[pct-l] Lost in the North Cascades...........

[Andrea Dinsmore]

*Ian hiked out of Stevens Pass by himself 2 years ago in a terrible storm.
Here is his first hand story.  He went out with no PLB and not enough food.
This story doesn't tell what went on behind the scenes with the SAR folks
and his family.  Worry about more than yourself before you go. *































*Here is "I'm Fine's" Story in his own words. October 19th, I was hiking in
the rain, when I passed Bouncer and Storytime mid day who were waiting out
the weather in their tents. After a few hours of hiking, rain turned to
sleet, and eventually to snow. There was already some snow on the ground to
begin with. I crossed Red Pass (6500 ft), and was soaked to the bone and
freezing, so after descending to a small patch of trees at roughly 5500 ft,
it started to get dark and I decided to setup camp. When I awoke in the
morning, the snow was already knee to mid thigh deep, with some waist high
drifts, and it was still coming down. I packed up and decided to make a
move for lower elevation, soon losing the trail. I cut downhill to my left,
the side of the ridge covered with nearly waist deep snow, aiming for a
creek with the intention of following running water to lower elevation and
hopefully eventually exiting the wilderness. After following the creek for
maybe an hour or so, I came to another patch of trees and noticed a stump
that had been saw-cut. I continued alongside the creek until I came to 3
small logs laying across the creek with saw-cut ends, and a noticeable
indent (trail) in the snow on the other side. I crossed the logs, and
followed the indent the best I could, eventually leading to a forested
area, with the trail being much easier to follow. This led to a very nice
man made bridge, and the trail through the forested area had less than knee
deep snow for the most part. I came to a side trail reading "trail
abandoned, use new side trail .25 mile north of Sitkum Creek on PCT". I
continued to follow the trail until I reached that side trail, with a sign
reading "White Chuck Road and trail washed out". Fuck. I continued north on
the PCT until I reached a sign reading "White Chuck Road, and Kennedy Hot
Springs". Scratched into the sign were some notes from other hikers
including "Both Destroyed!!!" and "Not an exit!!!". FUCK. I continued on
the PCT hoping to cross Fire Creek Pass, and camp by Milk Creek, hoping
that the Milk Creek Trail would offer an exit. By nightfall I lost the
trail just north of where it crosses Glacier Creek (not instead), and dug
in next to a boulder, setup camp, and hoped to find the trail in the
morning. When I woke up a fresh 3-4 inches of snow had fallen. I continued
to walk straight until I got on top of the ridge line. When I crested the
ridge I saw no sign of trail. The ridge dropped steeply down in front of
me, to my left was a steep treacherous pass, complete with shear cliffs and
glaciers, and to my right the ridge gradually descended until there were
trees on it. I couldn't cross the pass, I didn't want to slide down into
the canyon to my front (which eventually ended up happening anyway), I
didn't want to back track, so I trucked down the ridge to my right hoping
to find sign of the trail once I got into the trees, cut off branches,
bark, anything. Eventually the ridge grew steeper and steeper until I
started sliding out in 20ish foot sections, stopping myself on trees, until
I reached a small 5 or 6 foot cliff. I lowered down that holding onto small
trees and branches. Eventually the path I chose became nearly vertical
offering me no other options than to continue forward. I reached a 15-20
foot cliff, the path behind too steep to back track, so I maneuvered
horizontally holding onto trees until I found a smaller section of cliff
about 9 feet high. I dropped my back pack and trekking poles down first,
then pissed on my hands to warm them up enough to gain enough grip strength
to lower myself down holding onto exposed roots or rock. When I got to my
back pack, which had rolled about twenty feet in the snow I noticed that my
camera had fallen out of my hip belt pocket. I dug all around in the snow,
went downhill, back uphill, nothing. I had lost the only thing making me
feel somewhat connected to the outside world/people. Lost my video diaries
of this whole misadventure. Felt more alone. I continued forward until the
ground got a lot flatter and stumbled through a patch of small trees all
bent over under the weight of the snow from knee to chest height. I reached
one more small cliff and dropped down to the scree slopes of the canyon
below and started following the creek at the bottom downstream until after
about a quarter mile it dropped off steeply into a section of canyon with
20 foot vertical walls. I back tracked until I reached another waterfall.
Each side of the canyon was too steep to ascend, so on the floor of the
canyon between two branches of the creek, I stomped down and scooped out as
much snow as I could on the flattest spot I could find and set up my tent.
And I waited. And waited. And waited... And starved. And froze. And waited.
On day 2 for some reason I had a premonition that after nine nights in my
tent I would be rescued. I spent those nine nights rationing food at
300-500 calories per day, the first couple days were closer to six or seven
hundred. The first five or six nights were very cold, and during this
period the snow would melt a little during the day, then usually more snow
would fall back to it's original level. After that it warmed up enough to
rain, and even the nights held only slightly below freezing. After night
nine, the snow was mostly melted. During this period I spent all day either
