Stranded on North Fork Road
A few notes as you read about our ‘adventure’. We weren’t taking photos as it was happening. All photos taken were after we knew rescue was imminent, or even later for illustration purposes. Until we knew we were safe, our focus was survival; although we never actually used that word. “We’ll get through this together” was said many times, though.
Tuesday we drove through Zion National Park. Beautiful scenery everywhere. Michele and I decided to drive up North Fork Road just east of the park for more scenery, less tourists. It was on the tourist maps, so we figured it was not a minor road. We saw that it was unpaved, but that doesn’t typically phase either of us. We agreed to start the road with a full tank of gas, since we didn’t know how long it would take. We topped off the tank before turning north off highway 9.
The first thing we saw on North Fork Road was a free range chicken farm, so of course we stopped to take photos for Kristen Palmeri.
We continued to enjoy the drive, stopping frequently for photos. We slid in the mud sideways once, but regained control. We got stuck in the mud later, but got out. We felt adventurous, bold, and invincible, and continued on. The elevation steadily increased, and the limestone mud was slippery. But the mud was just in patches, not the entire road.
About 20 miles into the drive on this remote road, we drove through a patch of snow. Not too bad, so we kept going. Soon there was another patch of snow, and the road looked clear right beyond it. We tried going through the snow and failed. The patch of snow was in the shadow of the mountain. There were muddy ruts obscured by the snow, and we didn’t realize how bad that stretch of road was. We unfortunately rented a sedan, not an SUV. The elevation where we got stuck was nearly 7000 feet. Our home in East Aurora has an elevation of 900 feet. The condo we were staying at in Mesquite, Nevada is at about 1600 feet. We were not prepared for going from warm desert to cold mountain so quickly. As soon as we were stuck, we discussed elevation sickness; something this Kansas girl is ignorant of.
We immediately started trying to dig away the snow that immobilized the car. Of course we didn’t have a shovel, so we removed the foam cushion on the handle of a cane to use to hack at and move the snow. We tried to rock the car back and forth, put tree bark under the tires, push… everything and anything to get out of that spot. The tires did nothing but spin.
The temperature dropped quickly at dusk. We agreed that our safest option was to stay in the car until morning. We had just been out for a calm day of vacation, and weren’t prepared for the weather. Lana was wearing a tee-shirt, shorts, and sandals. Michele was wearing a tee-shirt, shorts, and sneakers with socks. We both had a fleece zip jacket. Needless to say, this was not enough to keep warm in below freezing temperatures throughout the night. My pants kept sliding down when I would get out to chip at the snow, and I eventually used the tow strap from the trunk as a makeshift belt. We honked an SOS several times, in case anyone was in earshot. I also used a flashlight to SOS to overhead planes in the middle of the night, despite my pessimism that would be effective.
A few things we ended up doing to stay warm and hydrated: we collected the snow in our wide mouth water bottles and tried to melt it as quickly as we could for drinking. Unfortunately our insulated water bottles really wanted to keep the snow cold, and it melted slowly. We ran the car only a few minutes at a time for warmth, so we could conserve fuel. Every 15-30 minutes all night long we would run the car for at least 3 minutes to warm up. With each cycle, I would try to hold out until I was shivering before starting the car. The floor mats were used as barriers between us and the car doors, and also as blankets. We had purchased quite a few rocks for Michele’s classroom, and they were packaged in a USPS box. The box of rocks was also used as a barrier between us and the car door. Michele had bought a souvenir tee-shirt which doubled as a lap blanket for her. We ended up ripping the liner out of the trunk and wrapping it around my legs as a blanket for me. (If you are ever in need - much warmer than floor mats, but not as warm as a souvenir tee-shirt.) We held the trunk liner in place with a survival strap Michele had made on a previous vacation. I was putting the toes of both my bare feet in a bag for a travel pillow. I wore the travel pillow around my neck for warmth. We both had sun hats on at all times. Later, Michele brought out water bottle slings she had bought at Zion, and had planned on surprising me with at Christmas. The slings fit over my feet, so my feet were covered individually, rather than trying to keep them together in one too-small bag. So I had ‘socks’ on while in the car. I removed them every time I got out so they would stay dry. We took turns getting out of the car so that only one of us was cold at a time. Most of the evening/night it was snowing a glistening snow, with small freezing flakes. We split a protein bar for dinner. All we had eaten since breakfast (a banana and a bagel) was a Reese’s peanut butter cup. Getting out of the car repeatedly for toileting sucked, as did only having a few facial tissues for cleansing. Things started to get messy/smelly fast, and I’ll leave it at that.
