Walking Among the Natives

W(rong) Turn: Surviving Death Valley, Final and Epilogue

2011-11-29T05:38:00.000-08:00

DVNP REPORTING US MISSING ON TUESDAY.

Waiting in silence on the boulder. Watching the stillness go by. Watching seconds go by. Nothing is moving. The clouds are still. In the quietness, I hear my heart beating. Thub thub. Thub thub. Thub thub. Sitting there on the rock, looking out into the horizon. Scanning my eyes over the mountains towards the direction of The Racetrack. Thub thub. Chup chup. Thub, chup. Chup chup? Chup chup? "Chup chup chup." My ears "perk" up. I move my head to scan the horizon to pick up any sound. I cup my hands behind my ears to produce a "radar dish" to pick up the slightest sound. Chup, chup, chup.

"Jason!" I called to my son, "do you hear anything."

"Yes, but's it's probably nothing." He replies.

"Listen." I told him intensely.

I continue to scan the horizon cupping my hands to make my ears like radars for picking up any distant sounds. My eyes scans the horizon and follow a different faint rhythmic sound. “chup, chup, chup, chup....” My eyes frantically narrow towards the sound coming from behind the mountains towards The Racetrack. I SEE a tiny dot moving over the ridge! My heart skips a beat and is pounding loudly. The chupping sound is getting louder and louder and the dot is getting bigger and bigger.

“It’s a helicopter! It’s a helicopter!” I scream to Jason.

Instantly, without any thought or delay, I lift up my red and white Target Store bullseye umbrella! I aim it at the moving dot and push the open button. “PHUMP!”, the umbrella pops open. I twirl and spin that umbrella like there's no tomorrow. It went madly round and round to attract the attention of the helicoptor. Jason, at the same time, stands up on the boulder and madly waves his red flag he had made with his t-shirt and a stick. The dot suddenly made a sharp turn towards us, which means they see us. Tears begin to flow out of my eyes and I begin to sob and sob like crazy.

"Jason! They see us! They see us! We're saved!!!

The helicopter then turns sideways and slows down almost hovering in the distance to check us out. I want to run towards it but the wind turbulence from the copter blade sends sand and dust flying into our eyes. We both stay on the boulder and I duck and cover our face from the flying debris. Jason and I huddle together to shield the dust. My body wants to get off the rock and run towards it. A loud voice blasts from the helicopter’s microphone telling us something. I turn towards Jason,

“I must be going deaf. I can't hear, Jason. What are they saying?”

Jason shouts over the noise of the helicopter, “They’re saying, don’t move, stay where you are!” He repeats this several times untill I get it.

Tears roll down my cheeks and I’m bawling my eyes out. Jason looks over to me and says, “Why are you crying, mom? You should be happy.”

“Whaa whaa whaaa! Whuu whuu whuu! ....” I can’t stop crying.

Tears pours down my cheeks and booger comes out of my nose. “How come you’re not crying?” I ask Jason between my sobs. He shrugs and looks at me blank faced. Probably thinking, “oh women, you cry over everything.”

As the helicopter slowly descends and heads toward the main road and lands, my head is playing the ‘M*A*S*H’ theme song. I’m still bawling my eyes out and I wipe the tears and booger off my face with the sleeve of my jacket. The helicopter lands on the main road and the pilot finally kills the engine. The copter blades spins slower until it stops. The pilot gets out of the cockpit and walks quickly towards us and we both jump off the rock to run towards to pilot. We meet halfway. He smiles at us. I'm still crying, and Jason is calm and cool standing there watching me and the pilot talk.

“What is your name?” The pilot shouts to asks me, “Are you both ok? Are you hurt? Can you walk?" He continues.

“I’m Dee Wong.” in reply, “and this is Jason. We are both fine and not hurt.”

I ask the pilot if I can hug him. I wanted to make sure he is for real and I'm not hallucinating about this. He is very tall, more than six feet, and I hug his waist. He pats me on my shoulders to give me reassurance. Jason stands by and watches all this commotion without a teardrop on his face. He can’t wait to get out of here!

"You’ve been reported missing by your work and your mom.” The pilot says.

The pilot walks back to the helicopter and we follow him. His "co-pilot" comes out of the helicopter to greet us. The pilot introduces himself as Flight Officer Panto and the co-pilot introduces himself as Officer Steele. I look at their name badge to see “Scotty Steele” and “Shane Panto”.

I thought the name Scotty was very cool as it reminds me of Scotty from 'Star Trek', "Beam us up, Scotty." As Captain Kirk would say in many of the episodes.

After confirming our status, Scotty makes the radio call back to the ranger station,

“We have found them and they are both alright. The time is twelve...and the location is Hunter Mountain...”

Scotty continues to talk to the ranger about our location and what to do to get us out of here...he finishes and he turns to us to discuss how to fly both of us out of here to the ranger station. The helicopter has a weight limit and with the combined weight of me and Jason, we just exceeded that limit. I’m kind of excited to ride in the helicopter and I think Jason is excited, too. We are both eager to get out of here.

Scotty, tells us,

"In order to fly us all out of here in one flight, we'll have to burn off some fuel to reduce the weight of the helicopter." They make some calculations and Scotty is about to radio the ranger station to tell them our plan, and I ask him,

“What about my truck? I can’t leave my truck behind!”

Scotty replies, “You’ll have to leave it here. You’ll need to come back with someone to get the truck towed. We can’t get your truck out.”

My whole world seems to darken and I envision myself back to the first night we got lost here. My knees are week and the nausea and panic attack came back instantly. I desperately beg and plea with Scotty and Shane,

“There is NO way I’m coming back here! No way! You have to help me! The truck is fine. It doesn’t need to be towed. The truck works. It’s just stuck in the sand pit.” I continue to convince them to help me, "I have pictures in my camera. I can show you. It's just stuck in the sand!"

I quickly whip out my camera in my pocket and quickly change out the memory chip that has the pictures of the truck.

"Here." I show them the condition it was in and Scotty says,

“Oh, it looks ok. It’s not that bad." He studies the pictures some more and talks to Shane that they might be able to get it out of the sand. The both look at the pictures again and talk some more.

“How far down is it to your truck? They ask me. "We don’t have a lot of time.”

“It takes us about forty-five minutes to one hour to walk up, and we walked real slow coming up. And going down was less time, maybe half an hour, twenty minutes ..."

Before I could finish my sentence, Scotty suddenly takes off like a rocket running downhill. Shane takes off and runs with flailing arms after Scotty trying to catch up. Jason and I look at each other and then run after them, chasing them down the canyon. I yell at Shane to cut across the flats for a shortcut. Shane runs through the flats. Jason and I are both running downhill as fast as we can go without tripping. By the time we almost reach the truck, Scotty had already turned the truck around and drove it about 50 feet to meet us. Shane reaches the truck catching his breath.

Scotty gets out of the truck and helps us take the blue tarps on the ground. He gives the tarps a good yank and all the SOS rocks fall off ripping one of the tarp slightly. I unlock the camper shell and he throws the tarps into the truck bed. Shane peeks into the camper and asks shyly,

“Any chance of burgers inside?”

“Sorry, no I don’t,” I mumble.

I realize that it’s lunch time for them and they probably haven’t eaten anything since this morning at take off. I wished I had something for him but we are moving so fast in getting our stuff out of the backseat into the truck bed to make seating room I didn’t have time to think about getting something out for him. Everything is happening so fast and there is no time to think about what we’re doing. Scotty suggests he drives us up to the top and I gladly and gratefully let him. We all get into the truck. Jason and I sit in the back seat. On our way up, Scotty praises me for doing the right things to get rescued. He didn’t lecture me and keeps praising me,

“You did everything right to get you and your son rescued, Dee. You did everything right by staying with the car and not trying to walk out of here."

He continues to say, "It was the spinning red and white bullseye Target umbrella that caught my attention! The bullseye was perfect. That was a great idea to attract attention. You should write to Target and tell them about it and use it as advertising.”

We all laugh and agree it’s a great idea. I video tape part of the ride up the canyon, and Scotty kindly shows me how to use the 4-wheel drive.

CLICK ON LINK FOR VIDEO:
CHP Rescues Dee and Jason

We reach the top of the canyon and we all get out of the truck to discuss the next plan of action. Scotty tells me I will have to drive ourselves out of the park. Their job of search and rescue is completed and now it's my job to drive out of here. An overwhelming surge of another panic attack returns. In my head, I’m panicking again in fear of getting lost driving out of here. My heart is pounding and I am overwhelmed with new fear. Scotty asks for a map for the area and I pull out a AAA road map of the Park. He and Shane look over the map and they call the Ranger station to discuss the best way to drive out of here.

“How many gallons of fuel do you have left,” Scotty asks me.

“I have a little over half a tank. It will give me about 150 miles.” I reply.

I remembered one tank takes me about three hundred miles. The Ranger on duty tells Scotty that Bishop is too far for the next gas station, and Panamint Spring is my best choice.

Scotty reminds me over and over about which turns to take,

“You take all left turns on any forked roads and you’ll be ok. You’ll be fine.”

I beg and beg them to lead me out as far as they can,

“I don’t want to be lost again.”

"No, you won't get lost. Just stay on the road and turn left at the junctions." Scotty says calmly.

I'm close to tears again and I feel like the first night when we were lost. The panic, the depression of being lost. I don’t want any of that again.

Scotty and Shane discusses the route and they decide to do a test flight to scout out the entire route for us before sending us on our way. They calmly reassures us that they will come back for us, and that we stay put till they come back.