hoping, thinking, going crazy with hunger pains, or sometimes extreme
anxiety, or laying down calmly escaped in a day dream. I would sometimes
feel good in my decision to wait for help, and other times I contemplated
trying anything I could to make an escape. I would drift back and forth
between feeling relatively calm and sedated, to helpless and anxious. At
times I was confident that I would survive, and other times I was less
hopeful. By the fifth or sixth day I began imagining airplane sounds from
the noise the creek was making, by the seventh or 8th day I began imagining
helicopter noises, and by day nine or ten I would constantly hear both
airplanes and helicopters so I wore earplugs for the last two days to try
to protect my sanity the best I could. After the ninth night the snow had
melted enough that I should have made a break for it then, but I decided to
wait the day out in leu of my premonition, and if I hadn't been rescued I
would go for it the next day. This was my first full day with zero
calorieintake. The day came and went, and when I woke up the next morning I
decided that if I were going to die in the wilderness, I wasn't going to
die laying in a nylon coffin in that god forsaken canyon which I had grown
to detest.I packed up and headed for the waterfall upstream, and carefully
climbed hand over hand beside it, then followed the creek above to a low
spot in the small cliff above the steep canyon wall, the only possible
chance I had of climbing out. I crawled up the small scree slope on my
hands and knees, then grabbed onto rocks and roots to climb up the canyon
wall. I reached a shelf between the small canyon wall I climbed up and a
large canyon wall on the other side. I fought through thick undergrowth and
trees until I reached an exposed section and climbed up a small knoll to
view the surrounding area. I spotted my best chance of getting up the
canyon wall and back onto the ridge line that I originally ended up on
after glacier creek. Leading up to this small spot was a steep scree slope,
which I crossed very carefully, each ill placed step sliding out. When I
got to the point I would attempt to climb, I started up, and grabbing onto
the frigid rock face for dear life, made it up. Thinking back I cringed a
little at the thought of how narrowly I had made it to where I was and what
would have happened if I made a mistake. I hiked back to the first spot I
reached on the ridge and resurveyed the surroundings. I hiked around the
area for a couple hours, backtracking two different times until i got back
to the same spot, and eventually traced my steps back to glacier creek,
found the trail and where it crosses, and followed it up to fire creek
pass, which was still covered in snow about eight to ten inches deep and
completely exposed, making navigating very difficult. The north side of the
pass still had deep snow drifts and I couldn't see the trail at all at some
points. I found my way until the trail became clearer, and I followed it as
it dropped in elevation, back into pine forest. It started raining lightly
and by nightfall I was pretty wet. I camped on the trail north of milk
creek. The next two passes between me and Stehekin were all pretty much the
same, difficult to maneuver, covered in snow, and sometimes frightening. I
made it to Stehekin on a Friday, my last meal, if you can call it that, on
Monday. Hiking without any food, after already barely eating for 9 days
previously, was very difficult. Sometimes I could hardly keep moving when
going uphill or through the snow. Having to pick my feet up to step over
logs or rocks felt like I was lifting blocks of concrete. I ended up
consuming massive amounts of water in spite of hardly sweating. I weighed
in about eighteen pounds lighter when I got to Stehekin. I was ecstatic to
have found my way out and to eat again, but also extremely sore all over
and maybe a little disoriented by now. After deciding to continue north and
complete my hike (with a gps this time), my back pack was unbearably heavy,
as I carried a ton of extra food. Had to be at least sixty pounds, the pack
I carried into the Sierra being 55 pounds, and that didn't feel nearly as
heavy as this. The first twenty miles to rainy pass wereall smooth sailing,
then it started snowing, and by the time I reached cutthroat pass, a fresh
3-5 inches had fallen. As I approached cutthroat pass, the higher I
climbed, the more snow was left over from the last storm, although it was
frozen to a hard shell and very slippery and difficult to walk on. The
north side of the pass was worse and where ever there was a steep ridge,
the trail was completely snowed over, then frozen solid, making it nearly
impossible, and completely terrifying, to traverse. South of Harts pass the
trail was treacherous as well, and I had to traverse a section on one ridge
on my knees, facing the mountain, and stabbing my trekking poles a foot
into the snow as to anchor myself to the mountain. North of rock pass I
slid out and went about 100 feet down the ridge until stopping myself with
by digging my elbows and trekking poles into the ice and snow, then using
my trekking pole as a break, slid down the rest of the way to the next
switchback. Several times it took everything I had to keep going. The last
day it never got above thirteen degrees, and my nose was bleeding all
morning from the cold dry air. By nightfall, before the sun had even
finished setting, my thermometer maxed out at zero degrees. After the ice
that had formed in my inflatable sleeping pad the night before stabbed a
hole through it, I set up a bed of pine branches under my tent for extra
warmth on the last night. I finished my thru hike on November 11th. Ian
Sarmento (I'm Fine) *