Survive! : The Temperature Was Below Zero, There Was No Food and His 45 Years Weighed More Than Any Backpack

The freezing temperatures, hip-deep snow, gales from mountain peaks and long, dark nights gnawed at our patience and resilience.

Night after night we crawled into our two-man coffins--3 1/2-foot-high hooches crudely carved out of a snow bank. Outside the temperature was zero, but inside the snow caves it was 26 degrees. Darkness in the mountains comes early. Some nights we spent up to 12 hours in our sleeping bags.

It became increasingly difficult to keep warm at night. There was little or no food to eat. Without food, the body, like a furnace, has no fuel to make heat.

Unfortunately, our attempts to catch fish in the ice- and snow-covered streams in the Sierra north of Yosemite National Park were unsuccessful. We had traps out for days at the foot of Lost Canyon Peak near Sonora Pass, but the rabbits and squirrels stayed clear.

Without food, strange things happen to your body. There are extreme emotional highs and lows, similar to those of a distance runner. At times you think you can continue forever, but that can abruptly change, your mind turning to thoughts of failure and defeat.

The high altitude left us breathless even during the shortest treks in the deep snow. Blizzard-like conditions would come up without warning. The dryness at 8,850 feet caused our skin to crack and bleed and the little cuts never seemed to heal. Some mornings our throats were so dry it was impossible to swallow without a drink of water.

When the fires went out at night everything would freeze--water, toothpaste and damp socks.

We began to look thin and smell bad. Increasingly, we viewed our adventure as an ordeal.

One night as I lay awake in my sleeping bag, frantically moving my feet and legs to keep them warm, I asked myself: Why are you doing this?

Couldn’t I write this story without staying out here for five nights and six days? Was it reasonable to think that a 45-year-old journalist could survive in the freezing mountains without food in the middle of winter with a group of much younger, better-trained Marines?

I was at the U. S. Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center at Pickel Meadows in the Sierra, just northwest of Bridgeport, Calif. My fellow students were Marine pilots, navigators and crew members from air stations at El Toro, Tustin, Camp Pendleton, Hawaii and North Carolina.

It was cold weather, trench foot and frostbite that prompted the Marine Corps to open the Mountain Warfare Training Center 36 years ago to train Marines bound for the Korean War so they could “survive, maneuver and fight in mountain and cold-weather environments.”

In the winters of 1950 and 1951 it was so cold in Korea that the wounded died because there was no way to thaw the plasma. Troops fell to the ground complaining that their feet had fallen asleep when they were really suffering from acute frostbite. The earth was frozen so hard the men could not dig foxholes. The water in their canteens turned to solid ice.

Although it is almost a world apart, the Sierra near the training center looks much like the mountains in North Korea in the winter. Both are located on the same latitude near the 38th parallel.

Each year at the center, some 10,000 Marines are taught ways to survive in the mountains in both the winter and summer. The center, located on a portion of the Toiyabe National Forest, is considered one of the Marine Corps’ most remote and isolated posts. Instructors teach survival to small groups of Marine aviators and mountain maneuvers to battalions.

Before being sent into the wilderness, survival groups learn basic skills in a classroom, such as how to start a fire from flint, how to treat hypothermia and frostbite, how to make snowshoes, and how to build shelters. Once out in the mountains, instructors check on their students each day.

After two days of classroom instruction, our group of 15 Marines and one reporter was divided into three squads and loaded onto a CH-46E transport helicopter.

Times photographer Don Kelsen accompanied the group into the wilderness. He, however, would return to civilization Friday evening. The rest of us were there for the duration.

It was Thursday, Jan. 28. The helicopter flew north and landed in a snow-covered, desolate meadow at about 9,000 feet near a large mountain called Mean Peak.

Sgts. William Archer and David Rawdon, survival instructors, pointed to the back door of the aircraft.

“This is it. Out,” Archer said, exaggerating his lip movement to overcome the noise of the helicopter. We found ourselves standing in knee-deep snow.

For the first time I felt anxious. All the speculation about what it would be like in the wilderness for nearly a week with little food was no longer going to be left to my imagination. We had arrived.

Marine Capt. Joseph M. Cooke, 33, an F/A-18 fighter pilot from the Marine Corps Air Station at El Toro, was the senior ranking officer in our squad. He automatically assumed leadership. Unlike most of us, Cooke, a lean runner who will enter his first marathon this year, had little problem maintaining stamina during the long hikes.

At times, Cooke seemed more like a teacher than a leader. He was always willing to help others. Survival training was sort of like bleeding, he would say with a smile. “No one wants to practice bleeding.”

