The Maine Warden Service continued the search for missing hiker Geraldine Largay through the weekend, though the search was considerably scaled back from earlier efforts.

Wardens and Maine Association for Search and Rescue volunteers continued the search on foot and with dog teams along the Appalachian Trail, depending on weather conditions and the availability of searchers, according to a news release today.

Wardens announced Aug. 4 they would be scaling back their efforts, after more than a week of largely fruitless searching.

Largay, 66, was last heard from on July 22, when she sent a text message to her husband. The next day, she failed to show up for a scheduled meeting with him in Wyman Township.

Her husband, George Largay, reported his wife, who is known as Gerry, missing about 1:15 p.m. on July 24.

“The uncertainty is the toughest part,” he said in an interview with The Tennessean newspaper Monday. “Until they find Gerry, there’s always the unknown, and that’s almost tougher than the known.”

Although he is not giving up hope, he said his family plans to have a memorial service for his wife in October.

Largay began her hike of the northern half of the 2,200 trail in April in West Virginia. She had walked about 950 miles and was about 200 miles from the trail’s northern end at Mount Katahdin when she disappeared.

Wardens said it is rare for an Appalachian Trail hiker to be lost as long as Largay; 98 percent of those missing from the trail are found within 48 hours.

Anyone with information about Geraldine Largay relevant to her disappearance on the trail should call the public safety dispatch center in Augusta at 624-7076.

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