin.

They leave flowers, notes, and photos of Miranda.

It has become a kind of memorial, a place that reminds us of the fragility of life and the power of nature.

In 2021, Miranda’s mother, Carol, created a tourist safety fund.

The fund finances survival skills training programs, distributes free GPS beacons to tourists in need, and conducts seminars on safety in the wild.

The fund’s logo is a photo of Miranda on top of a mountain, smiling and happy.

Under the photo is the inscription, “Don’t forget to come home.” Miranda Coleman’s story is a reminder that nature does not forgive mistakes.

That even in the 21st century, with GPS and satellite phones, helicopters, and search teams, it is possible to disappear without a trace.

That a few wrong steps, one wrong decision can cost you your life.

But it is also a story of strength of spirit.

Of a woman who endured a month in conditions that would have broken many in a week.

Who kept a journal so that those who found her would know what had happened.

Who spoke to the camera creating a final message for her family.

Who did not give up until the very end.

The camera that recorded her last days is now kept in the Alaska History Museum.

Next to it is Miranda’s notebook, her photo, and a map with her route marked.

Visitors stand silently in front of this exhibit, reading her last words, looking at her smiling face in the photo.

And everyone who sees this understands that Tongus, like any wild forest, is both beautiful and dangerous.

It can give you unforgettable experiences and take your life.

Respect it, prepare for it, and most importantly, remember that nature doesn’t care about you.

Only you can take care of yourself.

See you in the next episode.