Other members of the First Squad were 1st Lt. Darren (Gus) Hargis, 26, a CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter pilot from Tustin; lst Lt. Robert Venegas, 28, an A-6 Intruder bombardier/navigator from El Toro; Sgt. Terrance M. Skweres, 27, a CH-53E crew chief from New River, N.C.; Lance Cpl. Richard T. Fortin, 23, a Huey helicopter crew chief from Camp Pendleton; and George Frank, 45, reporter for the Los Angeles Times, from Hermosa Beach.

Hargis, an easygoing man who passed much of the time talking about different kinds of fried chicken, said with unusual seriousness the first day in the wilderness:

“It’s part of the macho image, part of being gung ho. You get up here and you really test yourself. Six days without food and you get to know yourself. That’s one of the things I’ve always gotten out of the Marine Corps; I have always known who I am.”

The first night brought an unexpected treat, one of the few during the six days.

After a demonstration on how to kill, skin and gut an animal, the instructors divvied up the raw meat from a domestic rabbit.

At the instructors’ urging, some of the men swallowed the rabbit’s eyes and chewed its tongue for nourishment.

I did not volunteer when the raw parts were distributed.

My share came to a small portion of the rabbit’s liver and an ounce of meat from one leg. Cooked over the fire, the meat helped to warm me up as my first day in the wilderness came to a close.

At 7 p.m., we crawled into our sleeping bags, sheltered from the wind by lean-tos made of tree branches and lined with ponchos.

Although I had never even been camping before, I learned quickly. The most important pieces of equipment are your boots and your sleeping bag. I learned that if anything happens to them no one else is going to give up theirs.

On Friday, I awoke at 5 a.m., snow covering my sleeping bag. During the night, the wind had blown down part of our hut.

Cooke had started a fire. The flames were being whipped by gusts of wind and the smoke was sent in all directions. It was still dark, and I found myself looking to the east in hopes I would see the sun coming up.

High winds and deep snow marked our second day. We had to march two hours to our permanent camp site at Summit Meadow where the squad would be divided into smaller, two-man units. My partner would be Cooke. Each unit would build a hooch.

I viewed the march as a significant hurdle to overcome. Dressed in a long parka, wool shirt, cold-weather pants with suspenders, vapor-lock cold-weather boots, cotton socks, thick leather gloves and liners, sunglasses, wool cap, long underwear, a makeshift backpack weighing 40 pounds, a survival vest, and snowshoes that I had made, I started to walk.

I pulled my parka hood up over my head to protect my face against the wind and snow. I concentrated on one step at a time, never looking up to see how far we had to go or how far we had come. I followed the steps of those in front of me. The altitude quickly took its toll. I had to slow my pace. As I walked I thought about my age. The cold made my nose run and ice formed on my mustache.

There was little time to rest when we reached Summit Meadow because darkness comes quickly in the mountains. Each two-man team had to dig a shelter out of the snow bank. Frames had to be found to support the poncho ceilings. Wood had to be gathered for a fire and someone had to find fresh water.

Days in the wilderness seem neither long nor short. Each person has his tasks that have to be done. Because of the layers of clothing and the high altitude, movement turned to slow motion. Routine tasks took longer.

At night, we would stay around the fire until the cold that came with the darkness drove us into our snow huts and sleeping bags.

Getting ready for bed took as long as 20 minutes. The big, cold-weather boots were removed first, exposing sweat-soaked socks that would steam in the cold. The insides of the boots had to be wiped immediately to prevent them from freezing.

Foot powder was a must to protect our feet against trench foot and possible frostbite. Cotton socks were worn inside the boots but wool socks were used at night inside the sleeping bag.

The heavy parkas are rolled up carefully at night and used as pillows. Minus your boots and parka, you crawl inside the sleeping bag and undress down to your long underwear. Your cap, gloves, shirt and pants remain in the bag so they will be warm in the morning. You zip up the sleeping bag with your face remaining outside and wait for the bag to warm up.

It takes as long as 30 minutes to get your feet warm. When the bag gets warm, your head is drawn inside much like a turtle. A small hole remains open at the top of the bag for air to come in and out.

Saturday the temperature broke above freezing for the first time. Squad members who sat motionless in the early morning came alive as the day warmed up. It was warm enough to take what is called an air bath, in which you take off your clothes and let yourself air out. I only took off my shirt and long john top and stood shivering in the cold for about four minutes. I did feel better.

Venegas and Hargis worked on a new snow hut to replace the one that literally filled with snow the night before. Cooke and I worked to improve our hut, which had sprung snow leaks that Cooke had plugged with socks.

We had fires in the early morning and late afternoon.

I spent much the day collecting firewood. I thought about the coming night that would mark the halfway point.

The warmth of the day vanished with darkness that brought howling winds.

It was cold and getting colder.