CLICK ON LINK FOR VIDEO:
CHP Rescue Helicopter flying up to scout the routes.

Before they take off, I told Shane I need to pick up my iPad cable I left on the Restoration sign yesterday and he gladly agree to get it back for me. The sign was next to the helicopter. Shane quickly grabs the cable and run to the truck to give it to me. I thank him and he runs back to his helicopter.

The helicopter takes off and flies up and around to the left of us. We wait for their return after less than ten minutes of scouting the routes to Bishop and Panamint Springs.

They land on the main road again and come out of the helicopter. Scotty and Shane discusses the route with the ranger station over the radio on our final plan. Scotty writes down a number the ranger is giving him. Scotty reminds me to take all left turns at any junction and assures me I will be fine. As he hands me the phone number, he says,

“When you get to Panamint Springs, you are to call Ranger Andy at this number to let him know you have arrived safely at Panamint Springs.”

Scotty tells me that they will lead us out on two junctions and they’ll have to fly back to their station. Anxiety and stress returns and my stomach feels like it's in my throat. They both reassure us we’ll be fine and that we should get started. We say our good-byes and we thank them profusely for everything they've done.

It’s about one-thirty in the afternoon and it’s overcast with the sun hidden behind the clouds. Scotty and Shane heads back to their helicopter and lift off into the sky. They head towards the first junction and we follow them slowly with Jason keeping watch to make sure we don’t loose sight of them. They make a short hover at the first junction and we make our first left turn. We come to the second junction and they do the same and we make our second left turn. We are on our way home! The helicopter slowly turns and then heads out on our left and disappears over the ridges of the mountain.

CLICK ON LINKS FOR VIDEOS:

CHP RESCUE HELICOPTER GETTING READY TO LEAD US OUT

CHP RESCUE HELICOPTER LEADING US OUT...

CHP HELICOPTER TAKING US TO THE JUNCTIONS

"BACK TO CIVILIZATION!" I turn on the radio loud and we both are thrill to hear glooms of civilization. We begin our, once again, lonely journey back to civilization on Hunter Mountain Road.

The anxiety returns as we drive on single lane narrowly unpaved and rocky road. I look out my window. I look left and down. I see the steep cliffs with sheer jaw dropping elevation, five thousand feet, six thousand feet above sea level? We are at the top of Hunter Mountain Road and I couldn't see the valley floor.

I am screaming in my head, I am screaming out loud,“Oh my god, oh my god, Jason. It’s scary down there! We're meant to get lost! We're meant to get lost! You should see the drop on this side! Oh my god! If we drove up here that night, I don't think we would've made it. We would've driven off the road and we would be gone. Dead! We were meant to get lost! There is no way we could've driven safely out of here that night. No way!"

After saying that, I don't feel as bad being stuck out here for three days till help came. It was actually a blessing that we got stuck. It was not a meaningless event.

CLICK ON LINK FOR VIDEO:

ON OUR WAY TO CIVILIZATION ON A SCARY ROAD

I continue to drive, and there is about two feet of room for my tires before we drop off the cliff. At the same time I want to take some videos of the road, but Jason tells me off that we need to hurry and get out of this place,

"Stop taking pictures. It’s getting dark. Let's get the hell out of here. We have to make it out of here before dark. Let's go."

It’s about two in the afternoon and we have until five to get to Panamint Springs before it gets dark. We don’t want to be in the mountains again when it’s dark. We don’t want to get lost again.

Careful not to washboard, I drive at about 15 to 20 miles per hour, we meander carefully through the mountainous road with the radio blasting loudly because we missed hearing other voices other than our own for the last three days, and bringing us back to civilization.

We reach our third junction and Jason is quick to remind me to make our left turn. We drive for about 10 minutes and on my left I see another road. I slow down and ask Jason, is this another turn? Jason looks and says, I don’t think so, it’s not a junction but a side road. I look at it again and there a fence that runs along the road. I hesitate to move on. I notice a jeep parked on the opposite side of the road. They are stopped on the road. I see two men and they sit motionless. They then pull pass our truck and stop at the entrance of the side road. Not thinking, I get out of the truck and walk up to the jeep and ask them for directions to Panamint Springs. As I get close to the drivers, they are probably in their mid to late twenties, skinny with scraggily beards almost Jesus looking. They point behind them and tell me to keep going forward. I thank them and get into my truck. I tell Jason I may have met our guardian angles,

“Why are these men stopped here. They are just sitting in the jeep doing nothing. They didn’t seem to be heading anywhere. It's really odd."

For my peace of mind, they’re here to prevent us from getting lost again. Feeling really spooked, I turn on the ignition and drive toward the direction they pointed us towards, and I didn't look back at them.

We have now reached the descending part of the road. It's a steep downhill road with parts of the road eroded and exposing rocks and boulders. I stop at the edge before the drop in elevation, I change my 4-wheels drive to Low with 2nd gear, and take a deep breath, and announce to Jason,

"Here we go."

I carefully drive downhill avoiding rocks, boulders and washed out gullies. It seems like forever. The road gets better as we descend further down. The road starts to straighten out more with less meandering. We reach another major junction where our road, Hunter Mountain Road meets Saline Valley Road.

Coming down from Hunter Mountain Road into
Saline Valley Road through Lee Flat.

The landscape changes to the Mojave Desert plant community with lots of Joshua trees and the road flattens out. We finally reach Lee Flat. The truck washboards across the flat road but I manage to drive safely at a regulated speed of 20mph. We come across a wild feral Burro and I stop to take a photograph of it. It brays at me loudly and I laugh at it. Jason tells me to hurry up and go,

“Stop taking pictures, mom. Let's get the hell out of here. It’s getting dark. Let’s go, mom.”

"Ok, let me make one phone call to Frank at the office to let him know we are safe." I reply to Jason.

"Do you have to? Let's get the hell out of here." He continues to rant."

"HEEE HAWWW!!!" SAYS THE FERAL BURRO BIDDING US SAFE JOURNEY
THE FERAL BURROS LIVE ALONG LEE FLAT ON SALINE VALLEY ROAD

I check my cell phone and I have a few reception bars. I call Frank at the office to tell him quickly that we are safe and on our way out of the park heading to Panamint Springs. I ask him to call my family to let them know.

We continue driving on Saline Valley Road, a long stretch of straight road that head towards highway 190. As we head towards the National Park exit, we hear this loud "zroooooommmmm" jet engine noise overhead. I slow down and look around to see what it was. I stop the truck,

"What was that?" We both exclaim.

We both look out the windows and see a fighter jet do a low flyby on my left. It then dips its wing to curve around us, and then it flies off into the mountains. "Zrooooooommmmmm!"

It was a touching moment. I took a big deep breath and some tears trickle down my cheeks. I wipe it away with my jacket sleeves. I turn to Jason,

"Well, that was a very nice send-off. It's like a salute to us, saying good-bye and good luck. What great timing. It's like an ending in a movie."

"Yeah, mom. That was pretty cool." Jason replies. "Ok, let's get the hell out of here, mom."

What a grand exit to end our misadventure at Death Valley National Park!

We approach the stop sign at the junction of Saline Valley Road and Highway 190 and I turn on my left signaling light. "Click, click, click...." I stop at the stop sign and wait for traffic to clear. We make our last left turn on Highway 190 and head towards Panamint Springs.

PHOTO EPILOGUE

JASON SMILES ALAST! TECHNOLOGY, CIVILIZATION!
HOT HOT SHOWER! SQUEAKY CLEAN!
AND A BED! YEAH!
OUR STAY AT STOVEPIPE WELLS VILLAGE.
Tuesday night, Nov 30th, 2010

OUR SAD 1ST "CIVILIZED" BREAKFAST.
Wed, Dec 1, 2010

THE GENERAL STORE ACROSS FROM OUR MOTEL IN STOVEPIPE WELLS.
ONE OF THE STORE EMPLOYEES SAYS, "NOW YOUR SON WON'T EVEN WANT TO GO TO GROCERY STORE WITH YOU ANYMORE!"
JASON AND I LAUGHED REAL GOOD ON THAT ONE.
Wed, Dec. 1. 2010

HAD TO STOP THE TRUCK BECAUSE
I BURNT UP MY BRAKES COMING DOWNHILL.
THEY WERE SMOKIN' AND SMELLIN' GOOD.
WE FORGOT TO KOW TOW TO QUAN YIN THIS MORNING....HMMM...
SO WE DID IT WHILE WE WAITED FOR THE BRAKES TO COOL OFF.

WE TRIED SCRUBBING SOME OF THE "SOS" OFF THE WINDOW...

STANDING BEHIND THE METAL RAILING,
THE SUN CASTS OUR SHADOWS
SYMBOLIZING OUR MISADVENTURE,
IMPRISONED MOMENTARILY IN DEATH VALLEY.
Father Crowley Vista Point, DVNP, CA
Wed, Dec 1, 2010

JASON FINALLY SMILES WHILE I TRY TO TAKE A PICTURE OF HIM.
Father Crowley Vista Point, DVNP, CA
Wed morning, Dec 1, 2010

OUR LUXURY STAY AT THE MARRIOTT IN BAKERSFIELD, CA
Wed night, Dec 1, 2010

OUR FIRST CIVILIZED DINNER AT DOUBLE TREE INN, BAKERSFIELD, CA.
Wed night, Dec 1, 2010

JASON DOWNS HIS 1ST DECENT BREAKFAST
WITH A CUP OF HOT CHOCOLATE
AT THE MARRIOTT, BAKERSFIELD, CA
Thurs morning, Dec 2, 2010.