Wednesday morning breakfast was the peanuts that happened to be in my pocket that I hadn’t eaten on the plane. We again worked at moving the snow away from the undercarriage of the car. We continued to take turns out in the cold, and still made no measurable progress toward freeing the car from the snow. We kept snow packed water bottles under the sun on the dashboard to slowly generate drinking water. In the afternoon, Michele thought she saw the glint of sun reflecting off of glass, and went to investigate. It turns out it was a mirage due to snow, but the vantage point she had from checking it out she saw a roof. She saw the end of a driveway/road that said ‘Esplin Ranch’. She came back to the car and we decided to head toward the ranch which appeared to at least have a cabin. We left a note at the car, written on the cardboard sleeve from a coffee cup. On the back we listed emergency contacts.
We headed toward Esplin Ranch, not knowing what to expect. I had my ‘socks’ on with my sandals, and my feet were much warmer. The lane to the cabin was only about ¼ mile from where we were stuck. The lane itself was probably longer than that. A stream crossed the lane, and we had to wade through, as it was too wide to jump. Michele happened to have flip flops, which I wore to cross, and she crossed barefoot. (for those of you unaware, I have a disability in my feet which makes walking barefoot painful, so walking over rocks would have been excruciating.) We did have a cane and hiking stick for stability so we wouldn’t lose our footing in the current. We had scouted the stream for 100 yards or so, and chose to cross the same place vehicles do. It was cold water, as we expected, and only shin deep. It was moving swiftly due to spring snow melt.
Further along the path there was a tree blocking the path, which we were able to go around. It let us know no one had been actively using the cabin recently. We continued on and encountered a cattle gate we were able to climb over. We had scouted the fence around the cattle gate, but it was barbed wire, which we were too big to squeeze through safely. Then on up to the cabin. There were actually several cabins.
Michele and I walked the property, taking note of the HUGE bird tracks in the mud, but not seeing any birds. There were countless piles of aged manure. Cow/horse, not sure, but from last year, so irrelevant. All the buildings on the ranch were locked, except an outhouse. We returned to the ‘main’ looking cabin, as it had a solar array next to it. We searched high and low for a spare key. Above door frames, under welcome mats, etc. None could be found. We did find a tool box with chisel and hammer that made breaking the padlock hasp off the door quite easy. Easier still because it had clearly been done before, and not much force was needed. (In fact, I found an apology note inside from someone snowbound in February who had broken in.)
We assessed that the cabin had been winterized, but appeared to be a safe place to wait for rescue. We found a little bit of non perishable foods, and got excited that we would not have to ration quite as tightly as we had been. We gathered more snow using a tea kettle, stockpot and ladle. We moved some of the firewood to the porch. There was a potbelly stove we planned to use for warmth. Michele worked on starting the fire while I was outside stacking wood. Smoke filled the cabin and we discovered they had placed a bucket over the chimney for winter. Luckily I had noticed the location of a ladder, and with that and a hiking stick the bucket was gone and we had a fire roaring.
We melted more snow. We had been drinking it as soon as it was melting, but now we had the luxury of filtering the debris out (mostly leaves and seeds). Initially we were thinking of a cloth to filter the water, then realized they had a ton of unbleached coffee filters, and a funnel to put it in. And with the woodburning stove, melting was much faster. There wasn’t a lot of snow near the cabin, just one snowbank in the shadow of one of the buildings.
We had seen a small stream further into the property and collected water from it also. We saw mountain lion tracks in the soft mud next to the stream. We boiled and filtered the water from the stream, melted and filtered the water from the snow. I couldn’t remember how long to boil the water. I thought 5 minutes, we boiled for 8 minutes to be safe. Turns out, 3 minutes would have been enough. We went from nearly no water to plenty quite quickly. Michele was concerned we hadn’t gathered enough water, and I reassured her there was enough to get through the night, and I didn’t want her returning to the stream in the dark. The ground was uneven, and we were in mountain lion territory. For dinner we each had an instant cup-of-noodles we found. I felt hygienically filthy, so took a sponge bath with creek water we had collected, and decided going commando would be cleaner from that point on.
We were exhausted and scared, but managed to fall asleep. The bed was wrapped in plastic sheeting, so we put their patio furniture cushions down and added two blankets, one over, one under us. We did sleep long enough the fire burned down to nearly nothing and woke us up with the cold. We had intended to get up every 2 hours to tend the fire, but a timer only works when you push ‘start’. The times we did wake up, we were able to have instant light thanks to the solar panels and the batteries which held their energy. I had to turn on the power, but that was a single switch. We also found lanterns, flashlights, and batteries. It was clear they winterized by removing batteries from their devices. I prepared a flashlight and lantern for each of us.
