CHESTERVILLE – A longtime veterinarian and family members are all fine after spending Saturday evening on the Appalachian Trail in the Andover area.

Veterinarian Evard Cooper’s wife, Joan Cooper, said her husband, son Michael Cooper and grandson Dylan Antone, all veteran hikers, decided to stay put on the trail rather than have her husband, “Doc Cooper,” who had tired, try to make it out that evening.

Joan Cooper said the cell phones the hikers were carrying didn’t work up on the trail so they couldn’t phone her to tell her what was going on.

Cooper said she called rescue the next morning after she hadn’t heard from them.

They were well equipped for hiking, she said, and have hiked the trail many times before. They dug a cave in the snow and made a shelter where her husband, who is in his 80s, rested. Michael and Dylan walked around all night, she said.

The hikers had entered the trail in the Andover area and the conditions on the trail were not right, Cooper said.

“They did the sensible thing and stayed put,” she said. “They knew what they were doing.” Next time, Cooper said, the hikers would take a satellite phone for better communication.

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