Rescuers hike up Bemis Mountain in Township D south of Rangeley on Tuesday afternoon to reach Kelsey Lampher, 28, of Phoenix, Arizona, who injured her ankle. She and three others were backpacking a section of the Appalachian Trail, Warden Service Cpl. John MacDonald wrote in an email.

Rescuers hike up Bemis Mountain in Township D south of Rangeley on Tuesday afternoon to reach Kelsey Lampher, 28, of Phoenix, who injured her ankle. She and three others were backpacking a section of the Appalachian Trail, Warden Service Cpl. John MacDonald wrote in an email. Rescuers carried her in a stokes basket to where a helicopter could land.

Rescuers carry Kelsey Lampher of Phoenix to a helicopter after she injured her ankle Tuesday while hiking the Appalachian Trail on Bemis Mountain in Township D in northern Franklin County. 

TOWNSHIP D — An Arizona woman injured Tuesday while hiking the Appalachian Trail on Bemis Mountain was flown by helicopter to the Rangeley airport.

Rescuers hiked up the steep mountain south of Rangeley to reach the woman who was about three-quarters of a mile from the summit, according to a Rangeley Fire Rescue Department post on Facebook. 

The Maine Warden Service received a call from dispatchers at Franklin County Regional Communications Center in Farmington at about 11:50 a.m. of an injured hiker on the AT about one mile west of Bemis Road in Township D, according to Cpl. John MacDonald of the Maine Warden Service.

Units from the Warden Service, Rangeley Fire Rescue Department, Franklin County Search and Rescue, NorthStar EMS Backcountry Medical Team and Maine Forest Service responded.

Kelsey Lampher, 28, of Phoenix and three other individuals, were backpacking a section of the trail when she injured her ankle while descending a steep section of trail, MacDonald wrote in an email.

“Due to extremely difficult terrain between Bemis Road and Lampher’s location, she was carried approximately 0.7 miles farther west on the trail to a spot where a Forest Service helicopter was able to land and pick her up. She was flown to the Rangeley Airport, where she was transferred to a NorthStar ambulance,” MacDonald wrote.