GRANDMA PUTS UP A WELCOMING SIGN FOR OUR RETURN AT HER HOME.
Thurs afternoon, Dec 2, 2010
Photo By Doris Shea

HOME AT LAST AT GRANDMA'S.
Thurs, afternoon, Dec. 2, 2010

A TRUE STORY

All parts of
W(r)ong Turn: Surviving Death Valley
are copyrighted, written, photographed, and video taped by dee wong
edited by jason wong
some video taping by jason wong
material from 3rd party links are copyrighted by the original author/artist as indicated.

Desert five-spot
(Eremalche rotundifolia)
March 2011

March 2011, I returned with more than 20 members of the CNPS Santa Clara Chapter on a botany field trip of the desert wildflowers in Death Valley National Park, CA.
It's a beautiful place to visit. I took a lot of pictures and learned new plants.

On one of the nights we stayed at Furnace Creek Campsite, a pre-teenager was lost soon after dark around the campsite. He was without a whistle, warm clothing, or a flashlight. He was by himself. I hope they found him.

Learn to be safe BEFORE you are in the wilderness.
Tell your friends/family your destinations.

Check out:
REI Education:
http://www.rei.com/expertadvice

Cody Lundin survival school:
http://www.codylundin.com/

NOLS:
http://www.nols.edu/

~ the end ~

W(r)ong Turn: Surviving Death Valley (Part 7)

2011-11-24T10:00:00.000-08:00

Its Tuesday morning. Today is THE DAY that we’ve GOT TO GET RESCUED. It is the first thought in my head waking up this morning. I have waited three days. THREE DAYS, of hoping, that someone will be searching for us. I have to believe that my family and people at work are looking for us. With this in mind, I have to plan the best strategy on our part to get us spotted in this canyon. We're both extremely stressed and depressed. Janson and I have to be strong, calm. I have to look and sound like I know what I'm doing in front of Jason. And Jason, he keeps his cool and down plays all emotions. We are both scaaaaared to death.

Having spent 3 days out here gives us both the time to reflect on what life means to us. For now, life is all relative to the situation we are in. We are living moment by moment, for the moment, that moment in time to get us through each day.

I try to not to miss my family, or friends and I keep them in my thoughts, in the background. If I think too much about them, I get too sad and miss them terribly. My mind begins to clutter and I can't think clearly. I will crumble in weakness and loose control of the situation.

It’s our third day here and I can't stop thinking, "Will we be found by the end of today?" Or, "Do we return to our truck to spend yet another freezing night?" And then, "How long are we here for?" All these unanswered questions that Jason and I often ponder, and in silence. He knows I don’t have the answer. Occasionally he will ask me politely. I don’t bring false hopes to him of any rescue soon but instead I mumble my words of hopeful reality that trails off into the wind, and then magically the subject gets changed - the Mommy Strategy.

Jason continues to worry about his homework and missing a lot of school. He loves school and hates missing a day of school. He even hates summer holidays when school is out for break. Each day we are here, he says, in his deep teenage monotone voice,

"Shit, I'm going to have so much homework."

“Shit, I’m missing so much school.”

“I’m sure the school haven’t gotten this kind of excuse for not doing homework or skipping school.” I reply jokingly.

He does his little shrug of his shoulders, tilting his head slightly to the right and says, "Ngyeah," and we both remain silent. I look away into the landscape and I don’t have any words to console him and I feel totally helpless.

Today’s weather continues to be warm, much warmer than yesterday. The wind dies down making the campfire much easier to light and cook our breakfast. We hurry up to make and eat our breakfast, and cleanup so that we use all available daylight hours to get to higher ground to be spotted. We pack up all the food items back into the truck. We put out the fire with dirt and sand. I dont’ feel like packing the “stove" up, so I leave it there in the ground.

I let my intuition guide me as much as possible. We head to the truck and I go through the back seat storage to look for something. I don't know what I'm looking for but I'm looking for something. I dig deep down in the storage and I see something that catches my eyes. A red and white fabric object. I pull the object out and it's an umbrella, a Target store red and white bullseye umbrella. I look up into the sky and it's looks pretty sunny and cloudless. I also feel much warmer than yesterday, and yesterday was warmer than the day before.

Thinking to myself, "It’s going to be hotter today and I don't feel like wearing my hat. I’m going to be a “little old lady” and take my umbrella. It'll be perfect for sun protection, rain, and as a weapon for fending off wild animals and snakes. Oh! Of course, and the perfect a walking stick." I take the Target umbrella and tuck it under my right armpit. I flip up the back seats and lock up the truck.

We looked around the camp to see what would be eye catching to wave to get attention. Jason sees his red t-shirt on the SOS tarp. He made a red flag two days ago with a stick and his t-shirt and laid it next to the "SOS" sign. He took the stick and the red t-shirt and redid his "flag" to carry up with him. He place the "flag pole" over his shoulder and slung the red Trader Joe shopping bag that had our food and water supply. He is full of energy to start another journey of another day of unknown.

Desperate to get rescued, I feel I need to get to the top as fast as possible. We only have a very small window of time to get spotted. Once the rescue people passes this area without seeing us, they'll move to other areas and they're not coming back do a second pass. Jason, me, the rangers, the rescuers, whoever is looking for us, all have to be in the right place, at the right time, for all of us to meet up at one single point, and time. It’s precision calculation of unknown factors. Finding us, the needles, in a very large haystack, Death Valley National Park (3 million acres) would be an incredible task and all of us needing the greatest luck to achieve this goal.

We set out earlier than yesterday. We take a different route up to the canyon. We want to be on higher ground to be spotted overhead. I’m stand at the driver’s side of my truck and I scan the canyon on which way to go. My eyes follow the dry creek up and down the canyon. The canyon wall descends down to the dry creek and I motion Jason to head that way. We cross the dry creek and start climbing up the loose gravelly ridge. We pass by the rock where we sat on our first day here. There were a lot of Chias blooming here in summer, I noted in my head. Jason starts blowing his rescue whistle in a rhythmic 3 whistle pattern. He and I take turns blowing the whistle that hangs on our jacket zipper. The noise is unbearable at times and I finger plug my ears to avoid damaging my hearing. Jason thinks nothing of it.

We climb higher and steeper stooping over to climb. The gravel is loose and we slip and slide down a little as we go up. The ridge gradually levels out and we stand upright to walk. Suddenly, I hear a song in my head, "Climb every mountain" from the movie ‘Sound of Music’ ....my brain, like a movie projector plays in my head the scene where the von Trapp family flees Austria through the Swiss Alps...

As we climb higher the view of the canyon gets smaller. Half way up the ridge Jason suddenly stops whistling and walking. He points across to the other side of the canyon wall,

"Mom. mom. mom."

Jason likes to call me until I answer him.

"Yes, Jason. What is it?" I reply.

"Mom. Stop. Look. Over there. It looks like Quan Yin. She's over there." Jason replies and continues to point.

I stop walking and turn towards the direction he is point. I scan across the canyon but I honestly can't see anything that resembled Quan Yin or even a human face. I only see brushes in shadows and highlights of the sun on top of the brushes.

"I don't see her." I reply to Jason with disappointment.

I look again. I still can't see her. I know she is here with us and I’m glad Jason can see her. It means more to me for him to see her than for me to see her.

“No, I don’t see her.” I reply and shake my head.

I sigh and motion Jason to move on and continue to hike further up the ridge. I look down at the ground for careful footing, I come across something white and fist size. Oh, this looks interesting. I pick it up and rotate the object trying to figure out what it is. It suddenly dawns on me,

“It’s a bone! It looks like a vertebrae. Oh, shit! I hope it’s not a human vertebrae." Thinking in my head.

I shudder at the thought and I instantly drop the bone to the ground. I swipe my hands on my pants. I screw up my face, and swear in my head,

“FUCK! SHIT! FUCK! SHIT!”

Jason asks, “What’s that? Mom.

“It’s some kind of bone... looks like a vertebrae... I hope it’s not human."

The Chinese considers bad luck to touch human remains. I'm not sure if it is a human bone but I ask for forgiveness for disturbing it anyways, for my own peace of mind. I turn to Jason,

"Let's go. Don't pick up anything off the ground."

Jason shrugs and says,

"Ok".

We continue to hike upwards. I force myself to forget the bone by looking at the beautiful scenery which is easy. This place has it’s beauty. We pass by some more Chia, Salvia columbariae that have finished blooming, and other plants I'm not familiar with. We hike further up and we see the abandoned shacks below. The ridge splits and we follow the one that descends downward. We carefully anchor our footing in the loose gravel and squat occasionally to prevent ourselves from falling while we descend. We finally reach the road and plant both our feet firmly on the ground and dust ourselves. We head towards the next turn before the shacks and continue walking.

On our way up to the top of the canyon.

Feeling uneasy, I look up the ridge. I tell Jason to stop and look up. We scan the ridge for movements or noise. Nothing. We walk a few steps and look up again. I continue to stare at the ridge and I suddenly see a slight movement. I squint my eyes and lift my hands and put them over my brow. I squint my eyes some more.

"Look, look. Jason. Jason.” I whisper to Jason and pointing towards the ridge.

“What?” He replies.

“Look up there. Top of the ridge. It looks like....looks like...”

“It's two sheep watching us!" I continue to whisper to Jason.

“I can’t tell exactly what kind. They’re too far up there. They’re peeking over just enough to expose their eyes and some kind of horns. Do you see their little beady black eyes? Maybe they’re the desert longhorns. They look kind of funny.”

