[pct-l] "I'm Fine.....Lost Hiker North Cascades

[Andrea Dinsmore]

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
realizing that it crossed the creek, continuing straight 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 calorie
intake. 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 were
all 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)

Message from PCT MOM.......

I hope this makes everyone think before they head out into the wilderness
during the winter. Think about your family and friends and what they
are going through back home. The completion of the trail in one year is
not worth your life. On the flip side.....the last 3 peoiple who saw Ian
blamed themselves for not taking more of a stand to keep him safe. I
know....it was his choice. But when the worse happens other try to take
the blame.

PCT MOM
Andrea Dinsmore