Alrighty... This is probably an easy one. I've read the areas of the rules related to the staging area and I still haven't found a specific rule on how many cards can be in the staging area at any given time. As a side question, how is the term staging doesn't show in the topic index at the end of the book?

The rules (p15-16) show that a number of cards equal to the number of players are played to the staging area from the encounter deck... but it doesn't say if there is a limit to how many cards can be IN the staging area. Is it limited to the number of players or can I end up with half a dozen unexplored locations stretching all the way across the table?

There's no limit. If you get an unlucky stream of locations, or if everyone's threat is really low, you could conceivably have a ton of cards in the staging area.

Couple of Northern Trackers to the rescue

That's what I suspected, but wanted to clarify as I'd read something different elsewhere.

Thanks for the info!