LOS ANGELES — A 28-year-old woman described Friday how she survived for weeks outdoors in California’s eastern Sierra Nevada by foraging for food and drinking melted snow after a solo camping trip went awry during harsh winter weather.
Tiffany Slaton detailed her ordeal during a news conference with the Fresno County Sheriff’s Department, two days after she was found in a cabin that the owner had left unlocked in case wayward hikers needed shelter. Authorities said she had been there for only eight hours before the cabin’s owner arrived and discovered her.
Slaton described being caught in an avalanche at one point, causing her to fall and hurt her leg. She didn’t say which day that happened. She had a bicycle, a tent, two sleeping bags and food, she said, but she ended up losing all of her equipment, leaving her with only a lighter, a knife and some snacks. She didn’t describe how she lost her tent or other gear.
After she fell, Slaton said she tried calling 911 five times with no success but got a GPS signal on her phone.
“I ended up on this very long, arduous journey that I journaled to try and keep sane and eventually managed to get to civilization,” she said.
Authorities called her survival stunning given the conditions. The cabin was more than 20 miles (32 kilometers) from where she had last been seen, and the mountains were covered in up to 12 feet (3.66 meters) of snow in some areas.
“I would have never anticipated her in my wildest dreams being able to get back as far as she did,” Sheriff John Zanoni said.
Slaton had been on an extended biking and backpacking trip that also included time in Oregon, department spokesman Tony Botti said. Her journey took her to the Sierras, where she decided to make the trek to the Mono Hot Springs before meeting a friend in mid-April, he said. She was last seen on April 20 by a security camera near Huntington Lake, an unincorporated mountain community, riding on a bicycle and also sitting on a sidewalk with a backpack.
Slaton’s parents, who live in Georgia, reported her missing on April 29 after they hadn’t heard from her in a week.
Slaton, who was a competitive archer in her home country of Bermuda, said her athleticism and foraging knowledge helped her survive. She had some snacks on her but eventually ran out.
The owner of Vermilion Valley Resort, Christopher Gutierrez, said his staff left cabin doors unlocked during the winter in case someone needed shelter during the frequent mountain snowstorms. His backcountry lodge sits in the Sierra Nevada about halfway between Yosemite and Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks and is a frequent stop for hikers on the John Muir and Pacific Crest trails.
Slaton found safe haven in one of those cabins during an intense snowstorm where all she could see was white, she said. It was just eight hours later that Gutierrez arrived to open the cabin for the season, authorities said.
“If he hadn’t come that day, I think they would have found my body there,” Slaton said.
Two days earlier, the Fresno County Sheriff’s office called off a search that had covered more than 600 square miles (1,550 square kilometers) of the Sierra National Forest, with no luck. Searchers were hampered by heavy snow blocking many roads.
Slaton emerged battered and bruised from the cabin Wednesday.
When she saw Gutierrez, she ran up to him to give him a hug.
“I really do have a new faith in humanity,” Slaton said of surviving her ordeal.