Missing father, daughter found dead near mountain summit after going hiking together
BAXTER STATE PARK, Maine (WABI/Gray News) - A father and daughter who went hiking at a state park in Maine over the weekend have been found dead.
On Sunday, Tim Keiderling, 58, and his daughter Esther Keiderling, 28, of Ulster Park, New York, went missing near the summit of Mount Katahdin, Maine’s tallest mountain.
Baxter State Park rangers said they began their search for the two after they left the Abol Campground but never returned.
On Tuesday, authorities updated their search, saying a K-9 search team found the body of Tim Keiderling on the Tableland Trail near the mountain’s summit.
Crews said they were continuing their search for Esther Keiderling before rescuers spotted her body off the Tableland Trail in a wooded area on Wednesday.
State officials said search crews included game wardens, K-9 teams, and park rangers on the ground with the Maine Forest Service and the Maine Army National Guard searching the area from the air.
Esther Keiderling had reportedly shared that she was on a sales trip with her father and that the two had scheduled their trip so they could hike Katahdin.
Heinrich Arnold, Tim Kiederling’s brother-in-law, thanked everyone for the the family has received during this difficult time.
“The Keiderling family and our community are grateful for the outpouring of prayers and we have received, including the many heartfelt responses on yesterday’s post sharing memories of Tim,” Arnold wrote online. “This afternoon, we heard the anticipated, but nonetheless deeply painful news that the search team on Katahdin Mountain in Maine found Esther, who also succumbed to exposure near where Tim was discovered.”
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