Gary Peters's Page

I have no idea what to put in my blog, or even if this is my blog.
So here's 1 of my 2 story's of my getting lost (caught) in the woods in a survival situation.
First is set in the Rocky mountains, I am out elk hunting with a rifle. I have walked about 2 hours from the truck into the deep mountain forests. I find a great wallow spot, and sit down for a watch.
After a while it begins to snow, you know that really calm, flakey, pristine stuff that is so beautiful and perfect. So I sit and snuggle into my coat and in joy the gift.
After a couple of hours, the wind starts to pick up. It start whipping the snow in big puffs. I look at my watch, and make my first BIG mistake. Twilight is at 8:30pm, and it's only 5 o'clock, I can sit for at least an hour more, and hump it back out, should reach the truck just at dusk. WRONG, as when a big storm blows in, the cloud cover pretty much blots out your twilight hours. So at about 6:00, I begin to see I'm loosing my light very fast.
By 6:30 I'm on the move, right into the face of a blizzard. The snow is pelting my eye's so bad it's like looking at flying needle's. I pull my hat down and look at the trail in front of me as I try to cruise along, (that was mistake #2). after an hour of walking with my head down, it's nearing pitch dark, and I've lost the trail somewhere a ways back. I have been following my compass heading for some time now.
I know that the storm has me confused, I recognize nothing about the terrain, or my surroundings. Everything has changed and I have a bad feeling about my situation.
I can't decide wether to back track, and find where I may have lost the trail, or push on hoping to cut a known land mark. I literally walk 10 steps in one direction, stop think, reason, turn around and go 15 steps in the other direction, stop, question, reason, reverse course, and head off again, 10 minutes, stop, think, go back to following my compass.
Now it's turning to total Blackness, if not for the snow at my knee's, I could be standing in an ink well. I look down at my rifle, the ice has been sticking to it for the past hour and a half. It has become in-cased in a 2" mold of solid clear ice. My arm is now part of the stock, frozen to it like a piece of a statue.
"Divine intervention", This strikes me as so funny, that I begin laughing hysterically. I the great hunter, may be found in the spring, in a block of ice, frozen to my rifle.
After my laugh, I say "OK, Im done, time to find a place to hunker down. There is a big blue spruce beside me, so I crawl under it's branches, remove my pack and get out my saw. Cut a few limbs, and weave then in over my head. I few more branches from surrounding tree's and I have a bit of a shelter from the wind and snow. I dig through my gear, and come up with a piece of a candle. There's plenty of ok kindling under the tree, and a good dead fall not to far away. The candle extends my flame plenty long enough to get a fire going (Thank you God).
To my advantage, because I'm most always alone, I do carry a good survival pack. These are the things in it I used. I had one of those foil emergency blankets, and a ripstop poncho, some tea, and a cup, a face mask, the piece of candle, Bic lighter and several back up methods of fire, the saw, and I had a some old dry food as well.
These are the things I will never be caught without again. a TARP, because those emergency foil blankets are crap, and will rip all to pieces before one half of a night of tossing and turning in the cold is over. PAIN Killers, trust me, after being hunkered over freezing for 12 hours, you will have a monster head ache!
The thing is, once I admitted I was lost, because I was prepared, the rest of the night was quite a blast!! Making a quick survival shelter, starting a warm fire, the 5 yr. old freeze dried food that the surface had worn off of, so it was mystery meal, that was so good!. A nice cup of tea, as one must remain civilized in these situations. A good cigar, that was only to be used to celebrate harvesting an elk, ah it was golden.
At around 2:00 am the storm broke, I built up my fire into a raging inferno that drove me out of my shelter. So I danced around it singing and remembering where we come from..
In the morning I stood outside my little house and said a farewell to the tree that kept me alive, turned around, looked down the mountain in one direction, it was a shear cliff. A couple of quick steps in that direction would have ended my walk through life.
And down the ridge a half mile or so in another direction, was the top of my truck.
I'm most thankful that I didn't find it the night before.