ACTIVE SEARCH JAPAN - Patricia "Pattie" Wu-Murad, 60, US Citizen, on hiking trip Kumano Kodo Trail, didn't arr next stop Osaka, 10 Apr 2023

[Cedars]

I wonder what the terrain is like? Hiking 11 miles in a day is quite a pace. ....

Unlikely that she veered off this well-marked trail IMO.
JMO

Average walking speed is 3 miles per hour, a fit person could do it in 4 hours. But then allocate time for a meal and snacks, viewpoints, etc.

There are many reasons to go off a trail: toilet break, or to get to a view, or to take a photo.

In the case of a woman who disappeared from the Appalachian Trail, she went off trail to take a pee break and got completely lost.

I don't know what the features are of this part of trail, but I'd look for anywhere someone might go off trail and get too close to an edge, as that's what I think of when.they say mountain.

JMO

 

[annpats]

Photos of the Kumano Kodo trail.

It seems to have very good paths through it, if an excessive number of steps. The path seems to be stone/concrete too, not mulchy leaves or bracken.

Another theory is I wonder if she had a medical episode or felt unwell and disappeared into the trees for some privacy, so as to not alarm anyone else?

 

[azure]

One thing to note is that crime rates are extremely low in Japan-homicides are 10-25 times less likely to occur in Japan than in the US. This does not rule out foul play completely, of course, but it's not my first theory.

 

[LadyL]

I think she probably carried his contact info with her. So it was some kind of liaison with the US Embassy, which takes time.

ETA, and may not have started right away, since they hoped to find her.

if this is true, then why didn't they just say they didn't have his contact info and had to go through the embassy?

instead they say something about not enough resources that makes no sense

 

[imstilla.grandma]

Kirk Murad, Pattie Wu-Murad’s husband, traveled to Japan to conduct a search himself, along with some of the couple’s children.

Since arriving in Japan, Kirk met with local police for about four hours on Tuesday to find out what details they already knew and pinpoint where they searched. The family also hired its own search-and-rescue team, which has been actively looking for Wu-Murad.

Murad and his son also searched along the 11-and-a-half-to-12-mile stretch of trail.

“My wife is a very experienced hiker and there's nothing in this particular hike that is extreme. It's very wooded. It's pretty steep,” Murad said. “There's maybe two or three spots where she would stop to take a picture because she loves to stop and see the scenery. And in those spots, there were a couple of big drop-offs, but we've had those places searched and there's no sign of her,” said Kirk Murad.

Husband of Missing Storrs Hiker Speaks on Search Efforts in Japan

Patricia “Pattie” Wu-Murad, of Storrs, is missing after going hiking in Japan and the Murad family was able to convince local authorities in Totsukawa, Japan to resume the search for her on April 18. Wu-Murad went missing on Monday, April 10 while hiking the Kumano Kodo Trail in Japan. The U.S...

www.nbcconnecticut.com

 

[WingsOverTX]

Kirk Murad, Pattie Wu-Murad’s husband, traveled to Japan to conduct a search himself, along with some of the couple’s children.

Since arriving in Japan, Kirk met with local police for about four hours on Tuesday to find out what details they already knew and pinpoint where they searched. The family also hired its own search-and-rescue team, which has been actively looking for Wu-Murad.

Murad and his son also searched along the 11-and-a-half-to-12-mile stretch of trail.

“My wife is a very experienced hiker and there's nothing in this particular hike that is extreme. It's very wooded. It's pretty steep,” Murad said. “There's maybe two or three spots where she would stop to take a picture because she loves to stop and see the scenery. And in those spots, there were a couple of big drop-offs, but we've had those places searched and there's no sign of her,” said Kirk Murad.

Husband of Missing Storrs Hiker Speaks on Search Efforts in Japan

Patricia “Pattie” Wu-Murad, of Storrs, is missing after going hiking in Japan and the Murad family was able to convince local authorities in Totsukawa, Japan to resume the search for her on April 18. Wu-Murad went missing on Monday, April 10 while hiking the Kumano Kodo Trail in Japan. The U.S...

www.nbcconnecticut.com

I'm glad her family members were able to walk the trail where she likely last embarked for themselves.

Those dropoffs still concern me. If she fell & couldn't hike back up, she might have walked away some distance at a lower elevation trying to find an alternate path up?

Two questions: Have they found anyone who can confirm she was seen on the trail? Did she not have a locator beacon with her?

This is Day 10. Time is running out, especially if she is lost or injured in what is basically wilderness.

I wonder what the weather & temps are like along the trail? Did she carry extra water & food? Did she plan for potential misadventure? I've hiked alone a lot without problems & enjoyed it but when you are going alone for miles in unknown terrain, you need a strong safety backup plan.

