Found Deceased NY - Paul McKay, 31, Saranac Lake, 31 Dec 2013

[fruity]

Lest we forget.

 

[enzeder]

Mayor Clyde Rabideau status update and photo.

Mayor Clyde Rabideau - "ANZAC DAY- MORNING HIKE'"
about an hour ago: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?...69.40528.170580809748840&type=1&stream_ref=10

 

[marlywings]

US village honours Aust army captain

April 26, 2014 2:11PM

THE small upstate New York village of Saranac Lake has honoured Australian soldier Captain Paul McKay, who died in sub-zero conditions on a mountain in January.

A group of eight, including Saranac Lake Mayor Clyde Rabideau and the Australian Army's Major Cameron Satrapa, scaled Scarface Mountain on Friday morning to the site where Capt McKay's body was found.

They gathered some rocks together to create a cairn memorial and placed a blue ribbon and a poppy on it.

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/...ust-army-captain/story-fnihsg6t-1226896675882

 

[OkieGranny]

New feature article on Paul:

http://www.psmag.com/health-and-behavior/the-disappearing-soldier

The bus let out in front of the shuttered Hotel Saranac, its six-story bulk standing dark and silent over the town. From what police would later determine, the man probably walked down Main Street, past the fogged windows of bars, under the yellow face of the town hall clock tower, then traced the curve of Lake Flower back in the direction from which his bus had come. He might have stopped in a liquor store and the shopping plaza at the edge of town, then walked a little farther down the road toward neighboring Lake Placid before turning around where the snowplows do, at the crossing of the old railroad tracks.

Somewhere around nine, he returned to one of the last motels he'd passed, a two-story Best Western, and asked the clerk how far the woods extended past town. Hearing the answer—nine miles to Lake Placid—he said he'd stay the night. At 10, he emerged briefly to use the lobby computer.

The next morning, on New Year's Eve, he bought a plastic shovel and a decorative fleece blanket at the shopping plaza and set off on foot. People would later say they'd seen him pass, dressed in snow pants and a black winter parka, and carrying a large, brown backpack as he walked toward the crossing. The snow was spotty due to a pre-Christmas thaw, but weather was coming. Weather was coming to the whole country, in fact, as a polar air mass—a vortex, meteorologists intoned—descended from the Arctic.

The railroad tracks cut through a marshy area, continued through the smattering of houses that make up the hamlet of Ray Brook, and passed the gates of the federal penitentiary. At noon, two guards on their lunch break saw a man in winter gear walking steadily east. Just beyond the prison was the trail to Scarface Mountain. Broad but not tall, with no real view, Scarface isn't majestic, but on the slope facing Saranac Lake is a distinctive, rocky cliff—its eponymous scar. From the trailhead to the summit, it's a 3.5-mile climb that takes around two hours in summer. In late December, it would have been slower going, the route covered by snow, criss-crossed with misleading animal trails, and slick with ice. At some point, the man walked off the trail and into the unmarked woods...