Lost in the Woods - Anne Isham

Lost in the Woods - Anne Isham

Bloggers NOTE:
Published June 4, 1989 in DALLAS LIFE MAGAZINE; a Sunday morning pullout of  DALLAS MORNING NEWS PULLOUT 

A true story written by my sister Anne Isham

If you have been watching this space, you may remember me mentioning that one of my catalysts for delving so deeply into all things chocolate was a hike in the Raggeds Wilderness area in Colorado, which turned into a three-day adventure.  July marks the 17th anniversary of my lost in the woods adventure.  So, now’s the time to tell the tale.  It’s a long story, but I’ve pared it down from the original twenty pages.

My husband, Paul, and I had been in Crested Butte, Colorado for the 4th of July weekend.  Paul needed to get back to the office, so I took him to the airport on Monday and planned to drive home myself in a few days. 

The following Wednesday I called Paul, from the pay phone.  Cell phones were not a feature of our lives then.  I told him I was planning to go for a hike Thursday morning, and drive back on Friday and Saturday.  I even told him what hike I planned to do.  Then I talked to a friend who suggested a different hike in a completely different area.  That sounded good, so I told her that is the hike I would do.  Then I wandered into a hiking gear store for a map.  The sales clerk, when I asked about a trail map, recommended yet another hike, one for which the trail head was twenty miles away on the far side of the pass.  I’m telling you all this out of a compulsive need to detail all the glaring errors in judgment that landed me in the pickle in which I soon found myself.  So, please, bear with me.

I got up early, left the bed unmade, tossed the laundry down the stairs, to make it handy to get it done as soon as I got back, and hurried off to start my hike before dawn.  I wanted to be finished before it got too hot.  And, more important, I wanted to get to the local bakery before they ran out of my favorite; cranberry-apple-crumb pie.
The parking area for the trail-head was off the road and, being mid week after the 4th of July weekend, there was no one around.  Perfect.  I like solitude.

I set off hiking along a muddy trail through stands of Aspens and conifers and the occasional open meadow.  There was supposed to be a small lake at the end of that trail, but, after three hours, there was no sign of a lake, so I turned around and headed back.  Very soon, I encountered splits in the trail that I hadn’t noticed before. Trail markers were non-existent, probably having been removed to decorate the bedrooms of visiting tourists. 

By 10:00 a.m. I knew I was lost.  There was no trail, except for the wandering tracks left by elks.  These were no help.  I started hiking fast, annoyed at the inconvenience of having to push through without a trail.  Tried to keep going in the general direction of the trail-head, but didn’t really know what that direction might be.
Earlier I had seen names and dates carved in to the Aspens and I began to look for those same trees.  After a while, I did see some markings on trees, but soon realized that these parallel lines were more likely to be scratches left by bears than tourists.
At about five o’clock that afternoon, it started to dawn upon me that I would not find my way back to the trail-head, and my car, before dark.  I didn’t know how cold it might get at that altitude (10,000 feet).  Didn’t know what I could be expected to survive.  It occurred to me that I might not survive.  My mental response to that notion was: “I’ll be damned if I’ll be remembered for having died of stupidity.”  Then, not knowing what else to do I started to cry, but quickly caught myself with the realization that the only available water was in the bottom of the canyon and hard to get to.  I couldn’t waste the tears.
 
As soon as it became evident that I was well and truly lost, I had started to yell for help every two or three minutes.  This, on the theory that I couldn’t possibly be that far from another human being, and one with a much better sense of direction than that with which I was blessed.  But there were no scouts or guides present and it would soon be getting dark, so I started casting about for a place to spend the night.  I found a protected hollow under a pine tree and collected some skunk cabbage leaves, which are long and broad and seemed like they would make a good cover for the cold night ahead of me.  They quickly shriveled and became damp and were no help at all for keeping warm.  I sang songs most of that night, to keep my spirits up and to keep the bears away.  My singing was effective on both counts.

Early the next morning, as I resumed yelling for help and began picking my way in the pre-dawn light, I heard a whistle.  Certain that I was saved, I stopped, yelled again, listened and looked around for the scout/guide who was obviously better equipped for the forest than I.  What I saw, perhaps 50 feet away was a large female elk. (Did you know elk have whistling teeth?) I stood still and yelled, a little more softly, for help, again.  She whistled, again.  We continued this exchange for a few volleys, with her answering my every call, as if she really would like to help.  Then she wandered off, having done her best.  Later I saw a heard of perhaps 15 to 20 elk, led by a large bull with a huge rack.  He gazed at me, non-plused, for a few moments, then led his heard off to quieter pastures.

For three days there was not a sign of a human being.  Not a tissue or a can tab or a candy wrapper, and not a trail, either. I would have enjoyed this remote solitude, had I not been so entirely alone and so entirely responsible for my own well-being.

I ate dandelions, which tasted bitter.  Remembering Ewel Gibbons, I tried what I assumed were some sort of pine nuts, but they tasted like pine disinfectant, and I think they made me hallucinate.

I was hiking above a white water stream and needed to be up higher on the ridge.  At one point, I tried taking the direct route to the crest of the ridge and began climbing straight up a sheer cliff.  I had run out of toe-holds and, as I clung to the face of the cliff, suddenly slipped about five feet down.  That produced a mental image; a flash premonition of me lying in the bottom of the canyon until the next spring thaw.  I eased myself down and resolved to keep pressing through the solid brush.  Once, I climbed down and fetched up a pint bottle of water, but by the time I got back to where I had been, the water was gone and I was thirstier than ever.  After that, I used my pint bottle to catch the run-off from tree roots in an eroded spot. 

