A man who got lost in California’s mountains for more than a week – after heading out on what he expected would be a hike of just a few hours – survived his ordeal by drinking creek water and eating wild berries, he told a local news station.
“I didn’t bring anything” besides a flashlight and folding scissors because “I thought I was doing a three-hour hike” on the way to work, Lukas McClish told KSBW for an interview published on Saturday.
McClish spoke out about his experience in the Santa Cruz mountains after about a half-dozen tourists in the Greek islands – including Americans – were either found dead or went missing upon setting out on hikes in unusually high temperatures across much of the world.
As McClish told it, the 34-year-old outdoors enthusiast from Boulder Creek, California, lost his bearings after beginning his hike the morning of 11 June. He had not informed anyone else of his plans, so it would not be until the afternoon of Thursday, 20 June, that the unkempt-looking hiker was found at the bottom of a remote canyon and rescued.
McClish spent much of the interim going up and down canyons, sitting by waterfalls and using his boot to collect water to drink and keep himself hydrated. He also sustained himself by collecting and eating berries, he said.
At one point, McClish said to KSBW, a mountain lion began following him – but the creature kept its distance and showed no interest in harming him. He said he would sleep on a bed of wet leaves, intermittently yell for help and think of what he would do to provide himself his next meal.
McClish described craving a burrito and a taco bowl constantly for the first five days of his disappearance. He thought “I might be in over my head” about five days in, but he never felt overly imperiled.
“I felt comfortable the whole time I was out there – I wasn’t worried,” McClish said to the news outlet. “I think it was just somebody watching over me.”
McClish’s family deduced something must have gone wrong when there was no sign of him on Father’s Day, which was on Sunday, 16 June. They reported him as a missing person to the local sheriff’s office, which mounted a search for McClish that involved dozens of law enforcement officers as well as first responders from around Boulder Creek.
“Some nights, I just had to trust God that he was going to be OK, and that was hard to do,” McClish’s mother, Diane, told KSBW. “Some nights when we would go to bed at night … I would worry about where he was, where he was sleeping and how cold he was and where he was if he was alive.”
The Boulder Creek area registered six days with highs above 80F (26.6C). The high on 11 June was reportedly 98F (32.2C), though for several days the low temperatures were relatively cold at less than 49F (9.4C).
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Eventually, people heard McClish’s screams for help, the Santa Cruz county sheriff’s office said in a statement. The agency used several drones to find McClish in a densely wooded area. First responders equipped with off-road vehicles were then able to get to him, bring him to safety and reunite him with his family, the sheriff’s office said.
The sheriff’s office noted that McClish had no major injuries.
Local fire department chief Mark Bingham told the Santa Cruz Sentinel that McClish’s resourcefulness was remarkable.
“About 10 days he survived in the wilderness, essentially, drinking out of the creek and eating wild berries,” Bingham said. “For the most part, he was disoriented and lost and surviving off of the land, which is pretty impressive to say what a tough individual he … is.”
Diane McClish told KSBW that she was grateful not only for the first responders, but also for her community’s residents, many of whom had supportive words for her after the Santa Cruz sheriff’s office announced the search for her son.
“I had … people come to me and tell me how much they love my son and how they just hoped that we would find him,” she told the news station. “I didn’t realize that so many people in this town love Luke.”
