‘I Didn’t Want to Die’ : Man’s Morning Hike Becomes 2 1/2-Day Survival Test

Kevin Duck considers himself a world-class mountain climber and figured his training hike to the top of Mt. Baldy and back Sunday morning would get him home in plenty of time for Mother’s Day dinner.

The 35-year-old telephone technician finally emerged from the woods 2 1/2 days later, amazingly little worse for wear but having contemplated his own death in freezing cold.

“I thought maybe I’d be like an old Eskimo, who lies down and dies in the cold. I hear it’s not a too-painful way to die. You just kind of fall asleep,” he said. “But I didn’t want to die. And I was wishing I could at least tell my family that I loved them.”

Rescuers who had scoured the southern slopes of Mt. Baldy on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday privately had worried that if the cold didn’t kill him, a mistaken step in the wrong direction would send him plummeting to his death.

Duck was wearing only sweat pants, a pile jacket, double-insulated climbing boots and a baseball cap when he set off for what was to be a three-hour hike. He had no food, no compass and no matches to start a fire, even as the water in searchers’ canteens was turning to ice.

“We were going to start looking [along the western slopes] because we had covered everything else, and I was expecting to find his body somewhere, because that way was so treacherous,” San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Lt. Les Breeden said Wednesday. “I’m amazed he came out. He’s one helluva hiker.”

Rescuers didn’t find Duck because he had become disoriented by the whiteout of snow and clouds at the top of the 10,000-foot-high peak. He unwittingly headed west, toward the most dangerous slopes of the mountain.

About 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, after one sleepless night on a ledge and another beneath a fallen tree, Duck happened upon a U.S. Forest Service ranger station in the San Gabriel Canyon’s East Fork, above Glendora.

Duck was effusive in his thanks to the 100 searchers--who came from Los Angeles, San Bernardino, San Diego and Kern counties--and promised them he would be better prepared next time.

“You want to take a compass and a topo map, and matches or a lighter,” he advised, “and generally be more prepared than you ever think you’ll have to be.”

But Sunday morning, Duck thought his outing would be no different than the other 100 or so hikes he had taken up to the top of Mt. Baldy, which rises above his home in Upland.

He set off about 8 a.m. under clear skies on a four-mile trek--and a 4,000-foot elevation gain--to the top. He was up there by 10 a.m.--only to find the snow-blanketed peak shrouded in blinding white clouds. “I tried to retrace my steps back down but I couldn’t get my bearings and I picked the wrong way. I couldn’t even tell you where I messed up,” he said.

As he used canyons for his descent, the worst part of the day was climbing around waterfalls and falling into streams, he said.

“I was shivering uncontrollably the first night,” he said. “I stayed on a ledge off the side of a steep waterfall and covered my head and arms with a day pack. I knew I had to keep my head warm,” he said. Snow was falling and the temperature was in the upper 20s, he estimated.

Monday was no easier. “It took a phenomenal amount of effort to climb out of canyons to avoid the waterfalls, and then to find a re-entry point back into the canyon because, from above, you can’t see where you’re going and whether there’s a drop-off,” he said.

Monday night, he found shelter beneath a fallen tree and covered himself with leaves. He was warmer by then, but still wet from rainfall and growing increasingly weak. He was afraid to eat wild plants because they might be toxic.

By noon on Tuesday, he stumbled across an abandoned campsite and “my spirits soared,” Duck recalled.

After dark Tuesday--unsure if he could survive a third night in the wild--he finally came across the ranger station, and was whisked home for hugs and I-love-yous.

“I told my mom,” he said, “ ‘Next year I’ll stay home all day and take you out to lunch.’ ”