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…
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