The day I almost died on Black Mountain

The Day Mother Nature Almost Took My Life

When I was 19 years old, my first year out of high school, a couple of friends and I were drinking all night long. At some point, we decided to go up into the mountains in my friend Brad’s little pickup truck. We were planning to drive all the way from the Indian reservation and eventually come out near Peppermint, which was probably about a three-hour drive.

I didn’t want to go.

I had to work later that same day, and all I wanted to do was go home, get some sleep, and be ready for work. But these guys insisted I go. It was Brad’s truck, and if I didn’t go with them, I would have to walk home.

So I went.

About an hour into the drive, the road started getting narrower and narrower. Before we knew it, the road had basically disappeared. Brad had accidentally gotten off the main road and onto some damn fire trail.

What an idiot.

We eventually got the truck stuck, and I was pissed. I already knew there was no way we were getting that little pickup unstuck. So I decided to leave those two guys there and walk myself out.

I knew I needed to head west and downhill.

So that’s what I did.

I started walking by myself through the mountains. It was the middle of summer, and it was brutally hot. We had no water. The only thing we had brought with us was a couple of beers, which we had already drunk.

And as anyone knows, beer isn’t exactly what you want when you’re already dehydrated.

It makes things worse.

I was unbelievably thirsty.

As I walked, I eventually came across some cows. I figured there had to be water somewhere nearby. Cows don’t just wander around the mountains in the middle of summer for no reason. If they were alive, they had to know where the water was.

So I started following them.

I also knew I needed to keep heading west, so I followed the cows for about an hour. Eventually, though, they disappeared and I was on my own again.

That’s when I ran into a huge patch of thick trees.

They looked like they were made out of chocolate.

They were actually manzanita trees.

These things were incredibly thick, and the ground started sloping downward at a pretty steep angle. I realized I could either climb back up and go around the whole patch, which probably covered three or four acres, or I could try to crawl through it.

I was already exhausted.

Three or four acres might not sound like much, but when you’re on a steep mountainside, dehydrated, exhausted, and roasting in the middle of summer, it’s a damn long way.

I was too tired to climb back up and go around.

So I crawled through it.

I probably crawled about an eighth of a mile through those manzanita trees, and they were eating me alive. Branches were scratching me, grabbing my clothes, and tearing me up.

Finally, I made it through.

I came out near some huge granite boulders. I had worked my way down from the tall pine trees where we had gotten the truck stuck into the lower foothills. The landscape had changed. There were dry grasses, rolling hills, and giant granite rocks everywhere.

I had made some progress.

I climbed onto a big granite rock and sat down to rest.

From where I was sitting, I could see the valley floor below me. All I could see were rolling hills stretching out in every direction.

Then something caught my eye.

Something was glimmering in the sunlight way down in the valley.

I couldn’t tell what it was, but it was shiny.

I thought, Oh my God. I might be saved.

I had found civilization.

At least, that’s what I hoped.

That little glimmer gave me my second wind.

I got back up and started heading downhill toward it.

The closer I got, the bigger and clearer the shiny object became. I still couldn’t tell what it was. I was hoping and praying it was a car, a cabin, or anything that might have people in it.

So I started hoofing it.

I was moving pretty good.

Then, all of a sudden, I started hearing a rattling sound.

Not one rattling sound.

Rattling sounds everywhere.

I looked down.

I was standing in the middle of a freaking rattlesnake patch.

I was terrified.

I started moving, and then I stepped on a snake.

I scared it.

It scared me.

We both jumped.

I took off running as fast as I could for probably 30 yards until I was finally out of the snake-infested area.

Then I stopped.

And I started dry-heaving.

There was nothing in my stomach.

Absolutely nothing.

Maybe a little stomach bile, but that was it. The beer had long since been pissed out of me.

I was dehydrated, exhausted, terrified, and absolutely miserable.

But that shiny object was still down there.

So I kept going.

About 45 minutes later, I finally reached it.

It wasn’t a car.

It wasn’t a cabin.

It was an old, beat-up little shack.

It looked like it had been built sometime in the early 1900s. There were wooden floors, rat shit everywhere, a little bit of old trash, and absolutely nothing useful inside.

No sink.

No water.

Nothing.

But I did find one thing.

A salad dressing bottle.

That told me somebody had been there at some point. I figured the bottle was probably from the 1970s.

I wasn’t about to drink whatever old salad dressing might still have been inside it, so I emptied it out and kept the bottle.

