Lost in the jungle? Locked in an Angeles National Forest parcel? Left your backpack next to a distinctive sagebrush and then wandered for an hour searching around thousands of similar sagebrush? Hiked back from a study site to a dead truck 30 miles from help?
Tell us your survival stories — whether during field work, recreation, or in your back yard. It’s happened to everyone and if you don't have a survival story, why not? Tell us!
Twitter has played with the concept recently (#ecologistconfessions). I confess that all the first examples listed are my own experiences. Not always my fault, though. I didn’t leave the truck lights on to drain the battery and kill the truck; that was my field partner. The field goddesses sent us a miracle — a colleague drove up to work in the area just as we were preparing to hike out for help. He had jumper cables! The rattlesnake trap, now, I brought that on myself.
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Extending from from the Idaho-BC border to Central California, the study corridor was 1,000 feet wide and 800 miles long. I was following an imaginary line across the landscape looking for wetlands in the California Delta corridor section. This involved hiking gently rolling grassland and, upon seeing a potential wetland, stopping to map the site, inventory plants, characterize soils and hydrology, and document other official wetland ecological information required by the Army Corps of Engineers. The last step was to pound in survey stakes and photo the wetland boundaries. It was an hour before sunset, almost the end of my field session (a 10 day stint with 10-14 hour work days), and I’d been hiking alone all day. My field partner and I leap-frogged — worked separate areas with one person ending at the vehicle and then driving ahead to the end of the other person’s segment. The truck left for me was further south, another 20 minutes if I kept moving.
A deep swale/gully about ten feet across and eight feet down to the water surface cut perpendicularly across the study corridor and stretched as far as I could see in both directions. This was the north side of an obvious wetland. I rushed through the data collection noting distinctive plants, mucky soil, sluggishly moving water among dense cattails in the gully’s bed. The only way to finish the work and return to the truck was to slide down the bank, wade across, and crawl up the other side.
At half way down the bank, I saw rattlesnakes in the moist grass below, between me and the cattails. Four big coiled rattlesnakes about three feet apart began to shift slowly as I dug my heels in the slick clay slope. Oops. I eased back up the slope and walked downstream but the swale widened and the water seemed deeper. Belly down on the bank, I plunged a survey stake into the water without reaching a bottom. The only spot narrow enough to (maybe) leap across was by the rattlesnakes.
I wanted to be finished. Didn’t want to hike out of the study corridor searching for a safer crossing and then return to do the photo and boundary staking on the south side of the gully. The time it took would have me racing back to the truck after sunset and then coming back here to look for wetlands tomorrow — my first of four days off.
So I carefully tossed onto the opposite bank my backpack with camera, data sheets, books, soil auger, and the mallet used to pound in stakes. I stuck a bundle of the flimsy lathe boundary stakes into the cattails beyond the rattlesnakes. Using them as a vaulting pole, I launched myself off, stretching out my legs ahead of me to the opposite bank. The stakes bent under me, my feet cycled wildly in the air, and I landed on my back in the water, smashing down cattails around the snakes.
Omg omg, how close is my head to the rattlesnakes?
The deep, clinging mud firmly embraced me, but loud rattles triggered another adrenaline rush. I surged out of the slime and whipped up the south side of the gully, encased in mud and algae but unbitten. After using the last of my drinking water to clean my hands, I took the photos, pounded in the damn stakes, and loped across the grassland.
I reached the truck well before sunset, but a new problem arose — how do I, covered with partially dried mud, sit in the truck? Grabbing newspapers from my plant press, I spread them on the driver’s seat, got in, and aimed the truck at Byron, the nearest town that I hoped had a gas station and water. It was sort of en route to where I planned to meet my partner. Luck was with me still: Byron had a gas station with a water hose by the gas pump. I held the hose over my head and began rinsing off mud.
Immediately, I was the most interesting thing to happen in Byron that day (maybe that week) and as I washed away as much mud as possible while still dressed, a group of guys were eyeing me with interest. Yeah, impromptu wet t-shirt contest starring a mud-wrestler. Someone began to make appreciative remarks, but I was not putting up with one more problem that day. I’d already hiked miles in 100oF sun and survived four rattlesnakes. Gathering up my power, I snarled at gas station guys threateningly and considered flinging some mud at them. I don’t know whether they thought I was too risky/pathetic to taunt, or actually felt some compassion for my situation, but they turned away. I finished hosing off what mud I could, dumped fresh newspapers on the seat, and drove off to fetch my field partner. He was lounging happily on a hill eating a granola bar. I slid out of the truck begging for his water bottle, and he laughed, handed it over, then grabbed his camera and took photos of me as I modeled my new look. I wadded up the muddy newspapers, saw they didn’t do a great job of trapping all the gunk, and made him sit on the muddy seat and drive. But I wasn’t really angry.
The work shift was over.
Everyone survived.
Even the rattlesnakes.
Here are some Twitter #EcologistConfessions
This one is worth a wince, but what dafuk is an ecologist doing driving into a potential wetland? Not to mention, what kind of field vehicle is that? It’s unsuitable for serious fields, uneven rocky roads, or sharp curves!
I admit, sometimes cattle spook me. Those horns — that huge bulk. Never been hurt, but the CDC does track death by cow so it’s a thing that happens. Llamas? I’m cool with llamas. Although, once I was chased by emus and ostriches.
I’ve survived more sketchy driving situations than I wish to remember. Glad one isn’t this tunnel!
Field peeing in grasslands and desert is problematic if you are within view of a road. One three mile long 3,000 foot wide study area’s only pee spot that wasn’t visible from the highway was a cattle-chute at one end of the corridor. I didn’t drink much water.
YOUR TURN, SURVIVORS, WHAT TROUBLE HAVE YOU CAUSED FOR YOURSELF OR WHAT HAS NATURE TOSSED AT YOU?
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