A father and daughter took a ‘bucket list’ trip up Maine‘s highest mountain in bad weather – and ended up dead in a terrible double tragedy.
Tim Keiderling, 58, and Esther Keiderling, 28, set off on Sunday morning to hike Mount Katahdin around 6am before they vanished in treacherous conditions that day.
Their bodies were found days later, less than 1,000 feet of each other, near the summit, leaving their family devastated as they said the pair loved spending time together outdoors.
‘They were doing a day hike, a bucket list thing, to climb this amazing mountain,’ Tim’s brother-in-law Heinrich Arnold wrote on Facebook.
‘Both wonderful people, full of life, full of joy.’
A bucket list is a list of achievements a person hopes to achieve before they ‘kick the bucket’ – die – although there’s no suggestion that either Keiderling was ill or dying.
As avid hikers, the father and daughter were said to have dreamed of summiting the mountain together, but were hit by severe weather that made the mountain trail freezing and slippery.
The pair took the Abol Trail in an attempt to scale the 5,200ft mountain, the shortest route which is intended to be completed in a day but is described by officials as ‘very strenuous’, per the Boston Globe.
Officials have not released a cause of death for the father and daughter.
Tim Keiderling, 58, and his daughter Esther, 28, were on a ‘bucket list’ trip together hiking Maine’s highest mountain before they both tragically died near the summit
The father and daughter died within 1,000 feet of each other near Mount Katahdin’s summit after taking a ‘very strenuous’ route up
On the morning the father and daughter began hiking, Esther wrote on her Substack that she was ‘a little nervous after everything I’ve read about the Abol Trail.’
‘I’m going to do it if weather permits!’, she wrote, adding: ‘If you don’t see me back on Substack notes again, that’s where I am.’
Officials began fearing for their safety after finding their car in the day-use parking lot on the trail.
They launched a widespread search including K9 teams and Blackhawk and Lakota helicopters from the Maine Army National Guard, which were fitted with infrared thermal imaging.
One of the K9 dog teams found Tim on Tuesday, and family members expressed hope that Esther may have been found alive before her body was discovered the next day.
Tim’s brother Joe Keiderling told WMTV after his body was found: ‘No one has had a brother like mine.
‘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. My heart is broken for his wife and children.’
Family members said they have been left stunned by their sudden passing on the mountain, and were described as ‘wonderful people, full of life, full of joy’
Officials began fearing for the pair’s safety after finding their car in the day-use parking lot on the trail, and launched a widespread search including K9 teams and a Blackhawk helicopter before their bodies were found near the summit
In a heartfelt obituary in their local paper The Daily Freeman in Ulster Park, New York, Tim was described as an ‘avid outdoorsman’, and both he and Esther were devout Christians.
‘What drew both him and Esther to high places was always the view – the broad expanse of God’s handiwork, laid out below them,’ the obituary read.
‘The unbearable tragedy of their passing aside, it is perhaps fitting that they went Home from a mountain top: a place of danger and solitude, but also, a place close to God.’
The obituary said Tim is survived by his wife of 31 years Annemarie, as well as Esther’s sisters Sophie, Heidi and Katherine, and brothers Karl and Timothy, and two granddaughters.
‘Endowed with unquenchable energy and enthusiasm for life, Tim served his community in many capacities: as an elementary school teacher, a financial administrator, and, over the last ten years, as a travelling salesman for Rifton Equipment,’ the obituary read.
The pair took the Abol Trail in an attempt to scale the 5,200ft mountain, the shortest and toughest route that Esther had said in a Substack post before her death that she was ‘nervous’ to attempt
He was ‘especially close’ with Esther, his eldest daughter, who also worked for Rifton Equipment as a customer service representative, and was said to have been a ‘sensitive, deeply-thinking woman who loved reading and writing.’
‘Her friends remember with great fondness how attentive she was to the needs of those around her, noticing when someone needed a word of encouragement or a small gift of some kind,’ her obituary said.
‘Such gifts often included her own heartfelt poetry.’
Both Tim and Esther were members of the Bruderhof faith, a Christian community for people living in rural areas like they did in upstate New York.
In a statement after their passing, their employer Rifton Equipment said they were ‘deeply saddened’ by their sudden deaths on the mountain.