Some other items regarding the cabin that we did not or could not take advantage of. The cabin is clearly connected to a well, and has running water when all set up. There was a bathroom with toilet and shower/bathtub, and a hot water heater. There was propane fuel for more lighting, a stove, and refrigerator as well as a woodburning cookstove. The kitchen was well stocked with kitchen supplies. There was a table with seating for 6 and a recliner. There was an abundant stockpile of toilet paper and paper towels (yay!)There was a small stocked linen cupboard, and even a down blanket was available, wrapped in a garbage bag for winter. There was a small closet with extra hoodies, a vacuum cleaner, and games. I was impressed by their cabin game collection: Blokus, 2 Scrabble boards, Uno, Apples to Apples, Life, Sorry, several decks of cards, and more. At no time were we relaxed enough to take advantage of any of them.
Thursday morning I woke up severely dehydrated. I had a bad headache and was shaking. We were able to identify the problem and prioritized rehydrating my system. I was able to have a cup of tea and an Excedrin I had with me. Michele had a cup of tea also; the cabin had a nice assortment of tea. I was too weak to hike back to the car and actually have any energy to get anything done there. I was anxious about separating, and felt guilty that Michele would be expending more energy than me. She reassured me that we needed to keep working within our limits, and mine were lower right then. We decided that I should stay at the cabin and Michele would return to the car and try to dig it out more. We shared a can of peaches and a trail mix bar for breakfast (I’m not fond of peaches, but not a time to be picky.) We made an SOS sign out of aluminum foil and masking tape we had found. She took a shovel from the cabin and headed out. I also made a note with the exact GPS coordinates of the cabin, since it was some of the only useful information I could offer.
While Michele was at the car I was steadily drinking water as I purified more for drinking. I gathered more snow from the lone snowpile near the cabin, and more water from the stream. I developed a staging area for filter/boil, eventually labeling each stage so I wouldn’t mix potable water with non potable water. I found a colander I used as a second filtration system with coffee filters and a grinder part that coffee filters fit into as well, so I had a third. As I steadily worked and rehydrated, my stamina returned. My lunch was a snack bag of Ruffles potato chips. While Michele was gone, I talked to myself quite a bit, giving myself one step directions because it was so easy to lose focus and just zone out from fatigue.
After attaching the SOS sign, Michele made progress shoveling out the snow, but not enough to actually free the car. She cleared out the undercarriage almost entirely, except right down the center. She tried to move the car several times on her own, but the tires just spun deeper into the mud. She knew she wouldn’t be able to free the car without a second person to push. As she came back to the house, she posted a ‘help’ sign under the ‘Esplin ranch’ sign. She made the sign on the back of a ‘no trespassing’ sign she had taken from inside the cabin.
Thursday evening we found they had an abundance of oatmeal. We were able to each have a full serving of oatmeal for dinner. By this time I had processed 3 gallons of snowmelt and 3-4 gallons of creek water. We tried to drink water generously so neither of us would become dehydrated again. We made a plan for going to the car together on Friday, and a new technique for freeing the car that we wanted to try. (Involving jacking up the front and levering it backwards). By having a surplus of water, we knew we could set aside the time for both of us to work on freeing the car.
We had kept the fire going all day, and we let it die down just a bit so Michele could remove some ash before preparing for overnight. We agreed to set the timer for 1 hour at a time to check the fire and drink water to keep hydration going throughout the night.
I mentioned a rash I had developed from my thighs rubbing together (yes, I’m fat). Michele suggested I use cornstarch she had seen in the kitchen. I used it like baby powder; it helped right away! I was impressed by ourselves and the ability to keep healthy despite adversity.
We did a little stargazing together, and realized we don’t know as much astronomy as we’d like. The sky was full of stars, and we could only identify a few. The full moon was intense. Michele went to the outhouse before bed, and heard a loud sneeze. “Who’s there?” She shouted, and got no response. She continued to the outhouse, and came back frightened. She believes she heard a mountain lion, not the plentiful deer we had seen. We found an emergency whistle, and for the remainder of the night we went out with it ready to blow, and scare any critters away from us.
As we were trying to fall asleep, Michele’s sciatic nerve was causing her a lot of pain. She had brought a TENS unit in her purse, for just such a problem. When she got it out she found a USB charging brick, so we immediately started charging our cell phones up. They weren’t entirely depleted, but the more juice the better!