Other than that, the shack was useless.

I walked back outside and started looking around for a trail, a road, a house—anything.

All I could see were rolling hills, dry grass, granite rocks, and the blazing summer sun.

I was depressed.

I was thirsty.

I was hot.

I was exhausted.

I was beginning to think I might actually die out there.

Then something caught my eye.

A water trough.

A big water trough.

It was probably there for the local cattle—the same cows I had been following earlier.

My heart jumped.

Water!

I crawled over to that trough as fast as I could.

I looked inside.

It was full.

I didn’t even think.

I stuck my hands into it, shoved my face down into the water, and started drinking.

It was freaking refreshing.

For about 20 seconds, it was the greatest thing I had ever tasted.

Then I lifted my head and looked down into the trough.

That’s when I saw them.

Millions of tiny little things swimming around in the water.

Amoeba-looking things.

Little organisms.

Bugs.

God knows what they were.

All I knew was that I had probably just swallowed thousands of them.

Maybe tens of thousands.

And what did I do?

I puked.

I puked that water right back up.

Every last drop.

There was no way I was going to drink that nasty, bug-infested water.

So I was back to square one.

Thirsty.

Hot.

Miserable.

And running out of options.

Then I noticed something else.

There was a little pipe running along the edge of the trough.

And it was dripping.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

It was obviously there to keep the trough filled as the cows drank from it and as the water evaporated. A slow, steady supply of fresh water was constantly feeding into the trough.

Then the wheels started turning in my head.

I remembered the salad dressing bottle.

I went back to the shack, grabbed the bottle, emptied whatever was left in it onto the ground, and brought it back to the pipe.

I held the bottle underneath that little drip.

And I waited.

And waited.

For at least half an hour.

Finally, I had about a third of a bottle of water.

I drank it.

And it was beautiful.

Fresh water.

No bugs.

No amoebas.

No cow shit.

Just fresh, clean water coming straight from the pipe.

I sat there for another hour or so, maybe an hour and a half, filling the bottle and drinking it. Then I filled it one more time.

That last bottle was for the road.

I knew I still had to make it to civilization.

So I started walking again.

The water in that little salad dressing bottle lasted maybe 45 minutes. I had already been drinking from it along the way, so I opened it again and finished what was left.

I was now down in the lower foothills at the base of Black Mountain.

By the way, the mountain we had gotten stuck on was called Black Mountain. It’s between the Indian reservation and Springville, California.

I knew civilization couldn’t be too far away.

But when you’re that exhausted, a mile feels like ten miles.

I kept climbing over one rolling hill after another.

And then, finally…

I saw it.

Upper Globe Drive.

I knew I had made it.

Upper Globe Drive is in the RRR area, a little community where a lot of fairly nice, upper-middle-class homes are located.

I had finally reached civilization.

I walked up to one of the houses and knocked on the front door.

A big, old, corn-fed-looking white guy answered.

He looked at me.

I must have looked like absolute hell.

I was scratched up, sweaty, dirty, exhausted, and wearing torn-up clothes.

He looked at me and said,

“Who are you running from, boy? Are you running from the law?”

Apparently, I looked like I was a fugitive.

I said, “No, sir. No, sir. I was stuck up on top of that mountain on the other side of the ridge. It took me about eight hours to get here. I thought I was going to die.”

Then I told him I still had two friends up there and that I hoped they were okay.

Come to find out, those two bastards had made it back to RRR about two hours before I did.

My friend Heidi had picked them up on Globe Drive.

So apparently, I had taken the absolute wrong route.

I had left about an hour before they did, and they still made it back to civilization two hours before me.

I definitely took the scenic route.

Heidi told me that Brad had green stuff all around his mouth and on his lips from trying to get moisture out of dry grass, leaves, and weeds.

I guess they were just as thirsty as I was.

The difference was that they had taken the right way out.

I had taken the wrong way.

I had crawled through a manzanita jungle.

I had walked through a rattlesnake patch.

I had found an abandoned shack.

I had drunk from a cow trough.

I had puked up that water.

I had spent hours collecting water one drip at a time from a pipe.

And somehow, I had finally made it out.

That was the day Mother Nature almost took my life.

I was only 19 years old.

It was the middle of summer.

I had no water, no food, no map, no idea exactly where I was, and no real understanding of how dangerous the situation had become.

I just knew I had to keep moving.

And somehow, I made it.

That was the closest I ever came to dying from the elements.