“Oh yeahhhh. I see them. He replies excitingly.

The animals see us watching them and they both stop moving. They stand motionless but blinking. Then suddenly, they retrieve backwards to hide behind the ridge. We wait for them, hoping to see them again. They peek over again. Just like curious children wondering who are those strange creatures down there. We keep watching them but within seconds, they jerk back, disappearing “forever”. Jason and I laugh and giggle. It was so entertaining and hilarious. The last mammal I saw was the little mouse on our first night here. For Jason, it’s the first mammals. The encounter lifts our spirits up a little and gives me some comfort that we are not alone. We turn upwards to continue walking.

We turn the bend and arriving at the flats where the flatten shacks are. We cross the flats passing the overturned cars. I stop to take some pictures of the “town”. We get back onto the “main” road and by now, it’s around ten-thirty and we are hungry. I pull out our bagels from my day pack and we sit on the side of the road to eat. While eating, we pull out our emergency kit leaflet to read it. We read about how to leave written trails for rescuers to find lost people. We’re suppose to write our names and draw on the ground arrows pointing to the direction we walk. We decide that writing “DEE” is the least amount of effort than writing “JASON”. Anxious to get to the top, we put away our unfinished bagel. We get up and start walking uphill again.

We arrive at the forked roads where the ground is levels and flattens out. The road is soft and sandy and great for writing and drawing in it. We can see new fresh footprints we didn’t see yesterday. We come across a dog like footprint and we crouch down to examine it closely.

“Look, Jason! Coyotes footprints.

Walking hunched over, we follow the footprints and then we see another kind of footprint. It’s much larger and it’s hoofed.

Look! Sheep footprints. There really are sheep here.” I exclaimed to Jason.

We stand up and our eyes follow the footprints. Looks like the sheep came across the road and headed into the bushes into the mountains. The coyote footprints meanders across the road and disappears into the brushes as well. We stand up and the footprints leads our eyes out to the straight road.

Sheep tracks on Hunter Mountain Road.

“Jason.” I call out to my son. “Let’s start writing here.”

“Ok.” He replies.

Jason takes his red hiking pole and does a few Kung Fu sword moves and starts to write “DEE”.

“It looks kind of small. Let’s do the letters much big.”

We walk further up and try again. He writes it bigger.

“Is this big enough, mom?

“I guess it’ll do,” I reply. “Oh, we forgot the arrows.”

I take Jason’s walking pole and draw in the dirt, a wiggly line with an arrow in front of “DEE” pointing towards the direction we are walking towards. I draw another wiggly line with an arrow after “DEE” pointing in the same direction. As we walk heading towards the Restoration sign up the road, Jason repeats this ritual of writing my name and drawing the arrows about fifty or so feet apart.

Jason writing "DEE" with arrows pointing

the direction we are walking.

We reach the Restoration sign and check out the note I left behind yesterday.

“Nobody’s been here,” I mumbled to Jason with disappointment. “The note hasn’t been touched or moved.”

My heart sinks and my mind starts to wonder what am I going to do now to get us out of here. There is no hope is in sight. My suppressed feeling of flight numbs me from doing anything stupid like walking out of here. We will never survive.

Jason continues to do his Kung Fu antics while I decide what to do next. I take out my cell phone to look at the time, it’s eleven-forty-seven. I don't want to go any further away from this area. I stand still for a while and look around. I motion Jason to walk back out to the main road. I leave the note and the white iPad cord behind. Jason jumps out onto the main road while I stand on the raised edge of the road to scan the landscape to see what we can do around here. My instinct tells me to hang around here as long as we can. Reluctant to head down hill, we head towards the forked road, and then decide what to do. While walking past my name written in dirt, I tell Jason,

“We need to reverse the arrows now. We’re walking the opposite direction.”

Jason and I use our feet to scrub out the arrow and draw new arrow direction.

We reach the forked road and we linger for awhile. Jason starts to whine a little,

"Mom. Mom. I want to go back down. I'm bored. I want to go back down to the truck."

I look at my cell phone again and it’s eleven-fifty.

“I want to go back down, mom.” Jason mumbles and motions his head down the hill. “I want to go down". Trying to convince me to go downhill.

I'm reluctant and I insist calmly to Jason,

“No, it’s too early to go back down. I want to stay up here as long as we can in case someone flies or drives by. This is a major intersection and this is where we have to be for now. We have to stay here.”

I go on and on about staying up here longer until Jason stops pleading me.

I look around the forked road again, and my eyes follow the left forked road. At a distance, I see a big white wooden beaten up old sign that says “Quackenbush Mine Road” on it. Jason and I say “Quackenbush” a few times just because we have nothing else to do. Then I start heading towards the sign. Jason immediately says,

“No, mom! Let’s not go there. I don’t want to get more lost. I’m scared. I don't want to go to the mine.”

I look towards the sign again, and in the foreground, I see a big boulder on my left. It’s twice the size of me. My eyes light up, and I tell Jason,

“Look, there’s a big boulder there! Let’s go sit up there! It’s big and high!”

We walk and run towards rock and reach it within seconds. Coming face to face with the boulder, we walk around it trying to find a rock face we can climb up. I back up a few feet and run towards it and catapult myself up the boulder. It takes two attempts to finally get up the boulder. Jason stands at the base of the rock looking up at me and I extend my hand out. He takes my hand and I pull him up. We both wiggle our butts to get comfortable. We sit there, and we wait.

It’s silent. The wind blows slightly with a little of whistling. The sun is shinning but the sky is beginning to get overcast, but it’s still a hot day. There is a layer of thin clouds crossing the sky. Jason and I patiently sit on top of the boulder quietly, still waiting, and waiting. Waiting for the slightest hope of someone to come by our way. Waiting...

W(rong) Turn: Surviving Death Valley (Part 6)

2011-11-03T22:27:00.000-07:00

It’s six-thirty Monday morning. I wake up from a well rested sleep. Feeling a lot better in spirit and emotions, I sit up and look over to Jason. He is still sleeping, so I wiggle out of my sleeping bag to get out of the truck to relieve myself . After finishing up, I return back to the truck into my drivers’ seat. It’s still chilly but not as cold or windy as the previous mornings. I fumble around and turn on the radio, like I do every morning for 5 minutes with the engine running. This wakes Jason up and he gets out of the truck and goes to relieve himself and quickly gets back into the truck. We both stay in the truck and talk about the logistics of today.

“Mom.” Jason says in a monotone voice, “Are they going to find us today?”

Thinking logically inside my head, the answer is a big fat NO.

I lean back against my seat and let out a sigh. In a controlled manner and analytical way, I begin to explain to Jason moment by moment of what my co-workers would be doing.

“No, Jason. I don’t think they will find us today. It’s six-forty-five Monday morning and they still don’t know we are missing.”

By my calculation, between seven and seven-thirty, people at work will figure out that there’s something wrong with me not showing up for work.

“Let’s see...” I slowly explain to Jason the logics of what should be happening. “Today is Monday. I haven’t shown up for work, and I haven’t called in absent. You’re not in school, and I haven’t called the school to report your absence. The people at work will think it’s strange. I am usually at work by 6:50am. I don’t know what the school does if I don’t call in to report you absent.”

I pull out my cell phone out of my down jacket pocket and look at the time. It’s almost seven. We are both counting down the seconds, 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1-0. It’s seven, ding. They should be asking the question, “Where’s Dee?”

I continue explaining to Jason, “I should be briefing my crews for the day and getting them out of the yard to their jobs. I imagine everyone is standing around in the yard waiting for me to show up. It’s about 7:15am, and they still don’t see me. Frank or Michelle would probably go into my office and get my folder for the day to brief the crews and send them out.”

We sit quietly in the truck and wait for the time to pass. There is no ticking sound of a clock with being in the digital age. “It’s about 7:30am. They haven’t heard from us. They should be calling our cell phones now. They can’t get through to us because we don’t have signal. They’ll call our home phone. No one answers. They’ll call grandma. Grandma haven’t heard from us since Friday. Once they figure out that we’re nowhere to be found, they should be calling the police to report us missing. I think there is a 24 hour wait before a search party is sent out. That would be tomorrow, Tuesday. So, today is another day of waiting. Even though if they start the search today, Death Valley is so huge (3 million acres) - it’s a needle in a haystack, it’ll take more than a day to find us if they find us at all. Today will not be the day they find us.”

Confidently knowing the unknown, we stay calm and start to plan the day.

We stay in the truck until it warms up. We check our cell phones and it way past ten. My stomach is growling a little and that reminds me to get breakfast going or rather brunch. We get out of the truck and take in the fresh air. The weather is calm and warmer than days before. This is our first chance to make a campfire.

The wind has died down, and I tell Jason, “Let’s go explore and find us a nice and safe spot to set up a campfire.”

Jason’s face lights up. He’s thinking,”I can play with fire? What fun!”

I motion to Jason towards the East. We walk Eastward to the right side of the canyon where there are several bare open patches of dirt and gravel. We have to go through tall brushes taller than the both of us, which makes me uneasy. We move cautiously through the brushes using our hiking sticks to poke the brushes and quickly go through them then coming out to an open area about 100 feet from the truck. I stand in the bare spot and make a slow 360 degree turn to check for safety. Looks all clear. I bring my index finger towards my lips and I give it a good spit on it. As the spit drools down my finger, I raise my arm above my head to test for the wind’s direction. The side of the finger that is cold from the spit is where the wind is coming from. I feel the right side of my finger cold. There is a slight wind coming down the canyon along the wall and flairs out to the open area. I walk left and then right, and the left again. No cold finger.