She was just about to apply the TENS unit when there were three raps on the door. I jumped up, freaked out. “Hello?” I shouted. “Anybody need a ride?” Was the response. I think we screamed and jumped up and down. This was about 10:30 p.m. Robert happens to own a cabin about 1.5 miles further up the road from the ranch we were on. He was coming out for the three day weekend, and had seen our SOS signs. He left a note at our car, then he dropped his wife and mother off at his cabin. He came to check on us to see if we had a medical emergency and needed to be driven to town immediately. At this point we were both stable, and so he said he would return in the morning to winch our car out of the snow and make sure we were pointed back toward civilization. We were so rejuvenated by relief that we began tidying up the cabin. Celebrating that we didn’t need to ration the food tightly, we shared a can of corned beef hash as a late night snack.
We did wake up every hour for water, and kept the fire going through the night.
Friday morning we put the cabin back into the condition we found it, as much as possible. We wouldn’t dump out the potable water, we had put too much effort into preparing it. We had already covered and labeled all the bowls/containers it was contained in. All trash we generated we either collected or burned, so we didn’t leave any behind. We put everything back in place that we could, and Michele was vacuuming up the wood debris from around the potbelly stove when we must have used up the remaining juice in the solar panel batteries.
We left a detailed note for the landowners, which I had started Thursday in order to stay focused.
Once our things were gathered, and no more cleaning could be done with the cabin, I took the photos of the ranch that I am now able to share. Robert showed up a little later than he had told us, but we sure weren’t going to complain!
He had cleared the downed tree, and driven right up to the cattle gate. So we didn’t need to walk through the creek to get back to the car. We stopped at the end of the lane to remove the ‘help’ sign, and took a picture of it as well. At the car, Robert got to work getting our car out of the snow. His pickup not only had a winch, but snow chains on two of his tires. (Driver front and passenger rear.) He told us if we tried going further past his place, the road would be even worse. Our best bet would be go back the way we had come in. It had even dried up a little while we were stranded.
The photos we have do not reflect how entrenched the car initially was. The snow in the photo has been packed down by Robert driving over it several times with his truck. Between that and some melting, it almost looks passable!
We were so grateful for Robert’s help, we asked if we could compensate him in some way. “Give me a hug” was all he wanted.
We had a smooth ride back to civilization, and sure enough, weekend warriors were seen on a road that had had no traffic in a few days. We stopped to relieve ourselves, and Michele had the opportunity to pee on a mountain lion track in retaliation for being scared by a sneeze the night before. She was giddy with the silliness of it.
We did eat at a restaurant, Blondie’s Diner, alerting our server we were smelly (and why) so that we could be seated away from other customers. My phone screen was unreadable due to damage on Monday (unrelated to this adventure) so I used her phone to call my mother once I knew we had a cell signal.
After filling our bellies and having some coffee, we returned to Mesquite, Nevada, where our accommodations were. We stopped at Wal-mart for supplies before going back to the condo. We cleaned up, I called my mom with more details, and posted the short version of events. We then washed the car, vacuumed much mud out of it. We replaced the floormats and trunk liner as if nothing happened. We did a load of laundry so we didn’t have an olfactory reminder of our adventure.
We dined that night on cauliflower and veggie dip, a variety of cheeses, bread, summer sausage, and beer… all purchased Sunday night, our first night in Mesquite. I pondered “I wonder why summer sausage is called summer sausage when you can eat it all year?” Michele went into hysterics with the banality of that question compared to the experience we had just been through. (and yes, I did end up googling it.) It became another version of ‘first world problem’ to say ‘why is summer sausage called summer sausage?’
The experience has led us to feel we can get through anything together. We each had weak moments, during which the other would be stronger and more reassuring. We communicated very well, and didn’t fight once. (Although Michele admits to biting her tongue to prevent herself from snapping at me in the middle of the night in a below freezing car.)
We learned some lessons the hard way, and we hope you can learn vicariously through us.
--Before going on an ‘unpaved’ road in the mountains, ask the locals about conditions. If snow is mentioned, don’t go. If snow is not mentioned, a 4 wheel drive is stil recommended.
--Always tell someone where you are headed, when you will be back, and what you want them to do if you do not check in.
--Keep a change of (warmer) clothes in the trunk, just in case.
--Have at least a day’s worth of food (per person) in the trunk when you are driving in unknown regions, you never know what will happen. And you will be surprised how little is actually necessary to get through one day.
--Communicate as thoroughly as you can, and express when you are stumped. Michele and I were each able to offer solutions to problems the other encountered.
--Don’t dwell on mistakes, but think about them for analysis of what to not do in the future.
