Survival in the Wild

After a few minutes, the cold and wind began to take its toll.  My face felt freezer burned, my hands were numb, and I had little feeling in my feet.  I stopped and glanced back toward the airplane I was leaving.  Even though I hadn’t gone very far, I couldn’t see the plane.  I had to keep moving and stay focused on where I was going.

I picked out a landmark on the side of the mountains.  I kept my eyes on that mark so as to walk straight and not lose my sense of direction.  I remembered Grandpa Ben telling me on one of our Big Gum Swamp hunting trips, “Toby, most people that get lost die because they lose their sense of direction.  Instead of walking straight, they wander around in circles.”  Thinking of Grandpa Ben gave me courage, but at the same time, I wondered if I would ever be able to see him again.

Slowly I made my way toward the landmark.  Step by step, I kept my focus.  At times the snow made it difficult to see, but the snow glasses helped.  Finally, I made my way to the base of the mountain.  I stopped to rest a minute.  I slipped the backpack off and leaned it up against some kind of evergreen.  Back home, I knew every kind of tree by its leaf or bark, but up here, I didn’t know one tree from another.

Since I hadn’t crossed the river we were following, I figured it must be on the other side of the airplane.  I wondered where I was.  I wondered, too, if there was a hunting cabin anywhere close by. In the movies, the lost person suddenly came upon a cabin that had lots of food and soon a roaring fire would be blazing---but this was no movie, and no cabin was in sight.

After a few minutes rest, I grabbed a handful of snow to quench my thirst and started my hike into the interior of the mountain timber.  I was amazed at how the evergreen trees had sheltered the ground from the snow.  The ground below the trees was also covered with snow, but it seemed to be only about a foot deep whereas the open valley probably had three to four feet.  In fact, I took off my makeshift snowshoes and tied them to my backpack.  As I glanced up, I could see just as much snow on the branches as there was on the ground.  Frequently I could hear some of the branches snap and fall from the weight of the snow.