“This is spot, Jason.”

I look up and he’s somewhere in the distance.

“Jason!” I shouted to get his attention while he was wondering around the area. “I found a spot to set up the campfire. Let’s go get the food and the bags of supplies.”

We both make several trips back and forth from the truck to the campfire getting the necessary items - the ice chest with the perishable foods, the portable gas cooker, bags with our dry foods. Jason’s spirit picks up as he’s skipping and running through the brushes with the bags from the truck. He still doesn’t smile, but he’s happy that we’re able to be out of the truck and doing something.

Jason running and skipping through the brushes.

Jason reminds me that we can’t use paper to use as tinder to start the fire.

“Mom, the hot ashes from the paper can fly away and start fire elsewhere. It’s too dangerous. We should use only branches and sticks. It says so in the emergency kit manual.”

“Good job Jason. Thanks for telling me.”

My little Jason is growing up real fast here. He read the entire emergency leaflet and tells me everything I should know, what to do, and what NOT do. My little soldier, my brave little soldier.

We continue to gather kindling and I tell him to only pick up dry sticks, and not green ones.

“Green stuff won’t burn as well, and it’ll just give off smoke. We don’t want to use big pieces. The fire can get out of control. There’re lots of dry brushes in this canyon, and we don’t want end up in flames and be like Chinese BBQ pork.”

We head back up the road and walk about 200 feet. There are plenty of wooden planks. But we don’t have an ax to chop up the plank, so we can’t use them. I remember at Furnace Creek campsite that the people across from us had an ax and were chopping up firewood for their campfire. Oh, I wish I had bought one for this trip.

We walk back down the road and I notice these dry looking brushes. The twig is grey green. I take a twig between my fingers and pull lightly and bring my fingers to my nose to smell if it is fragrant. It has a nice fragrant. It’s sticky also. We twist and snap off a few dry twigs and rub off any dried leaves. The dry leaves are the same principle as using paper as tinder. I smell the branches this time. It’s not a salvia and not in the mint family. I am not in the mood to ID plants so we collect enough to start our first small fire. We’ll collect more later when we need them. I didn’t want to do a massive collection of the kindling and then not use them all. That would be bad land management as we’ve seen through the history of modern industrial man.

We take the kindling to the campfire and lay it nearby. I take my portable gas cooker, the kind that my co-workers use for heating up their tortilla-lunches. I remember when I used the gas cooker at Furnace Creek campsite, the high altitude caused the gas canister to not burn efficiently. Only half of each can burned and it fizzled out soon after cooking for a few minutes. (I cheaped out on not buying a high pressure camping cooker for this trip.) So, I know using the gas canisters will be a waste. I put the gas canisters back into its bag for later use. Maybe blowing up the cans as a signaling device as a last resort.

So what am I going to do with a cooker without gas? What can I take apart? I look at the gas cooker at all angles. The metal pot support falls out of cooker landing on the gravel sand next to my feet with a thud. I bend over and pick up the pot support and place on the ground again. I look at this placement carefully, and put my right hand through the metal ring and begin to dig a hole in the sand. I have created a small fireplace. Looking at this again, deep in thought, I take away the pot supporter and start digging a bigger hole. I gather small half fist size rocks and line them against the sides of the hole to keep the sand and gravel from collapsing into the hole and to keep the supporter in place. I place the pot holder on top of the little rocks to test for stability and height. I do this several times before I am satisfied with the placement of the final testing, then placing the pot on top of the supporter. It doesn’t wobble; it should work.

I sit up to take a break and I hear a little whispering of the wind. “Oh damn it.” I now have to put up a wind breaker against my campfire I just set up. I take the plastic case for the gas cooker and open it up like a book. I place it between the wind and the campfire. I place it so that at an angle it will support itself without falling over. It’s still too windy. I need to place something metal right up against the pot to block some more wind but not enough to close off the air circulation. I take the gas cooker again and start to fiddle with any moving parts. The gas can housing cover looks interesting. It has vents along the cover. I put down the gas cooker and I run to the truck to get my tool bag. I found a pair of pincher pliers. This aught to work. I run back to the campfire with the pliers. Using the pliers, I wiggle the cover joints loose and pull the cover off the cooker. I tuck the cover on the right side of the campfire and wiggle it into place.

“Perfect!” I said.

Ok, now let’s put this thing to work. We kneel down in front of the campfire and break the kindling into 3 to 4 inch pieces and set them aside. I find the box of fire starters and take out one out of the box. I ruffle the wick with my fingers and lay it onto the little rocks. I pile some of the kindling crisscross atop the starter and light the wick with my Coleman’s gas lighter gun. The flame keeps going out, so I put more fire starters and keep lighting them again and again until the wicks catch on fire. Jason and I take turn adding the kindling and the flame gets big and hot, hot enough to heat water. The flame gets smokey and blows in my face. I lean back coughing and gasping for air. I exhale frantically to get the smoke out of my lungs. Scared that the smoke is toxic. I move upwind to stay clear of the smoke and I quickly place the pot support over the flame. Finally, I place the pot over the support, pour drinking water into the pot for two cups of tea and cover the pot to let the water boil faster. It takes for what seems like forever to boil because of the cold air and the high altitude. We huddle over the little fire to warm our hands while we wait for the water to boil. It feels great! Warm at last!

The Campfire! Boiling water for hot tea.

The water heats up and steam finally rises out of the pot but no bubbles yet. I get impatient and start making the tea before the water boils. I unwrap 2 tea bags from the emergency kit and throw them into the pot of hot water without the paper tag. I let it reach a simmer then pour the hot tea water into the cups, add the 2 sugar packets for each cup. I look for the Little Moo creamers I bought for this trip. Two Little Moos for each cup of tea. Ah, the perfect cup of tea.

Having our 1st cup of hot tea!

Ahhhh! Oh what a treat! After 2 cold days and nights without anything hot to eat or drink, it was like being saved, almost. I took out the emergency kit leaflet and read that in a life distressing situation, a hot beverage helps with calming and soothing the nerves. It brings a sense of hopefulness and helps warm the body. So true, so true. For breakfast, we eat the most perishable items we have, the left over Char Siu (Chinese BBQ Pork). I make our lunch - bagel with cream cheese, dried cranberries, and for Jason, he gets to have Prosciutto. I bag them up and pack it in my day pack.

We clean up the campfire, kill the flame with sand as water is precious, and pack up the food back to the truck and lock up the truck. I gather my day pack with my purse, camera, our lunches, maps, and water for a short hike up to the top of the canyon to get a sense of where we.

Jason having some fun.

We start walking up the road at about 11:42 am. As we start walking, Jason does his kung fu antics with a stick from his gathering kindling. He sounds like he’s enjoying the moment and having some fun. I do a little video of some of his moves, and I try to get him to do more for me to video tape. But he doesn’t like it, so I stop. He continues to ask if we will be rescued today. I feebly answer him and trail off to avoid answering him because I don’t know the answer.

We slowly meander up the road taking our time so that we don’t exert too much energy or produce sweat which Jason keeps reminding me. We also didn’t eat much so we were both lethargic and out of breath, at least for me. Four thousand feet above sea level might also have something to do with shortness of breath. We continue up the road and we make a left turn around a bend and we look up to our surprise find a pile of rock stacking on a large boulder, left by the previous visitors. This give me hope that this road has visitors and is probably an off the beaten track tourist spot. I walk pass the boulder and climb up a little wall of rocks and take a few pictures. I can see our truck from here and it looks like we haven’t made it that far up. I climb back down and we continue to walk up the road.

View from the Stack Rock looking towards our campsite.

Two young Joshua Trees (Yucca brevifolia)

growing out of the rocks.

We get a little hungry. I take my day pack off my shoulders and swing it to the front. I unzip the day pack and pull out the bagel sandwiches I made this morning. I give Jason his bagel with the Prosciutto. We eat while we walk and sit on rocks along the way to catch our breathes. Occasionally, we take a few sips of water to wash down the dry bagel. We finish our bagels and put away the sandwich baggies into my day pack.

We continue to walk up. The road starts to widen as we reach the top. It opens up to open space where it looks like it is a ghost town. There are shacks collapsed over the years of weathering elements of rain, snow, wind, head, cold... There is a shack that is imbedded into the bedrock above the road. It feels really spooky so instead of continuing on the road, I made a short cut across the meandering road walking through the flats. In the distance I can see a turned cover rusted car that has been abandoned. Inside and around it is littered with rusted tin food cans, soda cans - all kinds of cans. My mind is thinking all kinds of scenarios. Imaging hobos, squatters, and gold mining days of things. There is an oil drum with lots bullet holes - was it shooting practice or what happened. I didn’t want to think too much of what happened here before and pick up any bad vibes or spirits. There are just things I want to leave alone. My mind can be very imaginative.

Remnant of a ghost town.

We quickly walk thru the flats passing the turned over rusted car, then up back onto the road that continues for a short distance before it curves sharply left and then forks. I dead stop at the fork and I look at Jason.

“That’s why we got lost. Look at all these forked roads!” I told Jason.

The forked road. The right one took us down the canyon.

Abandon cars littered with food and drink cans.

Jason is silent. As my eyes look at the fork we are standing, my eyes follow the road further out, there are other forked roads and many big tire marks all over the place. We follow the left fork and continue walking. I see a dead lizard, and looks freshly killed. We’re the only ones here as of Saturday, and it’s laying on my truck tire tracks. Oh, road kill. So sad. We left it alone and continued to walk on.

A Chuckwalla road kill.

