Hiker attacked on Appalachian Trail plans to finish her thru-hike
Kirby Morril, the hiker who was attacked by a man with a knife while thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail earlier this year, has announced that she plans to return to the trail next year. In May, Morril was camping with three other thru-hikers when she and another hiker, Ron Sanchez, were beaten and stabbed by James Jordan, a hiker with known mental health issues.
Sanchez died from his injuries. Morril managed to escape the attacker, hiking three hours to safety. She suffered 9 stab wounds and 40 lacerations and has been recovering at her home in New Brunswick, Canada since the attack.
Morril says she plans to head back to Georgia in March to start the Appalachian Trail over again. “I always wanted to do the whole trail from end to end, and I didn’t get to do it,” she told Canada’s CTV News.
Hikers and tourists dead after New Zealand volcano erupts
At least six people are dead and eight missing after a volcano on New Zealand’s White Island erupted on Monday afternoon. At the time of the eruption 47 people, most of them tourists, were visiting the island. This despite the fact that volcanologists monitoring the volcano had recently increased the volcanic alert to Level 2, meaning that “eruptions of steam, gas, mud and rocks” were a possibility.
At the time of the eruption there were nine people from the U.S. on the island as well as 24 from Australia and others from China, Malaysia, Germany, the U.K. and New Zealand. In addition to the dead and missing, over 30 people were injured, at least two dozen of them suffering “very severe injuries” to their skin and lungs.
75-foot wave recorded off of the coast of California
If you’re planning on sailing or surfing off of the coast of California anytime soon, take note. A giant 75-foot wave was recorded just 20 miles off of the coast of California on November 26 and scientists say it’s the largest wave ever recorded by the Scripps Institute for Oceanography’s buoys, which monitor wave height in the area.
The buoys measure wave height every half hour. The average wave height for the buoy that picked up the 75-foot wave is just ten feet. Experts say that while waves of that size happen regularly in the open ocean, this wave was exceptional because of its proximity to California’s Lost Coast.
