Rescue team assists Camel’s Hump hiker down from the mountain

Sept. 19, 2023  |  By Waterbury Roundabout 

Waterbury Backcountry Rescue Team members assist the hiker as she arrives at the base of the Monroe Trail on Camel’s Hump on Saturday, Sept. 9. Photo courtesy Waterbury Backcountry Rescue.

Last weekend, the Waterbury Backcountry Rescue Team was called out to Camel’s Hump where a 72-year-old hiker from New York had become stranded and unable to make it down the mountain without help. 

The initial report at 8:30 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 9, was that the hiker was about 1.4 miles up the Monroe Trail in Duxbury and had recently had knee surgery, according to team leader Brian Lindner. 

The rescue team members arrived at the trailhead between 9 and 9:15 p.m., Lindner said. 

The hiker and her party were located and responders determined them to be in good health, but the woman was “so exhausted that any walking had become difficult in the darkness,” according to the rescue team’s account. 

Using headlamps, the team members assisted the hiker and she reached the trail base under her own power by 10:15 p.m. 

“The hiker stated that the trail was far more difficult than she anticipated,” Lindner noted. 

Waterbury Backcountry Rescue is a division of the nonprofit Waterbury Ambulance Service. The team provides rescue services in remote areas in the Waterbury region and supports surrounding communities via the mutual aid system. 

Team members from the Waterbury backcountry agency also were involved with the search over the weekend in Westmore for a lost woman who went missing on Sept. 8. Seventy-two-year-old Judith Giglio, was found dead on Tuesday, Sept. 12, a little over a mile from the Orleans County home where she was last seen.

That search involved multiple state and local agencies and volunteers. Authorities do not suspect her death to be suspicious. The state medical examiner will perform an autopsy to determine the cause and manner of her death.