Further up I see long wooden sign that blocks of access to a land restoration area. This is a good sign. It means that this area has regular traffic where an official signage is placed. I pull out my cell phone from my pocket and turn on the power to check the time. It’s almost 2:00. We need to head back down to the truck before it gets too cold down in the canyon. The truck is in the shadow by about 2:30. We can’t stay up here at night or we’ll freeze to death and there are coyotes out here. Before heading back down, I need to leave a note or something in case someone comes by while we’re down in the canyon. I took out a piece of paper and a pen from my day pack and wrote a note.

“Dee Wong and Jason Wong are lost since Sat 11/28/2011. Please save us. We are down the bottom of this road. 11/29/2011.”

The note is written but what can I tied it with. I didn’t bring the emergency kit with us which had the string. I looked through my day pack and I pulled out my iPad electrical cord. Oh, the things I sacrifice. I take the electrical cord and tie the note to the restoration sign. The paper is white, the cord is Apple white. Against the dark brown wood, it’s visible. Let’s hope someone comes by and sees it. With a flicker of hope, I pat down the note and cord to make sure it is somewhat secure and wish it good luck to be found. I let out a sigh and I motion Jason,

“Let’s go back down. It’s getting late.”

We turn around and start heading down, walking down at a faster pace to make sure we get back down in time before the Shadow comes. It takes us less than half an hour to get back down the canyon to the truck. I quickly unlock the truck, the camper shell and we hauled all the stuff we need to make our dinner. Jason goes find more kindling while I set up the campfire stove. He goes through the brushes towards the truck and comes back in a few minutes running through the brushes coming out into the open like a deer. He stops just in time in front of the stove and drops the kindling next to the stove. I look up at him and think to myself, boys will be boys.

I gather up the kindling and start breaking them up and get the fire going. I brought six fresh raw eggs and we need to start eating them before they rot. Two had already cracked and partly frozen from the freezing night temperature. These are for today’s dinner. I had taken some butter from the motel we stayed at in Bakersfield and use it to grease the pot to make the scramble eggs. I season it with salt and pepper that I had gotten from a MacDonald’s at the beginning of our trip. We eat it out of the pot, taking turns with each spoonful. We savor every mouthful of the deliciously hot scrambled eggs. We finish the eggs, I add half a cup of water to pot and boil it to create a thin egg soup. I add a little salt for taste and we drink every last drop. I repeat this process again and now the pot is clean and I take a dish towel to wipe it dry. I can’t afford to waste water to wash the pot, so we drank the tasty “wash water.” It is rather ingenious to make egg soup till the pot was clean. With dinner finished, we pack our “kitchen” up and take it all back to the truck.

Our 1st hot dinner of scrambled eggs.

Drinking the last of the "wash water".

It’s almost four-thirty and we brave the Shadow and the cold to explore a little bit before we get into the truck before dark. We wonder around the area and go up a little further up the road to look down at the truck. I take a video of my rambling thoughts of how to get out of this canyon. It is an attempt to pass the time away. We head back to the truck to brush our teeth and get ready for the night. It is completely dark by seven-thirty and we put up our nightly frost protection. Another night lost in Death Valley.

Figuring out a way to get out of the sand pit.

W(r)ong Turn: Surviving Death Valley (Part 5)

2011-09-19T21:01:00.000-07:00

PART 5: WAITING FOR SUNDAY TO BE OVER...

I knew that today, being Sunday, no one would have noticed we were missing. My family or friends who knew we were coming to Death Valley wouldn’t even think there was anything wrong, not even the rangers at the campsite. We did leave two of our camping chairs at Furnace Creek campsite and I wonder if the rangers would notice anything strange about that. I recall purposely greeting each ranger we saw at the campsite entrance on leaving and coming back so that they might have a recollection of seeing us should anything happen, and now that this has happened, I wonder if any of them would remember us.

Noon came and went, and we ate a small lunch of left over from breakfast. With time on our hands and being immobile, we wait for Sunday to be over. Sunday, the Thanksgiving visitors are leaving the park. There won’t be any passersby that would come across us. We know we are alone in the mountains. Knowing all the key factors that no one will be searching us, we stay put and wait for Sunday to be over.

Our only hope is on Monday, when I don’t show up for work, when Jason doesn’t show up for school, when I don’t call my mother to say we’re home, or I don’t answer the phones. Something is wrong. I am very punctual for work, and I don’t miss a day of work if I can help it without calling in. I will be relying on my work place and my mother to report us missing, and possibly the school reporting Jason missing.

So, I try to be calm and be relax as possible. We walk a little further away from the truck. We each grabbed our walking stick that I always stow readily in the truck. I reminded Jason repeatedly to be careful where we walk.

“Jason, when you walk through the grasses and brushes, you must poke the brushes and plants to scare off any critters that might be hiding in there. The last thing we want is to get bitten by snakes and stung by scorpions. That would be the end of us.”

We walk towards the dry creek in front of the truck meandering through unleveled dirt paths between the brushes about 100 feet away. We walk further down into the dry creek about another 20 feet. There are some small trees, and they look like willows that are growing along the dry banks. I was tempted to do some botanizing (plant ID) but I can’t put my heart into it because I am very depressed and preoccupied in staying close with Jason.

I look back at the truck and then turn forward to walk towards the sloppy side of the dry creek. We come across a sunny spot with bare rocks and dirt. I look around and poke the cracks in the rocks to make sure no snakes or dangerous critter were living there. It looks safe so I motion Jason to sit down and to soak up the sun for some warmth.

I turn around and look up the hill. “Look, Jason. Chia!” I exclaimed. “It’s that Salvia from Stileranch Trail in San Jose that grows along the edge of the trail. It’s done blooming.” Jason shrugs, not really caring about plants when we don’t know what will happen to us, if we’ll ever be saved. I turned around and “behaved” myself and look southward towards the mountains. We are both sitting quietly on our rock perch listening to the slight whistling sound of the wind.

“Mom,” Jason says suddenly while he looks out towards the mountains and then turns his head and looks straight at me, “at least now we have some bonding time.”

There is dead silence. What is seconds feels like minutes. Jason waits for my reply. I have a lump in my throat. I didn’t dare react or show any emotions and start to cry. I was trying to absorb every word he just said to me. My eyes widened and my heart felt like it dropped to the ground that my 13 year old son can take this situation and turn it around to make the best out of such a bad situation. I looked at him blankly. He got me real good this time because he can talk to me one on one without interruption from any one. Jason loves to talk up a real storm. He likes to talk random facts of all kind AT me. He and my mother fight for my attention when we are together. They both like to talk. I often sit there with both of them talking AT me, and I would zone out and go into my own little world.

“Yes, you’re right. It’s a great time for bonding, and I can’t escape from your talking, can I.” Replying with a smile.

“No, mom. There is no escape from me. Ha ha ha ha!” He says with a big smile and laughs.

We both laugh our silly machine gun laugh for a while. It’s the first time we can laugh so care free after being lost. It feels good we can laugh at our dire situation. We lighten up a little and begin to find humor in the things we do to survive. Humor and laughter they say helps with stress, anxiety, and depression and this is the spirit booster.

As we settle down from that conversation, I put my hands in my pockets to look for my camera. I thought I’d take some pictures of where we are and do some video recording. I pull out the camera from one of my jacket packet and turn on the camera.

Jason sees the camera and says in a nice matter of fact way, “Mom. Can you please not take pictures while we’re here. You don’t pay attention to me when you’re photographing, and I feel left out, and it’s kinda boring for me.”

Oh boy. Again, my eyes widen and the photographer in me just fell off her chair. “I can’t document what is happening!?!” I said in my head. But the mother in me has no second thoughts. The mother inside me won. I put my camera away. For now. With total self control, I refocus my attention to Jason.

View from our perch

We continue to sit on our rocky perch for a while and we see the shadow of the canyon come down the canyon. The sun is going behind the mountain and soon the canyon will be shaded out making the canyon once again like a freezer locker. Jason tells me it’s only 1:30pm. I stand up and explain to Jason that we must head back to the truck and have our dinner and get into the truck before the sun goes down on us. We walk back to the truck with the same brush poking motion. Jason being the boy he is whacks the brushes we pass. I tell him to stop breaking the plants and he stops returning to poking the brushes now. We eat a light dinner, video tape a little, brush our teeth, pack everything back into the truck including ourselves to get ready for the night. It’s 2:26pm and we are inside the truck. I turn on the ignition to charge the battery a little and to hear the radio for just a few minutes.

As we sit in the truck, we watch the mountains get consumed by the shadows created by the setting sun behind us. Jason and I talk about our day of doing nothing and our thoughts of whether anyone will come find us. We are learning to save our water by talking less so we don’t get as thirsty. We don’t make any unnecessary movements to conserve our energy to stay warm. It’s the fine art of self preservation.

The sunset is beautiful with glowing orange and reds that lights up the tips of the mountains and then only the sky is bright orange. It gets dimmer and dimmer. We see earth’s shadow - a blue narrow band - cast upon the tip of the mountains just before dusk. Within minutes the sky is dark and then is completely dark - it’s 7pm. Jason and I turn to look at each, both fearing the freezing night. I reassure him that we should be warmer tonight with layering our sleeping bags with the thermal plastic sheet tubing; lining the windows with padding and blankets. I then turn around to grab the sleeping mats in the back seat and place one in front of the windshield and then the second one on my side of the window. We pile up other blankets for Jason’s side window. This will significantly cut down the chill factor each night. We both wiggle around to get comfortable and we both fall sound asleep for the first time and sleep through the night, for me, no dreams for the night. But we are living the nightmare.

