FRESNO, Calif. – When Tiffany Slaton took off on her electric bike from the Fresno County foothills in late April, she intended to spend just three days hiking and camping in the snowy high Sierra Nevada.
Then she vanished.
A massive search and rescue operation ensued. Her parents put out heartfelt calls for help on social media, and residents from all over the foothills called in to the sheriff’s office reporting potential sightings.
More than three weeks after she first set out, she was found, with only minor injuries. Slaton’s survival and rescue has captured the public’s attention not only because she was found alive, but also because she managed to survive under extreme conditions.
Slaton attributes her survival to her foraging skills, as well as her strength as a world-class athlete. But in the end, it was a simple unlocked cabin she stumbled upon at the edge of an alpine lake that may have made all the difference.
It was the owner of that property, known as Vermillion Valley Resort, who found her.
“Without Vermillion Resort, I would not be here,” Slaton said at a press conference on Friday. “That was the 13th heavy snowstorm I had been in and it was going to be the last one. If he hadn't have come that day, they would have found my body there.”
A three-day trip gone awry
Slaton set off on a multi-state bike-packing trip in January. She started in Oregon with the plan of cycling through California and into the Southwest for a few months. She was due to begin medical school in the Caribbean in early May.
She was equipped with an electric bicycle and a bike trailer carrying a tent, two sleeping bags, and other supplies including food and maps.
After reaching Huntington Lake on April 20, she biked part of the way up the rugged and partially snowed-in Kaiser Pass Road. She then left her bike at a trailhead with the intention of spending three days hiking to Mono Hot Springs and back.
But extreme weather and rugged terrain interfered.
“When I fell off of this cliff I was unconscious for about two hours and did indeed have to splint one of my legs and pop the other knee back into place,” she said. “From there I couldn't actually get back onto the road. The main road was blocked because of the avalanche that I'd been in.”
A lack of cell phone service prevented her from calling 9-1-1. She lost her way trying to find a different route back to her bike, then after being beset by more winter storms she eventually lost her phone, tent, sleeping bags and waterproof map.
The details of her weeks in the wilderness – and how exactly she avoided freezing to death without a tent and sleeping bag – are unclear. Slaton herself said she’ll review her journal, which she said she kept every day “to keep sane.”
Eventually, however, she managed to find her way to a cabin at Vermillion Valley Resort on the shore of Lake Edison. At first, she said she thought she might be hallucinating.
“It was a pristine Christmas tree and a tiny house and it had markers like Santa's sleigh,” she said, smiling. “I could not understand. I actually thought I was losing my mind at that point, that I had somehow managed to make it to the North Pole.”
It was here that Slaton’s skills as a forager became useful.
“The Sierra has a large selection of leeks that is hard to find in other places,” she said. “I managed to survive off of these leeks and boiling the snow melt for a very long period of time.”
She said she had also saved two indulgent treats for herself – a package of Dunkaroos and a serving of elderberry syrup – in case she should still be in the wilderness on her birthday.
But was found just a day shy of her 28th birthday.
After the resort owner called the authorities to report she had been found, sheriff’s deputies drove up to meet her. The Fresno County Sheriff’s Office had pushed out a missing persons report several days during Slaton’s disappearance.
When they reached her, a deputy gave Slaton his peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
“It was the best PB&J I've ever had,” she said.
Slaton was brought to a hospital and treated for dehydration, but had few other injuries. It took a few meals for her body to regain its ability to digest food other than leeks.
At the press conference held Friday, she was met with a wall of cameras and a handful of reporters who peppered her with questions about her disappearance, her survival and her eventual rescue. Slaton appeared in a bright yellow dress and a green shawl draped over her. Her hair was held together by a blueish head band.
But she also wore sunglasses. She said she was still suffering from snow blindness – a condition akin to sunburn on the retinas that is caused by too much exposure to the sun’s rays reflected off of bright white snow.
She also lost 10 pounds. Now, looking slight, she told reporters she may not have the classic build of a long-distance athlete, but that she was a top scoring archer in her native Bermuda and now works as an archery coach.
“In an archery session for two hours, we walk the equivalent of five miles and lift the equivalent of two tons. So, my body type is not necessarily going to look like a boxer’s, but it is indeed an athlete,” she said.
A massive search – and a hug
Slaton’s parents knew something was wrong when their daughter suddenly stopped calling them for their daily check-in. The last time they heard from her was on April 20. Nine days later, Slaton was officially reported missing.
The Fresno County Sheriff’s Office discovered she had last been seen in the Huntington Lake area on the same day she last made contact with her parents. They gathered deputies and volunteers in a search and rescue effort that combed through 4,300 miles of wilderness.
Sheriff’s Sgt. Scott Weishaar said the team had flown a search helicopter over the Lake Edison area, at an elevation of roughly 7,600 feet, but they never expected her to be staying at an elevation where snowdrifts were still 10 feet or higher in some places.
She was found 30 miles from where she had last been seen.
“In my last 15 years on search and rescue, we haven't experienced anything close to this,” Weishaar said. “It truly is a story of survival and determination by Tiffany [Slaton]. There's no other way I can explain it.”
Sheriff John Zanoni, too, described Slaton’s story as “incredible” and “heroic.”
It’s “something that you may see on TV, that they would make movies about,” he said.
Christopher Gutierrez, who owns the resort that became Slaton’s refuge, had returned to the cabins on Wednesday after Kaiser Pass Road was plowed for the spring. He knew someone was there when he spotted a cabin door open.
"She pops out, didn't say a word, just ran up, and all she wanted was a hug," Gutierrez said during a press conference earlier in the week.
He said he leaves a cabin unlocked for the winter just for an occasion like this.
‘Dad, I’m alive’
Bobby Slaton was shopping with his wife at a thrift store back in Georgia when he got a call from someone claiming to be their daughter.
He said he had been wary of people trying to scam them by pretending to be Tiffany. But when she uttered the words ‘Dad, I’m alive, and I’m sorry,’ he knew it was really her. She used Gutierrez’s phone to call.
“That was the best feeling. That was the best gift that I could have ever gotten,” Bobby said.
Fredrina Slaton, Tiffany’s mother, said she could hardly believe what her husband told her.
“And a woman walks past me and I just say, "Can I hug you?" And I hugged her and I cried,” she said. “It was the most joyous thing that I could ever have experienced.”
Slaton said she plans to return to Georgia with her parents and figure out her next steps after that.
She missed her first day of medical school, which would have been last week, and she said the school gave her slot to someone else. But she intends to apply again, and hopes to become an anesthesiologist or ophthalmologist.
She also hopes to some day return to Mono Hot Springs – which she never reached.
“I actually missed it. The avalanche happened before I got a chance to even see it,” she said. “So I'm hoping that eventually I'll get a chance to come and see it.
The next time, however, she's planning to bring a GPS – and most likely a car.
