Incline skier learns lesson in winter survival

Many holiday travelers returned fatigued from battling long lines at airports, delays and lost luggage. Incline High School science teacher Steve Brown returned from his journey happy to be alive.

He set off for California's Desolation Wilderness on Dec. 26 at 3 a.m. Brown had a three-day wilderness permit to ski from the National Forest Service.

"I was mostly walking, since the snow had turned into virtual concrete from the cold temperatures and lack of recent snow," he said. "I was hoping to catch a good sunrise at one of the higher lakes."

The snow had turned into a breakable crust, Brown said as he walked up over a steep bowl through a pass up near the top.

"It made it difficult to either walk or ski, but it still had a fairly smooth surface," he said.

One of Brown's goals was to photograph the wilderness in winter.

"I also managed to find some interesting shots skiing around Desolation Valley," he said. "But when I woke up Tuesday, several inches of snow had fallen under a gray canopy, and I was able to ski around for only a couple of hours before the weather started a turn for the worse."

Brown said he pondered whether to try to get out that morning or to wait another day.

"The problem was the condition of the old snow under the new snow," he said. He decided that the deeper layer of snow, which had become smooth and hard, would allow a poor attachment at best for the layer of new snow. In addition, the new powder could slide down into the long, steep bowl beyond the pass, so Brown decided to wait for the recent snow to consolidate.

"Unfortunately, that was the beginning of several days of heavy snow and monster winds up to 90 mph," he said. "To make matters worse, the snow was so deep, I was sinking up to my knees even with skis on."

The going was so difficult at this point, that Brown decided to hunker down in his tent, ration his food and fuel, and wait for safer conditions.

"Those conditions never arrived," he said. By Saturday morning, now nearly a week after he set out walking through the night, the three days' worth of food and water were nearly gone.

He used up the last of the fuel to melt a final bottle of water, grabbed his last hunk of cheese, and left his tent buried in the snow with most of his gear inside.

"The visibility in the wind and snow was almost zero, and the going was so difficult that I had to stop to breathe about every 10 to 20 steps on the climb up to the pass," Brown said.

He checked his location about every quarter mile on his GPS, and he double-checked by referring every so often to his compass.

"Even so, I did make one small miscalculation," he said. Brown ended up going to a lower-elevation lake, which resulted in a long, difficult climb back up.

"At that point, getting out of the bowl was definitely a struggle for each single step," he said. "If I hadn't brought skins for my (climbing) skis I probably would never have made it out."

Brown said one of the skins was beginning to lose its adhesiveness.

"At this point, any equipment failure - a broken pole, a loose binding - would have been serious," he said.

Brown said he considered more than once the possibility of waiting out the evening in a tree well.

"But finally, four or five hours after I had begun, I made it to the pass - and the bowl that I had been worried about in terms of an avalanche," he said.

But the western-facing slope had become wind-packed; this helped keep the coverage relatively thin and the snow consolidated, according to Brown.

"By the time I reached the bottom of the bowl, however, I still had about four miles to go in very deep snow," he said. "And when I reached for my bottle of water for my first drink of the day, you can imagine my annoyance when I found it had cracked and all my water was gone."

Brown said he was too dehydrated at this point to eat the last of his cheese.

"It was then that I switched to Plan B," he said. Brown had two lakes to cross. Because the first one was frozen, it took only 45 minutes to cross, but the second, two-mile-long lake wasn't solid enough to cross.

Brown was relieved to see some boarded-up summer cabins in the area, however.

"I was fortunate enough to find one just before dark," he said. He entered the cabin through an upstairs window, and once inside found just what he needed to survive.

Most important, the owners had stored several pots of water in the cabin. Brown saw the gas stove and then realized the gas service hadn't been discontinued. He also found canned spaghetti and a supply of firewood.

"The next morning was a slog coming out, but the storm had broken enough so that at least I didn't have to listen to the wind anymore - just the putter of helicopter blades overhead."

Brown was nearly back to his car. The helicopter that had been sent to search for Brown had not been able to take off until then because of the storm.