W(r)ong Turn: Surviving Death Valley (Part 4)

2011-08-12T22:34:00.000-07:00

Part 4....edited by Jason Wong.

Maintaining status quo...

After inspecting the truck, Jason and I both step away a few feet and look at the situation we are in. We look at each other and then hug each other for a little comfort. I try not to fall to pieces and cry in front of Jason as we let go of each other. Teary eyed, Jason looks at me in silence with his head hung down looking depressed and unhappy. We walk to the front of the truck. I inhale and exhale deeply to expel the bad feeling inside me. Both solemn, we both gaze out towards the mountain ranges and the view is serene but can also bring death if we are not careful. Jason and I agree this place would have been the perfect camping ground, the perfect holiday, if we weren’t in this predicament. I sigh again and return my attention to reality, the reality of whether we will ever leave this place alive.

Today is Sunday morning. The wind blows constantly down the canyon. My brain struggles to think clearly with the noise of the constant wind and the chilly wind bearing down on us. We hunch over struggling to keep warm. My toes are aching and numb at the same time. I stomp my feet to get some sensation in them. Evaluating the weather conditions, we determine today is not the day to build a campfire.

Abandoning the idea of building a campfire today, I walk towards the truck and open the front passenger door to look for the emergency kit to read up on what we are to do for now. They’re in the front seats where I left them last night. I gather them and give Jason his kit and I take mine. We both open the yellow tin and go through it eagerly and gingerly to see what else is in there that we didn’t see last night. Jason pulls out a piece of paper with the instructions on how to survive in a situation like this. He happily reads it out loud to me. It seems to calm him somewhat. “Mom, Mom!” Jason calls me. "It says to ration your sweat, not your water. So mom, don’t do anything that makes you sweat.” he continues.

I then look at my brochure and read the same thing. “Ok, Jason. That’s good to know.” Being scared, depressed and suffering from sleep deprivation, I don’t have any energy to exert myself anyways. So, no “gung ho” moments for us, not today.

After reading all the information, the idea of tea comes back to me. The emergency kit says a cup of hot tea helps keep the body warm, and it helps relax the mind and body in this stressful situation. How I wish I can have a nice cup of HOT English Breakfast Tea from Trader Joe’s, right now, but we have no fire! No tea or hot beverage. When I don’t have my morning tea, I get the mid-day headaches, and I become quite useless. - Caffeine withdrawal. Ugh. Not good in this situation. I need to be alert and thinking. Knowing this, I need to prevent the headaches from happening. I climb back into the front cabin and look for the small Wholefoods recycle shopping bag - my medicine bag. I find it tucked somewhere in the back seat and I pull it out. I go through the bag to look for the bottle of Ibuprofen I always carry with me. “Here it is”, I mumbled under my breath with delight. I get my Nalgene flip top water bottle from the front seat and put it aside on the passenger seat. I open the pill bottle and cup my hand over the opening and tip out two pills. I pop them into my mouth and chase it with gulps of water. I screw back the bottle cap and put the painkillers back into my “medic” bag and return it to where I found it. That should take care of me for 24 hours. “Oh, what a druggie” - I’m thinking to myself.

I close the front passenger door and motion Jason to walk with me to the end of the truck bed. “We have to eat something.” I told Jason.

“But mom,” Jason reply, “I’m not hungry.”

“I know, Jason. I’m not that hungry either. But we have to eat something, even if it’s a little. It’s going to help us retain our energy, keep us warmth, and to keep our spirits up.” I pull out my keys from my jacket pocket and unlock the camper door. I open the tailgate and I climb inside and start pushing things aside I don’t need now. I put aside all the food items we have, and I go back and forth between the cabin and the truck bed to group the foods, snacks, drinks, water, including taking a mental account of what we have.

Jason and I finally gather at the tailgate. We still have some Cha Siu (Chinese BBQ pork) left over from the previous nights. There’s about seven to eight sliced pieces.This is the most perishable food item so we have to eat it all by tonight before it spoils. I tell Jason that all the Cha Siu is his as I had promised Kwan Yin last night that I will be vegetarian as long as I can for keeping us safe and hopefully rescued soon. Jason looks at me blanked face and shrugs his shoulders. “Eat as much as you can to have some strength, Jason.” We can’t let it go to waste.” Jason understands this and eats three pieces. He gives me back the box of uneaten Cha Siu. I take it from him and I run my thumb and fingers along the rim of the lid to seal the box and put it back into the icebox. I can see him struggle to swallow the Cha Siu as his esophagus has tighten due the stress. I feel the same way. I feel like there’s a tight band around my neck which make me hard to swallow my saliva. I turn to look into the camper bed to see the array of foods we have taken with us on this trip. We have food for many days, and for a week if we eat the dehydrated camping food, which I also brought for some insane reason but not so insane now. We have six gallons of water. If we only use 1 gallon a day between the two of us, we can minimally survive for six days.

At the same time, calculating how long we can live out here, I make myself a garlic cream cheese and dried cranberry bagel sandwich and take small bites. The taste is interesting, salty and sweet at the same time. This is a good electrolyte food, I’m thinking. Not bad tasting. I only eat half the bagel and put the other half in a zip lock baggie and put it in my pocket for later. It is cold enough so I’m not worrying about spoiling. Having small meals are good to control our food stock. We’re so stressed and depressed anyways, we can’t take in large amounts of food or water at any one time. We both take small sips of water to make it last. We fill our water bottles for the day to ration it. The weather is cold enough we don’t have to drink too much. Jason reminds me that we do not exert or expend unnecessary amounts of energy to conserve our body fluid and energy so our water and food supply will last longer.

After finishing breakfast, with some food in my stomach, and I can think a little more clearer. I resort out the food items - gathering snacks, bagels, crackers, and all the water we have to the front cabin in the back seats readily available during the night. Food that is in the ice chest and need preparation are stored in the camper bed. I place them near the tail gate for easy access, and it is cold enough to preserve the food. Everything else are thrown to the far end into the bed. I see our two REI Trekker sleeping pads deep in the camper. I brought them with us so we can sleep of more comfortably. Remembering how cold it got last night, with all the windows frosted, getting close to hypothermia, I knew that I needed to insulate the front cabin tonight and every night, and the sleeping pads are just the right insulation material to have. The pad auto-inflates when I open the corner cap and it sucks in air until filled to about an inch thick. After closing the cap, it stays inflated. The sleeping pads are one of the key “gadgets” to have that will be part of the survival gear! Knowing this insulating layer between us and the cold is what’s going to keep us alive through the night, I pull the two pads out of the camper and carry them to the front seats to try it out for the front windshield. The pads are narrow enough it fits snuggly over the dashboard and the sun visor overhead locks the pad in place. PERFECT! Good! Yes! We’re NOT going to freeze tonight!…I’m hoping. I pull the sleeping pad from the dashboard and put both in the back seat and folded to converse space.

We finish sorting out the food with the necessary overnight items stored in the front cabin. Our next task is to make a SOS sign hopefully it can be spotted from a passing airplane or helicopter. We are next to a dry creek bed with lots of rocks of different sizes. We discuss how we are going to do this safely without endangering ourselves and be totally conscience of our movements. I tell Jason sternly, “Don’t walk into the brushes where I can’t see you. Stay close to me. Don’t wander off. You MUST stay close. You must tell me if you are going further away.” I keep repeating this to him over and over again so it’s drilled into his head and in my head, too. I have timed out my explorer self and she sits in the background in my head, motionless in suspended animation.

Before we gather the rocks, we need to make the rocks visible, we need something contrasting to show the rocks. I climb into the truck bed to search for Grandma’s sky blue tent footprint. I find her tent bag, and I pull the footprint out of the bag and lay it on the dirt ground about 50 feet away from the truck. It’s rectangular and would fix three big letters. We begin to gather rocks of different sizes and lay them on the footprint one by one. We walk up and down along the road side, not daring to venture far or into the dry creek. We don’t run or scurry around. The least amount of motion or venturing off the less risk of injury or encounters with snakes and critters. The S-O-S begins to take shape. Jason and I adjust the rocks to make them more legible, making the “S” and “O” more rounded. Exhausted, we both step back and look at it. I screw up my face and Jason shrugs his shoulders and we look at each other. It’s kind of small but we are both tired. “It will have to do for now.” I said to Jason. We take a break and Jason takes out the little emergency instruction sheet that came with the emergency kit. Jason begins to read the different symbols that represents a certain meaning. It’s a way to visually communicate to arial rescue.

“Mom, X means you can’t proceed.” Jason reads.

Thinking to myself that I should put a big “X” at the end of the S-O-S, I walk further up the road to find two long planks to add to our sign. Luckily, I found two wooden planks lying around a couple yards up. I start to drag them one by one down to the S-O-S sign. As I approach the S-O-S, it looks like the background needs to be extended to fix the X.

Remembering I have a picnic sheet inside my truck somewhere, I go into the passenger cabin pushing the things we needed for tonight aside and pull the fabric latch atop the seat to release the back seats down. I look into the mini storage space behind the back seats. There are lots of junk and things like umbrellas, tissue, feminine pads, Jason’s short wooden walking stick from our Oregon trip along the coast from a few years ago - I pull the walking stick out and give it to Jason. Jason takes it with some delight. I see my blue picnic NEAT SHEET® (it's light aqua blue one side and a darker aqua blue color on the other side.) "Aha!" I shouted. “This should do it.” Jason and I look at it, and it look kind of small. It’s the same blue shade as grandma’s footprint. Taking the sheet over to the S-O-S sign, I lay it side by side to extend the “canvas” for our SOS sign. We take the two planks and make the big X to signify we cannot proceed anymore. The sign is completed! Tired, we head back to the truck to hang out. I get my Panasonic Lumix LX3 digital camera to start recording of what have done. It's our first video after our Saturday night mishap. I didn't think to record it all while it was happening.