As I lay awake, I mentally ran through what I had eaten since Thursday and what survival food remained. The individual survival packet (which looks just like a can of Spam) included a two-ounce granola bar, four ounces of corn flake bars and a two-ounce rice and corn flake bar. All the bars reminded me of thin slices of fireplace logs made of compressed sawdust. The survival can included a seven-gram packet of chicken-flavored soup that could be dissolved in eight ounces of water. The last items were packets of instant coffee and sugar, enough for one cup.

In three days I had eaten the granola bar and one corn flake bar, and the chicken soup.

Friday night I had drunk the instant coffee, a treat that I savored by adding small amounts of additional hot water until the coffee taste completely disappeared.

Most of the time we drank pine needle tea, a bitter brew made by adding pine needles to hot water.

The hunger pangs only lasted for the first couple of days. With no real possibility of eating, I seemed to forget about food.

What I did notice was an increased awareness of my energy level and the growing difficulty of accomplishing simple tasks such as walking, starting fires and getting ready for bed each night.

I missed my wife, my warm bed at home, the three bathrooms with showers and toilets, television, news about politics, the stock market, coffee, newspapers, a beer and a refrigerator to look into.

I didn’t miss the crowded freeways, the smog or taking out the garbage.

It was 3:30 a.m. Sunday and I had been awake since 10:30 p.m. I had been fighting a growing desire to go to the bathroom and a growing coldness in the sleeping bag.

It was zero outside and 26 degrees inside the hut.

It was becoming difficult to keep my sleeping bag warm. My feet were numbed by the cold. I rubbed them together frantically to restore some feeling. My left shoulder and hip felt as if they were frozen from sleeping on my left side. I rubbed my feet and moved my legs until I was exhausted. They did not want to get warm.

Being real cold, I learned, comes from the inside out, rather than from the outside in. I fought off the desire to shiver, attempting to save that as a last resort to warm my body.

The only thing separating the cold-weather sleeping bag from the ground was a thin mat designed to keep the cloth bag dry and away from the ice and snow.

Each night became an ordeal.

On Sunday night--the fourth night--I could hardly sleep. During the day, members of the squad had tried to catch fish, using a hook baited with salmon eggs and tied to a string. The attempts were unsuccessful. Some men gave up and ate the bait. I went to bed hungry. When I did sleep, I would have a recurring dream in which heavy snow would cover up the hooch. When I would dig out I would find that everyone had gone.

There was a lot of time to think.

I wondered if my wife had been right. Was I deep into a mid-life crisis and had to prove I could compete with 20-year-olds by going through a survival school in the snow, in the middle of the winter without food in the Sierra Nevada?

Mentally I went over and over exactly how I got there.

It had all started during a discussion with Maj. Gen. D.E.P. Miller, the commanding general of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing. I had mentioned that the survival school would “make a good story.”

Miller noted that the Mountain Warfare Center has summer survival courses.

Winter would be the best, I had said.

Maybe the instructors felt sorry for us. Whatever the reason, late Monday they surprised us each with a can of cola, two raw hot dogs and two pieces of bread. Each squad was given a small can of chili.

The hungry Marines glanced at the fire for a moment but discarded any thoughts of cooking the food when someone yelled out that there was more energy in raw hot dogs. We quickly wrapped them in the bread and ate them raw.

I just can’t forget how sweet the hot dogs tasted. The food felt so good going into my empty stomach.

As I digested it, I felt a surge of energy. I knew I now had nearly l,000 calories to get me through the last night and the next morning.

That night we stayed up late, talking about fried chicken and big rare steaks as we stared into the fire.

Tuesday morning, we were up early. It felt like the last day of school. As we walked away from the camp no one looked back. We were powered by thoughts of civilization.

As we walked we joked and laughed a little more than usual. Once safely stowed in the back of a diesel-driven snow cat on the last leg of the trip down the mountain, I studied the beauty of the rugged, snow-capped peaks.

The first things I wanted to do when I got to camp were take a hot shower, brush my teeth and shave. As I stood under the hot water, the wilderness adventure began to take the shape of a memory.

I had lost 11 pounds in six days.

The instructors announced that I was the first civilian and one of the oldest people to go through the survival course.

A young Marine pulled me aside to congratulate me for completing the course. Looking around as if to make sure no one was eavesdropping, he asked, “How old are you?”

“That’s the same age as my father ,” he said somewhat incredulously as he walked away.

That night Cooke, Venegas, Hargis and I had big steaks, fried chicken and red and white wine at a restaurant at Topaz Lake on the California-Nevada border.

As I ate my chicken and hot mashed potatoes with butter on the top, I could not stop thinking about how good the raw hot dogs wrapped in two pieces of bread had tasted the night before in the mountains.

The whole experience had given me a new confidence about what I could do.

I had survived in the Sierra Nevada in the middle of the winter living in a snow hut with very little food.

I felt I could do it again, but next time I wouldn’t volunteer.