Missing camper ‘miraculously’ found alive after surviving weeks in snowy High Sierra
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When Christopher Gutierrez went to check in on his remote camping resort after a long, snowy winter in the High Sierra, he was met with a shocking discovery — a starving hiker holed up inside one of his cabins.
The woman, 27-year-old Tiffany Slaton from Jeffersonville, Ga., had been missing in the Fresno County wilderness for almost three weeks.
Gutierrez, who owns Vermilion Valley Resort, found Slaton around 2 p.m. Wednesday, just two days after Fresno County Sheriff’s Office officials announced they had scaled back search efforts for the missing camper.
“She pops out, didn’t say a word, just ran up and all she wanted was a hug,” Gutierrez said during a Wednesday evening news conference. “It was a pretty surreal moment and that’s when I realized who this was.”
News that Slaton had been found quickly reached her parents Bobby and Fredrina Slaton where, some 2,500 miles away in a Georgia clothing store, her mother had the exact same reaction as her daughter.
“I just grabbed somebody, I said, ‘Can I hug you?’ And I did,” Fredrina Slaton said. “I was crying and hugging.”
Bobby Slaton said it was one of the best days of their lives.
“We are extremely excited and happy to hear the news that my daughter is now safe,” he said. “A ton of weight has been lifted and we can’t thank the Sheriff’s Department of Fresno enough, the Search and Rescue team enough, and the community has been outstanding in the search for Tiffany.”
These five places in California’s wilderness are jaw-droppingly beautiful but stealthily treacherous, taking the lives of explorers and rescuers alike.
Slaton’s parents reported her missing on April 29 after they had not heard from her for more than a week. The Sheriff’s Office started searching for the missing camper and, thanks to tips from the public, learned that she had been seen at Huntington Lake on April 20 and near the old Cressman’s General Store on April 24.
Her location beyond that point was a mystery.
The Sheriff’s Search and Rescue team scoured nearly 600 square miles of the High Sierra looking for Slaton from May 6 to 10. Vehicles were unable to make it through Kaiser Pass because of heavy snow blocking the road, but helicopters were used to scout above Mono Hot Springs and around Lake Edison, where Slaton was ultimately found.
Snowplows cleared Kaiser Pass on Wednesday, which made it possible for Gutierrez to access Vermilion Valley Resort on Lake Edison for the first time this year, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
“We were sliding off the road, it was pretty dicey, icy, but we managed to get in there and spent about an hour and a half breaking up the ice,” Gutierrez said.
He planned the trip to check on the condition of his resort before the summer tourist season and said he felt compelled to get there sooner rather than later after hearing reports of a missing hiker in the region.
Gutierrez had purposefully left one of his cabins unlocked over the winter so that someone who is lost could increase their chances of surviving in the cold, stormy weather. Sheriff officials suspect Slaton survived by foraging from the land and using the cabin for shelter.
Lukas McClish lost 30 pounds in 10 days before he was rescued from Big Basin Redwoods State Park in Santa Cruz County.
After finding Slaton, Gutierrez gave her as many peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as she could stomach and contacted the Sheriff’s Office, which quickly arrived on scene with an ambulance. She was dehydrated, but was otherwise in good condition. She was taken to a hospital for further treatment, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Tony Botti commended Slaton’s resilience and survival skills, saying this is the longest stretch of time he’s seen someone go missing and come out alive.
“Two days, nine days, that’s amazing, but three weeks, it’s unheard of,” he said. “It speaks to the tenacity that Tiffany has, that she’s a fighter. She’s not going to give up.”
Sheriff’s officials will be interviewing Slaton to learn exactly what went on during the time she was missing and how she survived, he said.
Her parents said that they had raised their children with a love of the wilderness and always impressed upon them the importance of knowing how to fend for themselves.
“We believe that life is an adventure. Ever since the kids were younger, something that we focused on is how to survive if this happened, or how to survive if that happened,” Fredrina Slaton said. “So it’s nice to know as parents, that all the things that we’ve taught her, she actually did.”
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