��������

Search teams have now found the bodies of both hikers who were missing on Mount Katahdin in Maine.Baxter State Park Rangers announced just before 3 p.m. Wednesday that they found the body of Esther Keiderling, 28, at about 1 p.m. in a wooded area between two trails along the Tablelands.This came a day after a Maine Warden K9 found the body of her father, Tim Keiderling, 58 at about 2:45 p.m. near the summit of Mount Katahdin.There were 25 game wardens, four game warden K9 teams, and 21 Baxter State Park rangers searching the Tablelands and trails and streams on the east side of the mountain on Wednesday, the third day of search efforts.The Keiderlings were both from Ulster Park, New York. Rangers said they were last seen on the Katahdin Tablelands on Sunday, June 1 at about 10:15 a.m. headed towards the summit of Maine's highest peak."No one has had a brother like mine," Tim's brother Joe Keiderling said in a statement to sister station WMTW. "Tim lived exuberantly. He loved life, loved people, loved God. He was a storyteller like no one I've known with a rich sense of humor.""He left us far too soon," Joe continued. "My heart is broken for his wife and children."Park Rangers began searching Monday morning after finding the Keiderling’s vehicle still in the day-use parking lot. Park Rangers actively searched the Abol Trail the Hunt Trail, including the Katahdin Tablelands. Both trails were closed Tuesday because of the search.Park officials held out hope until the end that Esther would be found alive.“I think statistically, you know, we could definitely find her alive," Baxter Park Director Kevin Adam told WMTW minutes before her body was found. "People always underestimate the human spirit. We're just trying to locate clues that take us to where she is.”Adam said their search efforts are the same whether they think someone is dead or alive."Our family is so grateful to the park rangers, state police, all the interagency first responders who searched for my brother," Joe said. "They have our prayers as they continue to search for Esther."Esther Keiderling posted on Substack on Saturday that she was on a sales trip with her father and scheduled their trip so they could hike Katahdin. She wrote that they planned to start hiking between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. Sunday."I'm a little nervous after everything I've read about the Abol trail but I'm going to do it if weather permits! If you don't see me back on Substack notes again, that's where I am," she wrote.Esther Keiderling's Substack bio says she is a customer service representative for Rifton Equipment, a company in New York that makes adaptive medical equipment.Temperatures on Katahdin were in the 40s Sunday night and 30s Monday night with wind chills around freezing.The search on Katahdin expanded Tuesday morning, with help from more than 30 game wardens, including the Maine Warden Service Search and Rescue team and the Maine Warden Service K-9 team. The Maine Forest Service was also helping, searching the area from the air with three helicopters. The Maine Army National Guard also responded with a Blackhawk and a Lakota Helicopter outfitted with an infrared thermal imaging device.