|
Hello everyone, my name is Chris. I am alive and well but I almost wasn't. On this website I will tell you about what happened to me in the fall of last year in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of central California. If you are an outdoors person you should read this, it could save your life one day if something similar happens to you. I had taken a week off in October to do some late season camping in Sierra National Forest, located between Yosemite National Park and Kings Canyon National Park in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of central California. After arriving at the camp ground , which was by the way almost empty due to the off season timing, I set up my tent and went off on a day hike into the woods. It was sunny and clear and the temperature was in the low 70's so I was wearing a pair of shorts and a T-shirt expecting to return to the camp site before sundown. I was wearing a small backpack containing about a quart and a half of water, a bag of dehydrated backpacking food that I was planning to have for lunch, a small cooking pot, a camp stove that I had received as a birthday gift a few weeks before, a lighter,and a swiss army knife. I got going at around 10:30 in the morning and walked for about 3 hours when I decided to have lunch and return to my tent since the weather had turned cloudy and cooler. My camp stove was a new type of light weight wood powered stove that my brother had given me for my birthday and that I wanted to try out. I picked up some wood and cooked my food. It now started to rain so I ate my food real fast and packed up and headed back. It was now raining considerably and I was getting cold since I was only wearing shorts and a T-shirt. Being in a big hurry to get back I slipped on the wet trail, hit a big rock on the ground and broke my leg. Not being a panicky type of person I pulled myself to the trunk of a nearby tree to get shelter from the rain and think about my situation. I had two basic options, either try to get back on my own or sit around and wait until they came looking for me. I had told everybody I'd be away for a week, so nobody would start missing me for a while. My car and tent were in the camp ground, maybe someone would notice that nobody came back to it at night. But in that case they probably wouldn't get around to start looking until the next morning and I didn't want to spend a whole night out in the cold rain so I decided I needed to try to get back on my own. I cut some branches off the tree I was sheltering under to make a brace for my bad leg. I attached the branches with my shoelaces and straps from my backpack. I tried to stand up but there was just no way. I cut of two more massive branches to use as crutches and managed to move forward at a very slow pace. I "walked" as fast as I could but by nightfall I still had about two miles to go. The rain was just getting harder and it was getting really cold. Since I had no flash light or warm clothes I decided to find a dry spot, take shelter for the night, make a fire and and continue in the morning. I found a big boulder by the trail with a large tree growing next to it creating a decent natural shelter. I was getting dark very fast and I had to hurry up and make a fire, I gathered some wood but was unable to start a fire because everything was soaking wet. I took out my camp stove and put some wood in it and was able to get it started after a few minutes. I decided to just use the stove since I hadn't been able to gather enough wood with my broken leg to keep a fire lasting all night. I took my clothes off and hung them on a branch over the stove to dry. The stove was giving off enough heat to keep me warm in spite of the cold air surrounding me. By this time my water had run out so I collected rain water and boiled it on my stove and drank it hot to keep me warm. After a while my clothes had dried enough to be worn comfortably. Except for starting to get really hungry and the pain in my leg I was doing pretty OK under the circumstances. But of course things would get worse. At around nine in the evening the rain gradually started turning to snow and by ten o'clock there was a real snowstorm going on. I stayed up all night adding wood to the stove about every twenty minutes and drinking hot water to keep me warm, sometimes I managed to sleep a few minutes between refuelings of the stove. Being well familiar with these mountains I knew that these types of minor snow storms are common this time of year and the snow usually melts in a few days but that's still enough to kill a guy with a broken leg wearing shorts and a T-shirt. The snow finally stopped falling around sunrise but there was already about a foot of snow on the ground. I knew that I would have a very tough day ahead of me in my crippled condition. The snow was almost up to my knees and with a broken leg and my makeshift crutches my progress was very slow. My bare legs were getting very cold in the snow and I had to stop about every twenty minutes to start up the stove with some twigs off of trees to warm up my legs. By three in the afternoon I had gotten one mile, it was clear that I would need another day to get to my camp site. By sunset I still had about two thirds of a mile to go which is a lot for a crippled guy in snow. The snow had started to melt a little but it was still deep enough to make life miserable. I found another dry spot for the night and I broke some branches off of some trees for fuel since the ground was covered by snow. My leg was hurting more and more and I wasn't able to sleep much the second night. At least the stove was keeping me warm and dry but I sure wished I had something to eat. The next morning I was off again. I left at first light, I just wanted to get back to the campsite and the car as fast as possible. I thought the last stretch would be easier since the snow was a bit less deep by now but my strength was so low I was having serious trouble getting ahead. I had to take longer and more frequent breaks. I felt like I really needed a nap but I decided to keep going no matter what since I was so close already. Finally late in the afternoon I reached the campsite, after a quick food break I drove to the nearest ranger station. I had survived my ordeal. I owe my life to the wood powered trailstove I was carrying in my pack, if I wouldn't have had it with me there is no way I would have survived two nights in the snow and a two and a half day walk with a broken leg through knee deep snow dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. I deeply recommend this stove to anyone who goes out into the wilderness, the manufacturer's website is www.trailstove.com for more info. For info on Sierra National Forest, in my opinion the best wilderness on the planet (even though I could have died there) click on: http://www.r5.fs.fed.us/sierra/ |