Amazing Survival Stories

The lucky survival story of Chris Staff in the White Mountains - hallucinations, bugs and hunger

christopher staff missing

CHRISTOPHER STAFF DISAPPEARED JUNE 24, 2019, PEMI LOOP, PEMIGEWASSET WILDERNESS, NEW HAMPSHIRE, FOUND JUNE 28, 2019, INTERSECTION OF BONDCLIFF TRAIL AND THE WILDERNESS TRAIL.

Revised November 2023

On Monday, June 24, 2019, Christopher “Chris” Staff, 70, from Dorchester in Massachusetts, traveled to the rugged White Mountains region. The area is located in the Pemigewasset Wilderness near Lincoln, New Hampshire.

He planned to hike the 30.3-mile series of trails known as the Pemi Loop, which Alltrails rates as difficult and set out at around 1 am.

Staff got lost and was stranded in the woods for five days, being found by two other hikers covered in scratches, blisters, and bug bites just five miles before the end of the trail. Afterwards, he said, "I knew it was the end. I knew this was it. I was resigned, I really was”.

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