After a day and a half of brisk hiking with no food and inadequate water, I lost my voice and simply ran out of steam.  I found an out-crop with an open space and a couple of trees for shade, where I stretched out for a bit of rest.  Occasionally, I’d step into the open, when I heard a plane passing overhead, and wave my arms wildly, in the vain hope that these jumbo jets, thousands of feet above, were part of the search and rescue party that would surely find me and hoist me up on a ladder.  Did I mention the hallucinatory effects of those pine-whatevers?   The trees were small and thin and I had to move every few minutes to stay in the small patch of shade. 

As I sat, I began to hatch a plan.  I would build a fire, to attract forest ranger/rescuers.  It was late in the day, and I was tired, so the plan was to rest until morning then get up, build a fire and get rescued before Paul even realized I was missing.  He wasn’t expecting me until Saturday afternoon, so if I got the fire going in the morning, depending on the efficiency of the rangers, I could get back to a phone before he started to worry.  I had brought two dimes for just such an eventuality.  I was also armed with two credit cards, in case of a shopping emergency on the way back through town.  (A larger water bottle, some matches and a whistle would have been much more helpful.) 

Early in the morning on the third day of my adventure, I got up and started clearing a large circle, gathering rocks, as large as I could carry.  I enclosed the clearing in a tidy circle of rocks, as I’d learned to do in Camp Fire Girls.  By the time I had finished the clearing and started collecting wood, the morning and my energy were waning.  But I persisted.  Found a couple of fairly smooth, dry sticks and optimistically commenced rubbing them together, finally achieving two warm smooth sticks, but no spark. So, I searched out a dry branch with a notch in it, sharpened one end of a stick and started briskly spinning the point of the stick in the notch.  This time, I achieved a warm point, and utter exhaustion, but still, no fire.  Those in leadership positions in Camp Fire and Scouting should inform their charges of  the need for strength, endurance and abundant energy for anyone hoping to start a fire without matches.  In desperation, I tried using the hologram on one of my credit cards to create a spark, but this, too, failed.

Dispirited and weak from these exertions, I retreated to my shady spot and ruminated on my options. 
The night before, I had picked a few pine boughs for a bed, but these were inadequate.  I gathered more pine boughs, enough for bed and cover and, determined to be comfortable enough to actually sleep, arranged a bed on the flattest spot on my out-crop.  I resolved to rest as well as possible and start hiking out at first light.  I visualized the trail map, which was conveniently located back in the car, and realized that if I headed straight for the notch in the mountains, I would come to the road that ran between Crested Butte and Aspen before I reached the mountains.  That was Saturday afternoon and as the minutes and hours ticked past, I was sharply aware that Paul would be starting to worry. Occasionally, while trying to puzzle out my dilemma, I would think: “Well, enough of this.  I’ll just go call Paul, tell him where I am, then, I’ll find my way out.” 
There was an unbidden tape running through my mind of part of a Robert Frost poem:
“Who’s woods these are
I think I know
His house is in the village though…”
But it would follow those lines with:
…and that’s my problem.
Non-sensical, unconscious, but accurate.

In the late afternoon, just before sunset, when it would turn cold, I noticed dark clouds and then rain coming up the canyon.  I watched from the leeward (dry) side of the tree as the rain came and went.  Oddly, I remained perfectly dry as the rain quickly came and went.  My bed, however, was on the wet side of the tree and was soaked and useless for keeping warm.  In the Rocky Mountains, in summer, at that altitude, the sun shines brightly and it is baking hot during the days.  Then the sun sets and it can be bitterly cold, depending on how you are dressed and what your prospects are for shelter during the night.  I curled up in the dry, bare spot and tried to cover myself (not very effectively) with pine needles and dirt.  I shivered.  There seemed to be a ranch house in the canyon that I had not noticed during the day.  I had heard music earlier in the day.  Marching type music, which led me to surmise that there might be a band camp nearby.  They were playing “The Eyes Of Texas”.  Later, far into the night, there was singing.  Amazing Grace.  Over and over.  Must have been a church band camp.

I did get up and walk straight toward the notch in the mountains the next morning. 
As it turned out, I was less than two miles from the trail-head and my car. 
It took me two hours to cover that two miles.

When I got in the car, and looked in the rearview mirror, I almost gave myself a coronary.  Thought the wild, filthy face in the mirror was that of a certified bad guy, waiting to get me.

I drove back to town and called home.  Paul’s parents answered.  Paul was on his way.  The people in the town had organized a search when Paul called the facility manager and between them they realized that I’d been missing for three days.  My own fault for not telling anyone exactly where I was going and when I’d be back.

After this experience, I read a lot about wilderness survival.  One thing that experts recommend is to stay focused on why you want to survive; what you have to live for.
I did this automatically.  I was constantly, and increasingly as my situation worsened, focused on Paul’s face.  As soon as I got back into the town of Crested Butte, word spread that I was back.  Paul Hurd, the manager of the condo complex, who had spent the night searching the area trail-heads for me, made me a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich, the best one I ever ate.

Our friends Becky and Terry Hamlin, starting late Saturday night, had organized the search, found a picture of me in my purse and had made a poster and pinned it up in every church in town.  I took a much-needed shower, put on clean clothes and Becky drove me to the airport just in time to meet Paul.

I spotted Paul, as he stood at a pay phone, with his back to me.  He turned around and I could see his face.
I don’t regret the adventure, but I do  regret causing him anguish. The wild disarray I’d left in my wake at the condo, as I hurried out for my hike, led those who were looking for me to assume the place had been ransacked.

When I got back to Fort Worth, my dear friends, Sue and Alan Winter, showed up within an hour with a big box of Sweet Shoppe Fudge Love.  It was heaven.  I had lived all my life in Fort Worth and was unaware of the existence of Fudge Love.  I had always loved chocolate, but that box of Fudge Love inspired me to find out everything I could about chocolate and to pursue the finer varieties.