May today be the day she is found!

JMO

 

[Eli9]

Well her story finally popped up on Japan Today much to my surprise.

Connecticut woman missing since April 10 after going on hiking pilgrimage in Japan

U.S. Sen Richard Blumenthal has contacted the State Department and the White House to assist in finding a Storrs, Connecticut woman who has gone missing during a hiking pilgrimage in Japan. Patricia Wu-Murad is a recent retiree, lifelong hiker, devoted mother of three and married for almost 33...

japantoday.com

 

[Cedars]

Those dropoffs still concern me. If she fell & couldn't hike back up, she might have walked away some distance at a lower elevation trying to find an alternate path up?

I agree, sadly so many missing hiker cases that I've followed, the person fell. It's good she was wearing a bright orange jacket.

Weather has been okay, a couple nights down to 50F, much warmer in the day.

It's very hard on family to have to do this alone. In the west there are volunteers trained in wilderness search and rescue, but maybe not in Japan. Also, I doubt they'd had people go missing off this trail before, it's primarily a pilgrimage, not so much recreational.

JMO

 

[WingsOverTX]

I agree, sadly so many missing hiker cases that I've followed, the person fell. It's good she was wearing a bright orange jacket.

Weather has been okay, a couple nights down to 50F, much warmer in the day.

It's very hard on family to have to do this alone. In the west there are volunteers trained in wilderness search and rescue, but maybe not in Japan. Also, I doubt they'd had people go missing off this trail before, it's primarily a pilgrimage, not so much recreational.

JMO

Actually, she had lost that jacket around April 1, according to the Help Find Pattie page on Facebook. From a description I think I read there, it sounded like she was wearing a darker, maybe rust-colored, jacket when she left the lodge.

To me, 11 miles is a long day hike. The terrain is well-marked trail but remote & mountainous. She had been on a number of pilgrimage trails since early March. No doubt her fitness level, likely already very good, was even better, unless she was dealing with arthritis or some other challenges due to aging.

My main concern is I don't think she was well-provisioned for getting lost or injured. She had a daypack with one bottle & I assume a backpack for clothing. She would need lunch, snacks & water.

People have survived, even injured, with less for longer. No reason to abandon hope yet.

Suspension of the LE search at mid-week last week was very unfortunate, though.
MOO

 

[realanastasia]

It sounds like there are multiple "routes" people can take while still technically being on this trail, and the stretch Pattie was taking when she went missing seems to have been one of the harder routes between her point of origin and her destination. But as her husband said in the NBC Connecticut article shared above, it's not anything that would have been beyond her abilities. I *am* surprised that someone who evidently really enjoyed long hikes in foreign countries didn't invest in (or at least wasn't carrying on this trip) a GPS satellite beacon-thingy (not the technical term, I know!) that would have allowed her location to be pinpointed anywhere, even if her phone was dead.

Also, I thought this other quote from her husband (also from the NBC-CT article) was useful in terms of assuaging concerns about whether or not Pattie ever actually left the guesthouse where she'd stayed the night before she vanished:

“Originally, I thought maybe you know she was a victim of something at the hostel. But the more we hear about the hostel owners, they are members of the community, they're very highly ranked, and people who stay there say he always walks people over to the trail to make sure that they get on their way safely. And he says that he did that for her. So that's the only witness that we have, that he walked her towards the trail and said, 'Here you go.' And she thanked him and she was on her way,” said Murad.

But Murad said there is no physical proof she was on the trail. When she didn’t arrive to meet friends that night from Wethersfield, Connecticut who were in Japan, the friends notified authorities that she was missing."

 

[realanastasia]

So, I cannot link to the family's because of WS rules, but if you happen to go there, Murphy Murad, Pattie's daughter, is providing updates on a day-to-day basis from Japan where she and her Dad are looking for Pattie. I am going to check with a moderator to see if I can quote this site, although not link to it, because the updates on the search her family has undertaken are noteworthy.

 

[KooshBall]

This is so sad. I admire her bravery to take on these amazing adventures all by herself. I wish I had that type of courage. Hoping for a miracle and she is found alive.

 

[LadyL]

So, I cannot link to the family's because of WS rules, but if you happen to go there, Murphy Murad, Pattie's daughter, is providing updates on a day-to-day basis from Japan where she and her Dad are looking for Pattie. I am going to check with a moderator to see if I can quote this site, although not link to it, because the updates on the search her family has undertaken are noteworthy.

is it FB? family FB search page is allowed

 

[neesaki]

Here’s the FB page.

