The day before Tiffany Slaton’s 28th birthday, she was looking forward to eating a pack of Dunkaroos — cookies with frosting dip — that she’d saved as a makeshift birthday cake. It was the only real food she had left after surviving 24 days lost in the Sierra Nevada mountains, subsisting on wild leeks and boiled snow.
What had originally started as a three-day solo camping vacation around Shaver and Huntington lakes in Fresno County, California, turned into a weekslong journey of survival. It ended at a cabin more than 40 miles away, at Vermillion Valley Resort, where Slaton was found by the resort’s owner on Wednesday.
By the time she was rescued, Slaton had endured 13 snowstorms and climbed to altitudes of 11,000 feet, officials said Friday. In addition to dropping 10 pounds from the ordeal, she also lost her tent and sleeping bags, and was forced to abandon her bike at a trailhead sign.
At a press conference Friday alongside her parents and Fresno County Sheriff John Zanoni, Slaton spoke publicly about her journey for the first time. Zanoni called her story one “they would make movies about.”
“It is truly an incredible story of perseverance, determination and survival,” the sheriff added.
Slaton, an experienced outdoors person from Jeffersonville, Georgia, was reported missing by her parents on April 29 after they had not heard from her in nine days, authorities said. A full-scale operation to locate Slaton was conducted from May 6 to May 10, spanning 600 square miles and deploying a helicopter.
Local authorities and volunteers covered 4,300 miles by foot and vehicle in search of Slaton, officials said Friday.
Slaton began her trek on April 20, equipped with basic camping supplies, including an electric bike, two sleeping bags and a tent, anticipating she would be gone for only a few days.
Early in her journey, Slaton fell off a cliff, she said, and was unable to return to the main road due to a recent avalanche. She was unconscious for about two hours, and upon regaining consciousness she had to splint one of her legs and “pop the other knee back into place.”
She attempted five calls to 911 — without success — and couldn’t get her phone’s navigation system to work, she said Friday. Frustrated, she asked her phone for the location of the nearest Starbucks — it gave her a location 18 miles away, which was closer than retracing her path back to the park’s entrance.
Slaton pressed on, relying on her resourcefulness and what she could find in the wilderness. Her skills as a high-level archer, her medical knowledge as a traveling dialysis technician and her horticultural training proved crucial to her survival. She journaled every day in an effort to “keep sane.”
“The worst thing you can do in an emergency situation is panic,” Slaton said.
After five days, Slaton ran out of most of her food and relied on her foraging skills to gather leeks she knew to be native in the Sierra Nevada range. She said she made tea each day with manzanita and pine needles.
Slaton navigated the Kaiser Pass, a 9,000-foot peak buried under 10 to 12 feet of snow before it was plowed earlier this week. She eventually made her way to the Vermilion Valley and Lake Edison, where she was finally rescued.
When Slaton first saw the Vermilion Valley Resort cabin, she thought she was hallucinating and “had somehow managed to make it to the North Pole.” She opened the door, which was unlocked, and inside she found what she described as “the best sleeping bag I had ever seen.”
Slaton was found on Wednesday — the day before her 28th birthday — by resort owner Christopher Gutierrez. Snowplows had cleared the roads, allowing him access to his property to prepare it for the summer. Gutierrez told authorities he left the cabin unlocked in case a stranded hiker would need shelter.
“That was the 13th heavy snowstorm I had been in, and it was going to be the last one,” Slaton said. “If he hadn’t come that day, they would’ve found my body there.”
Zanoni called it a “miracle” that the road happened to be plowed on Tuesday, enabling Gutierrez to arrive the next day. When Slaton was found, the resort owner said he recognized her from her missing person report.
“She pops out, didn’t say a word, just ran up, and all she wanted was a hug. And it was, it was a pretty surreal moment,” Gutierrez said at a press conference Wednesday. “And that’s when I knew. That’s when I realized who this was.”
