The Glove on the Dry Rock: Forty Missing Minutes in the Woods

The Glove on the Dry Rock: Forty Missing Minutes in the Woods

A purple gardening glove was found bone dry, pressed into a crack four feet up a basalt outcrop while every inch of the surrounding forest was soaked - and the woman it belonged to had no memory of the forty minutes she vanished. What can explain a dry glove, a thirty-foot basalt shelf that left search dogs baffled, and a forty-five-year-old hiker who reappeared barefoot 1.4 miles off-trail with no recollection?

In this episode, we tell the sequence of events on May 11, 2019, from the moment Amy Mueller and her hiking partner separated to the eleven-hour search that ended with Amy found at the base of the same outcrop where the glove was discovered. What do the physical details - the laminated route card, the scent anomaly on the basalt shelf, the dry glove - reveal about those missing forty minutes?

Person: Amy Mueller Date: May 11, 2019 Location: Forest Road Seven-Bravo / Carver Notch Trail Distance off-trail: 1.4 miles Finder of glove: Todd Russo

- Amy was 45 years old and left Caldwell, Idaho to hike Carver Notch Trail, starting at 6:15 AM. - At approximately 8:20 AM Amy and Denise separated near a creek spur; Amy’s memory stops around 8:40 AM. - Todd Russo found a purple cotton gardening glove wedged in a rock crack at 6:40 AM; the glove was completely dry. - Amy was found after more than ten hours of searching, barefoot at the base of the same outcrop, 1.4 miles off-trail. - Search dogs stopped and showed scent loss across a 30-foot-wide basalt shelf approximately 400 yards north of the one-mile marker.

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