--Don’t stop moving toward your goal. Don’t give up. Momentum may change pace with the ebb and flow of energy, but keeping a forward momentum helps keep hope strong.
Tuesday we drove through Zion National Park. Beautiful scenery everywhere. Michele and I decided to drive up North Fork Road just east of the park for more scenery, less tourists. It was on the tourist maps, so we figured it was not a minor road. We saw that it was unpaved, but that doesn’t typically phase either of us. We agreed to start the road with a full tank of gas, since we didn’t know how long it would take. We topped off the tank before turning north off highway 9.
The first thing we saw on North Fork Road was a free range chicken farm, so of course we stopped to take photos for Kristen Palmeri.
We continued to enjoy the drive, stopping frequently for photos. We slid in the mud sideways once, but regained control. We got stuck in the mud later, but got out. We felt adventurous, bold, and invincible, and continued on. The elevation steadily increased, and the limestone mud was slippery. But the mud was just in patches, not the entire road.
About 20 miles into the drive on this remote road, we drove through a patch of snow. Not too bad, so we kept going. Soon there was another patch of snow, and the road looked clear right beyond it. We tried going through the snow and failed. The patch of snow was in the shadow of the mountain. There were muddy ruts obscured by the snow, and we didn’t realize how bad that stretch of road was. We unfortunately rented a sedan, not an SUV. The elevation where we got stuck was nearly 7000 feet. Our home in East Aurora has an elevation of 900 feet. The condo we were staying at in Mesquite, Nevada is at about 1600 feet. We were not prepared for going from warm desert to cold mountain so quickly. As soon as we were stuck, we discussed elevation sickness; something this Kansas girl is ignorant of.
We immediately started trying to dig away the snow that immobilized the car. Of course we didn’t have a shovel, so we removed the foam cushion on the handle of a cane to use to hack at and move the snow. We tried to rock the car back and forth, put tree bark under the tires, push… everything and anything to get out of that spot. The tires did nothing but spin.
The temperature dropped quickly at dusk. We agreed that our safest option was to stay in the car until morning. We had just been out for a calm day of vacation, and weren’t prepared for the weather. Lana was wearing a tee-shirt, shorts, and sandals. Michele was wearing a tee-shirt, shorts, and sneakers with socks. We both had a fleece zip jacket. Needless to say, this was not enough to keep warm in below freezing temperatures throughout the night. My pants kept sliding down when I would get out to chip at the snow, and I eventually used the tow strap from the trunk as a makeshift belt. We honked an SOS several times, in case anyone was in earshot. I also used a flashlight to SOS to overhead planes in the middle of the night, despite my pessimism that would be effective.
A few things we ended up doing to stay warm and hydrated: we collected the snow in our wide mouth water bottles and tried to melt it as quickly as we could for drinking. Unfortunately our insulated water bottles really wanted to keep the snow cold, and it melted slowly. We ran the car only a few minutes at a time for warmth, so we could conserve fuel. Every 15-30 minutes all night long we would run the car for at least 3 minutes to warm up. With each cycle, I would try to hold out until I was shivering before starting the car. The floor mats were used as barriers between us and the car doors, and also as blankets. We had purchased quite a few rocks for Michele’s classroom, and they were packaged in a USPS box. The box of rocks was also used as a barrier between us and the car door. Michele had bought a souvenir tee-shirt which doubled as a lap blanket for her. We ended up ripping the liner out of the trunk and wrapping it around my legs as a blanket for me. (If you are ever in need - much warmer than floor mats, but not as warm as a souvenir tee-shirt.) We held the trunk liner in place with a survival strap Michele had made on a previous vacation. I was putting the toes of both my bare feet in a bag for a travel pillow. I wore the travel pillow around my neck for warmth. We both had sun hats on at all times. Later, Michele brought out water bottle slings she had bought at Zion, and had planned on surprising me with at Christmas. The slings fit over my feet, so my feet were covered individually, rather than trying to keep them together in one too-small bag. So I had ‘socks’ on while in the car. I removed them every time I got out so they would stay dry. We took turns getting out of the car so that only one of us was cold at a time. Most of the evening/night it was snowing a glistening snow, with small freezing flakes. We split a protein bar for dinner. All we had eaten since breakfast (a banana and a bagel) was a Reese’s peanut butter cup. Getting out of the car repeatedly for toileting sucked, as did only having a few facial tissues for cleansing. Things started to get messy/smelly fast, and I’ll leave it at that.