Log into Facebook

Log into Facebook to start sharing and connecting with your friends, family, and people you know.

www.facebook.com

Also they are posting updates on the G F M page, but I don’t believe that’s allowed here is it? There are, however, links to that on the FBP.

 

[realanastasia]

Here’s the FB page.

Log into Facebook

Log into Facebook to start sharing and connecting with your friends, family, and people you know.

www.facebook.com

Also they are posting updates on the G F M page, but I don’t believe that’s allowed here is it? There are, however, links to that on the FBP.

See my post above from yesterday. I requested permission from moderators to quote information the family was providing in the "updates" section of the family's fund-raising page and was denied. Hopefully they will start posting the same updates on the family-run FB page for Pattie, which we *can* link to.

 

[realanastasia]

12ft

New article from the Hartford (CT) Courant with more detail from Pattie's husband (bolding by me):

"Thursday, they searched the rest of the 12-mile trail from the summit to the hostel where Pattie never arrived.

“There were a couple of tricky spots, but she and I have done much more strenuous hikes,” Murad said. “Nothing out of the ordinary. Maybe 2-3 spots she might have taken pictures because it was very wooded. We had those spots checked out. There are a couple of deep drops, not cliffs per se, but steep, where the forest kind of drops off. Nothing there. We had the valley checked. She’s hiked a lot more than I have, and my son and I and a friend did it with no problem.”

Murad last spoke with Pattie April 7 via FaceTime. Her last text to him was on April 9.

“She said she was going on a four-day trek, that she might be offline for a while,” he said. “When I didn’t hear from her Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday, it didn’t raise any red flags, no big deal. I didn’t hear from the embassy until late Thursday night because I was on a plane, I was going to visit my son in Chicago for his birthday. I didn’t bring my passport. I had to have it FedExed to Chicago and then tried to find a quick flight.”

Murad said the hostel owner brought Pattie out to the trail head at 7 a.m. on April 10 and that’s the last time anyone saw her.

The local police searched for Pattie for three days when she didn’t arrive at the second hostel but didn’t contact the U.S. Embassy until April 13, Murad said.

“They said, ‘We didn’t have her passport information, so we had to go to the previous hostel and we had to go to the immigration to find out what country she was from,’” he said. “However, my investigation showed she signed the log [in the hostel] with her name, with her passport, with ‘USA’ very clear. I shared my concerns with the consulate, the FBI.”
[...]
“The family has searched for video cameras on buildings nearby (there were two, one had been erased after 24 hours and the other, at the post office in one of the towns on the trail, did not point out toward the road, Murad said). They have also asked officials for telecom records, which the phone companies, Murad said, have not provided, citing privacy laws.
[...]
“It’s frustrating, you just have to wonder what could have happened, you start thinking about all the scenarios, you could drive yourself crazy – mudslides, wild boars, getting washed away in the river. From what I saw, she would have to go out of her way to get to the river but I can’t discount anything. There’s some places where maybe she wasn’t paying attention to markings and took a wrong turn, but we tried to look down all those.

“It’s been a pretty thorough search so far but obviously not thorough enough.”

 

[BrownRice]

The Kumano Kodo is an ancient pilgrimage trail in the mountains of Wakayama (south of Kyoto) where you can walk with a light pack from guesthouse to guesthouse for a few days. It’s a brilliant way to experience Japan’s rural side and ancient religious traditions.

The Kumano Kodo Walking Trail: A Guide with Maps

The Kumano Kodo is an ancient pilgrimage trail south of Kyoto where you can walk from guesthouse to guesthouse. View our Kumano Kodo guide and maps.

www.insidekyoto.com

The Kumano Kodo is actually a network of several ancient pilgrimage routes that converge on Kumano Hongu Taisha Shrine, a powerful Shinto shrine in the mountainous heart of Wakayama Prefecture.

Honestly, that sounds fantastic. I’d love to do this!

 

[BrownRice]

I wonder what the chances of wildlife encounters are - bears, wolves? Are there often large groups of people on these journeys?

 

[ZaZara]

I wonder what the chances of wildlife encounters are - bears, wolves? Are there often large groups of people on these journeys?

There are no wolves in Japan.

The Japanese bear mainly lives in the north of Honshu. The Kumano Kodo trail is on the Kii penninsula in the southern part.

IMO a medical emergency is very possible, for instance a fall in(to) an area covered by dense foliage.

 

[neesaki]

There are no wolves in Japan.

The Japanese bear mainly lives in the north of Honshu. The Kumano Kodo trail is on the Kii penninsula in the southern part.

IMO a medical emergency is very possible, for instance a fall in(to) an area covered by dense foliage.

Are there any mountain lions or tigers? I know nothing about Japans wildlife.
This case is a mystery.