Wednesday morning breakfast was the peanuts that happened to be in my pocket that I hadn’t eaten on the plane. We again worked at moving the snow away from the undercarriage of the car. We continued to take turns out in the cold, and still made no measurable progress toward freeing the car from the snow. We kept snow packed water bottles under the sun on the dashboard to slowly generate drinking water. In the afternoon, Michele thought she saw the glint of sun reflecting off of glass, and went to investigate. It turns out it was a mirage due to snow, but the vantage point she had from checking it out she saw a roof. She saw the end of a driveway/road that said ‘Esplin Ranch’. She came back to the car and we decided to head toward the ranch which appeared to at least have a cabin. We left a note at the car, written on the cardboard sleeve from a coffee cup. On the back we listed emergency contacts.
We headed toward Esplin Ranch, not knowing what to expect. I had my ‘socks’ on with my sandals, and my feet were much warmer. The lane to the cabin was only about ¼ mile from where we were stuck. The lane itself was probably longer than that. A stream crossed the lane, and we had to wade through, as it was too wide to jump. Michele happened to have flip flops, which I wore to cross, and she crossed barefoot. (for those of you unaware, I have a disability in my feet which makes walking barefoot painful, so walking over rocks would have been excruciating.) We did have a cane and hiking stick for stability so we wouldn’t lose our footing in the current. We had scouted the stream for 100 yards or so, and chose to cross the same place vehicles do. It was cold water, as we expected, and only shin deep. It was moving swiftly due to spring snow melt.
Further along the path there was a tree blocking the path, which we were able to go around. It let us know no one had been actively using the cabin recently. We continued on and encountered a cattle gate we were able to climb over. We had scouted the fence around the cattle gate, but it was barbed wire, which we were too big to squeeze through safely. Then on up to the cabin. There were actually several cabins.
Michele and I walked the property, taking note of the HUGE bird tracks in the mud, but not seeing any birds. There were countless piles of aged manure. Cow/horse, not sure, but from last year, so irrelevant. All the buildings on the ranch were locked, except an outhouse. We returned to the ‘main’ looking cabin, as it had a solar array next to it. We searched high and low for a spare key. Above door frames, under welcome mats, etc. None could be found. We did find a tool box with chisel and hammer that made breaking the padlock hasp off the door quite easy. Easier still because it had clearly been done before, and not much force was needed. (In fact, I found an apology note inside from someone snowbound in February who had broken in.)
We assessed that the cabin had been winterized, but appeared to be a safe place to wait for rescue. We found a little bit of non perishable foods, and got excited that we would not have to ration quite as tightly as we had been. We gathered more snow using a tea kettle, stockpot and ladle. We moved some of the firewood to the porch. There was a potbelly stove we planned to use for warmth. Michele worked on starting the fire while I was outside stacking wood. Smoke filled the cabin and we discovered they had placed a bucket over the chimney for winter. Luckily I had noticed the location of a ladder, and with that and a hiking stick the bucket was gone and we had a fire roaring.
We melted more snow. We had been drinking it as soon as it was melting, but now we had the luxury of filtering the debris out (mostly leaves and seeds). Initially we were thinking of a cloth to filter the water, then realized they had a ton of unbleached coffee filters, and a funnel to put it in. And with the woodburning stove, melting was much faster. There wasn’t a lot of snow near the cabin, just one snowbank in the shadow of one of the buildings.
We had seen a small stream further into the property and collected water from it also. We saw mountain lion tracks in the soft mud next to the stream. We boiled and filtered the water from the stream, melted and filtered the water from the snow. I couldn’t remember how long to boil the water. I thought 5 minutes, we boiled for 8 minutes to be safe. Turns out, 3 minutes would have been enough. We went from nearly no water to plenty quite quickly. Michele was concerned we hadn’t gathered enough water, and I reassured her there was enough to get through the night, and I didn’t want her returning to the stream in the dark. The ground was uneven, and we were in mountain lion territory. For dinner we each had an instant cup-of-noodles we found. I felt hygienically filthy, so took a sponge bath with creek water we had collected, and decided going commando would be cleaner from that point on.
We were exhausted and scared, but managed to fall asleep. The bed was wrapped in plastic sheeting, so we put their patio furniture cushions down and added two blankets, one over, one under us. We did sleep long enough the fire burned down to nearly nothing and woke us up with the cold. We had intended to get up every 2 hours to tend the fire, but a timer only works when you push ‘start’. The times we did wake up, we were able to have instant light thanks to the solar panels and the batteries which held their energy. I had to turn on the power, but that was a single switch. We also found lanterns, flashlights, and batteries. It was clear they winterized by removing batteries from their devices. I prepared a flashlight and lantern for each of us.
Some other items regarding the cabin that we did not or could not take advantage of. The cabin is clearly connected to a well, and has running water when all set up. There was a bathroom with toilet and shower/bathtub, and a hot water heater. There was propane fuel for more lighting, a stove, and refrigerator as well as a woodburning cookstove. The kitchen was well stocked with kitchen supplies. There was a table with seating for 6 and a recliner. There was an abundant stockpile of toilet paper and paper towels (yay!)There was a small stocked linen cupboard, and even a down blanket was available, wrapped in a garbage bag for winter. There was a small closet with extra hoodies, a vacuum cleaner, and games. I was impressed by their cabin game collection: Blokus, 2 Scrabble boards, Uno, Apples to Apples, Life, Sorry, several decks of cards, and more. At no time were we relaxed enough to take advantage of any of them.
Thursday morning I woke up severely dehydrated. I had a bad headache and was shaking. We were able to identify the problem and prioritized rehydrating my system. I was able to have a cup of tea and an Excedrin I had with me. Michele had a cup of tea also; the cabin had a nice assortment of tea. I was too weak to hike back to the car and actually have any energy to get anything done there. I was anxious about separating, and felt guilty that Michele would be expending more energy than me. She reassured me that we needed to keep working within our limits, and mine were lower right then. We decided that I should stay at the cabin and Michele would return to the car and try to dig it out more. We shared a can of peaches and a trail mix bar for breakfast (I’m not fond of peaches, but not a time to be picky.) We made an SOS sign out of aluminum foil and masking tape we had found. She took a shovel from the cabin and headed out. I also made a note with the exact GPS coordinates of the cabin, since it was some of the only useful information I could offer.
While Michele was at the car I was steadily drinking water as I purified more for drinking. I gathered more snow from the lone snowpile near the cabin, and more water from the stream. I developed a staging area for filter/boil, eventually labeling each stage so I wouldn’t mix potable water with non potable water. I found a colander I used as a second filtration system with coffee filters and a grinder part that coffee filters fit into as well, so I had a third. As I steadily worked and rehydrated, my stamina returned. My lunch was a snack bag of Ruffles potato chips. While Michele was gone, I talked to myself quite a bit, giving myself one step directions because it was so easy to lose focus and just zone out from fatigue.
After attaching the SOS sign, Michele made progress shoveling out the snow, but not enough to actually free the car. She cleared out the undercarriage almost entirely, except right down the center. She tried to move the car several times on her own, but the tires just spun deeper into the mud. She knew she wouldn’t be able to free the car without a second person to push. As she came back to the house, she posted a ‘help’ sign under the ‘Esplin ranch’ sign. She made the sign on the back of a ‘no trespassing’ sign she had taken from inside the cabin.
Thursday evening we found they had an abundance of oatmeal. We were able to each have a full serving of oatmeal for dinner. By this time I had processed 3 gallons of snowmelt and 3-4 gallons of creek water. We tried to drink water generously so neither of us would become dehydrated again. We made a plan for going to the car together on Friday, and a new technique for freeing the car that we wanted to try. (Involving jacking up the front and levering it backwards). By having a surplus of water, we knew we could set aside the time for both of us to work on freeing the car.
We had kept the fire going all day, and we let it die down just a bit so Michele could remove some ash before preparing for overnight. We agreed to set the timer for 1 hour at a time to check the fire and drink water to keep hydration going throughout the night.
I mentioned a rash I had developed from my thighs rubbing together (yes, I’m fat). Michele suggested I use cornstarch she had seen in the kitchen. I used it like baby powder; it helped right away! I was impressed by ourselves and the ability to keep healthy despite adversity.
We did a little stargazing together, and realized we don’t know as much astronomy as we’d like. The sky was full of stars, and we could only identify a few. The full moon was intense. Michele went to the outhouse before bed, and heard a loud sneeze. “Who’s there?” She shouted, and got no response. She continued to the outhouse, and came back frightened. She believes she heard a mountain lion, not the plentiful deer we had seen. We found an emergency whistle, and for the remainder of the night we went out with it ready to blow, and scare any critters away from us.
As we were trying to fall asleep, Michele’s sciatic nerve was causing her a lot of pain. She had brought a TENS unit in her purse, for just such a problem. When she got it out she found a USB charging brick, so we immediately started charging our cell phones up. They weren’t entirely depleted, but the more juice the better!
She was just about to apply the TENS unit when there were three raps on the door. I jumped up, freaked out. “Hello?” I shouted. “Anybody need a ride?” Was the response. I think we screamed and jumped up and down. This was about 10:30 p.m. Robert happens to own a cabin about 1.5 miles further up the road from the ranch we were on. He was coming out for the three day weekend, and had seen our SOS signs. He left a note at our car, then he dropped his wife and mother off at his cabin. He came to check on us to see if we had a medical emergency and needed to be driven to town immediately. At this point we were both stable, and so he said he would return in the morning to winch our car out of the snow and make sure we were pointed back toward civilization. We were so rejuvenated by relief that we began tidying up the cabin. Celebrating that we didn’t need to ration the food tightly, we shared a can of corned beef hash as a late night snack.
We did wake up every hour for water, and kept the fire going through the night.
Friday morning we put the cabin back into the condition we found it, as much as possible. We wouldn’t dump out the potable water, we had put too much effort into preparing it. We had already covered and labeled all the bowls/containers it was contained in. All trash we generated we either collected or burned, so we didn’t leave any behind. We put everything back in place that we could, and Michele was vacuuming up the wood debris from around the potbelly stove when we must have used up the remaining juice in the solar panel batteries.
We left a detailed note for the landowners, which I had started Thursday in order to stay focused.
Once our things were gathered, and no more cleaning could be done with the cabin, I took the photos of the ranch that I am now able to share. Robert showed up a little later than he had told us, but we sure weren’t going to complain!
He had cleared the downed tree, and driven right up to the cattle gate. So we didn’t need to walk through the creek to get back to the car. We stopped at the end of the lane to remove the ‘help’ sign, and took a picture of it as well. At the car, Robert got to work getting our car out of the snow. His pickup not only had a winch, but snow chains on two of his tires. (Driver front and passenger rear.) He told us if we tried going further past his place, the road would be even worse. Our best bet would be go back the way we had come in. It had even dried up a little while we were stranded.
The photos we have do not reflect how entrenched the car initially was. The snow in the photo has been packed down by Robert driving over it several times with his truck. Between that and some melting, it almost looks passable!
We were so grateful for Robert’s help, we asked if we could compensate him in some way. “Give me a hug” was all he wanted.
We had a smooth ride back to civilization, and sure enough, weekend warriors were seen on a road that had had no traffic in a few days. We stopped to relieve ourselves, and Michele had the opportunity to pee on a mountain lion track in retaliation for being scared by a sneeze the night before. She was giddy with the silliness of it.
We did eat at a restaurant, Blondie’s Diner, alerting our server we were smelly (and why) so that we could be seated away from other customers. My phone screen was unreadable due to damage on Monday (unrelated to this adventure) so I used her phone to call my mother once I knew we had a cell signal.
After filling our bellies and having some coffee, we returned to Mesquite, Nevada, where our accommodations were. We stopped at Wal-mart for supplies before going back to the condo. We cleaned up, I called my mom with more details, and posted the short version of events. We then washed the car, vacuumed much mud out of it. We replaced the floormats and trunk liner as if nothing happened. We did a load of laundry so we didn’t have an olfactory reminder of our adventure.
We dined that night on cauliflower and veggie dip, a variety of cheeses, bread, summer sausage, and beer… all purchased Sunday night, our first night in Mesquite. I pondered “I wonder why summer sausage is called summer sausage when you can eat it all year?” Michele went into hysterics with the banality of that question compared to the experience we had just been through. (and yes, I did end up googling it.) It became another version of ‘first world problem’ to say ‘why is summer sausage called summer sausage?’
The experience has led us to feel we can get through anything together. We each had weak moments, during which the other would be stronger and more reassuring. We communicated very well, and didn’t fight once. (Although Michele admits to biting her tongue to prevent herself from snapping at me in the middle of the night in a below freezing car.)
We learned some lessons the hard way, and we hope you can learn vicariously through us.
--Before going on an ‘unpaved’ road in the mountains, ask the locals about conditions. If snow is mentioned, don’t go. If snow is not mentioned, a 4 wheel drive is stil recommended.
--Always tell someone where you are headed, when you will be back, and what you want them to do if you do not check in.
--Keep a change of (warmer) clothes in the trunk, just in case.
--Have at least a day’s worth of food (per person) in the trunk when you are driving in unknown regions, you never know what will happen. And you will be surprised how little is actually necessary to get through one day.
--Communicate as thoroughly as you can, and express when you are stumped. Michele and I were each able to offer solutions to problems the other encountered.
--Don’t dwell on mistakes, but think about them for analysis of what to not do in the future.
--Don’t stop moving toward your goal. Don’t give up. Momentum may change pace with the ebb and flow of energy, but keeping a forward momentum helps keep hope strong.