: Here are some short snippets I managed to take.

Our first short video on Sunday morning, Nov 28, 2010.

Jason is worried about his homework.

Sunday, Nov 28, 2010: Our SOS sign.

"X" indicates, "not able to proceed."

Keeping busy Sunday morning, Nov 28, 2010.

Hanging around our base camp, Sunday Nov 28, 2010.

W(r)ong Turn: Surviving Death Valley (Part 3)

2011-05-21T09:02:00.000-07:00

Heaven is watching over us.....

I’m back in the truck and frightened. I sit back and turn my head to look at Jason. Good, he's asleep. I turn my head and I look out of the windshield. My eyes scan across the midnight horizon - the moon has risen and it's hiding behind a big black cloud, the edges glowing. The cloud seems to be still. It's quite beautiful – the serene grey white glow lighting up the midnight sky and I can see the black silhouette of the mountain ridges like paper cut shapes pasted against a dark grey background. I take a second look and I refocus my attention on the dark looming cloud again and now it looks like a storm cloud. The sense of serenity suddenly changes to anxiety and fright. I'm trying to not work myself up into another anxiety attack. Staying calm was key to my sanity and our safety. I look at Jason and then back to the black cloud and back to Jason again. I do this several times then stop to put my head on the steering wheel to calm myself. Thinking to myself, "We have to make it through tonight. There is nothing I can do in the dark of night to get ourselves out of t.his situation. Absolutely nothing, except to stay in the safety of our truck."

I raise my head up from the steering wheel to look at that big black cloud again. I'm desperately hoping it to go away from "our" canyon. “Go away!” shouting in my head, “go away! Go over there! “Shoo, shoo, go over there!” I move my hands in sweeping motions to sweep it away from our canyon.

In moments of silence, my mind drifts to the thought of faith and religion. “Who should I be asking for help? Will it be Jesus, God, Buddha, Kwan Yin? Who shall it be? I see my mother's face, I hear her voice – “pray to Jesus, pray to Jesus”. I am going to ask for all the “Gods” for help. I start to “pray” to all of them but I feel awfully uneasy. Asking myself, “Who do I feel most comfortable with? I search within myself to find the feeling, my gut feeling of who to turn to in such desperate times. I pause for a moment and take a deep breathe and let it out slowly.

I remember when I lived in Hong Kong many years ago on an outlying island called Cheung Chau where I converted to Buddhism. Within the teachings of buddha, Kwan Yin, the Buddha Mother, is the serene and loving goddess. She comes to my heart and gives me comfort. Buddha comes to me to give me strength and endurance. Thinking of them gives me peace and calm. In our temple, we were taught a sacred verse to call for help when one was in a life-threatening situation. I think we are in that situation. I nervously bow my head down leaning against the steering wheel and I clasp my hands together. I begin searching within me for the verse. I am thinking really hard now and saying to myself, "what is the verse? what is the verse?" I keep shouting at myself in my head. “Oh, You dummy, you’ve forgotten it!” What am I going to do now? If I call out to them without remembering the verse, will they hear me? I guess, I'll have try for it and hopefully they hear my pleas.

I look up to the sky with tears rolling down my face. The black cloud is still in front of the moon. “Please Kwan Yin, please move that cloud to that side, move that cloud over there.” I move my hands again in sweeping motion sweeping the cloud away from our canyon.

Tears continue to roll down my face and I cry silently and haltingly so that I don’t wake Jason up. I fold my hands together and continue to “talk” to Kwan Yin. I am calling, in my mind, to Kwan Yin for her help to take all the black clouds away. I ask for “no snow, no rain, no wind, no animals or critters. I ask for peace, calmness and safety.” I continue to cry silently, tears rolling down my face with my face bow down over the steering wheel. I begin my Kow Tow of one thousand in desperation for help. I count in groups of 10’s then 100’s. I am onto my five hundredth Kow Tow and I look up to view the sky. The black clouds begin to slowly move towards the right, away from were we were located. I make sweeping hand movements to the right to hopefully help sweep the clouds away faster. I bow down my head again and continue on to my sixth hundredth, seventh, eighth, ninth hundred kow tow. I continue to kow tow until I reach one thousand! I do an extra 100. I lift my head up with my eyes closed and take a deep deep breath and open my eyes. To my disbelief, the sky has cleared. The moon, not yet full, is shining brightly in the silent deep dark night. I open the truck door and there is silence - the wind has stopped. The snow flurry has stopped. The rain has stopped. There is no snow! There is no rain! Not even the little mouse to greet me. I shut the door. I cry with joy that this is happening that Kwan Yin and Buddha has heard my desperate calls for help. I cry some more but again silently so I don't wake Jason up. I wipe the tears and boogers from my face with the back of my hands. I find a piece of paper towel somewhere in the truck to blow my nose and dry my tears. I open the door again to just make sure it is what I am seeing. I close the door again and with a sign of some relief, I close my eyes for the first time feeling safe and hopeful. For now there is little to do but wait for daybreak. I sleep.

I fall asleep somewhat soundly and I am dreaming, dreaming I am back in Hong Kong somewhere in a residential area on Arbuthnot Road just above the Central District. There are old Chinese style houses with double wooden doors. It is night time and there is no one on the street. One of my client, Donna and her husband is in this dream. We are in a very large warehouse like building with strips of movie film hanging down like drapery all over and we are moving through it. There is a slight breeze which makes the film strip wave slightly in the air. I suddenly wake up and wonder what is all that about. Reality hits me and it is freezing inside the car. I look at the windshield and I am in shock to see a thick layer of condensation frozen on the inside of the glass. It is the condensation from our breathing. Jason wakes up and he is in shock. It’s freezing in here, it’s like a freezer locker. He turns on his cell phone and looks at his phone to see what time it is, “It’s one-thirty, mom. No signal.” he says. He turns the phone off and puts it in his pants pocket. I look at the back of the seat windows and I see the moon has moved behind us. It’s only one-thirty in the morning. We have another five or six hours before we see any daylight. I take a deep breath thinking how we are going to pass the time without going insane and panic. I keep chanting in my head, "keep calm for Jason, keep calm for Jason." We both lean back and wriggle to get comfortable in our cocoon. We say nothing to each other. Jason and I drift in and out of our sleep. I wake up often to check on him and the position of the moon. He sleeps more than I do. Each time I wake up the moon moves further behind us. Now it is almost on my left. I try to get more sleep and wriggle in my cocoon some more to get comfortable. I sleep.

The canyon road we drove down.

View from our "camp" looking up towards Hunter Mountain.

Remnant of snow from Saturday night.

Jason happily pointing to our "dumping station".

Dawn and Sunday (Nov. 28th) has arrived, It’s maybe about five-thirty and the sky is starting to get light behind the mountain range. I open the door slightly to listen. The wind has returned and it's real chilly. I shut the door and shiver. Oh shit, nature calls! I need to take a dump but I'm reluctant to leave the safety of the truck. I wait a little longer until I can’t hold it in anymore. Rats! I open the door and jump out quickly shutting the door behind me and begin to walk along the road to look for a good place to take my dump. I have to find a place far away from the truck but not too far where I can’t see the truck or that I can’t be seen. I can’t be too close because of fecal contamination to our area. I need to find an area there that has enough sand or loose dirt so the crap can be buried sufficiently so flies and other critters are not easily attracted to it. I want to be down hill from our camp, but it is too shrubby and I am afraid and still dim. I decide to go up hill, about fifty feet from the truck on the side of the road. I find a spot with some upright scrubby plants where there is some privacy and yet I can see the truck and Jason. It's still freezing cold and my toes are stiff and numb. I get my business done quickly and bury the crap and TP in a mound of gravelly sand. I run back to the truck quickly and get in. I find the hand sanitizer and “wash” my hands. I get back into my “cocoon” and wait for Jason to wake up.

Our truck stuck at the dead end.

Jason stirs to wake up. “Did you get any sleep?” I ask him. “Not really, mom.” He replies. “Me too.” responding to him. Jason opens the door to get out and stands besides the truck and does a long piss. He gets back into the truck and I hand him the hand sanitizer. “It’s cold out there, mom.” I nod and tell Jason, “I’m going to turn on the engine and run it for a little bit. This will help keep the engine in working condition. Last thing we want is the battery dying on us when we need to use the car.” I turn on the ignition key and start the engine. The engine starts. The clock in the truck lights up. It’s six-thirty. I turn on the radio to hear NPR. It’s the only channel that is available in the park. They are playing a song - “Here comes the sun. Here comes the sun. It's alright......” My face lights up and thought how perfect to set the tone for the days to come. As we watch the sun rise and listen to the rest of the song, I feel encouraged and hopeful. I convey this to Jason. He responds with a slight nod of his head with weary and uncertainty.

Scratches on the sides of the truck.

The yellow plastic is the emergency thermal layer

for sleeping at night. We hang it out to dry from our

nightly condensation. I put a red cone on top of the

antennae to attract attention.

We finish listening to the song and I turn off the engine. With my spirit a bit higher, we both get out of the truck to take a look at our situation. I remain calm and collected as I walk around the truck to check all four tires are ok. No flat tires, thank goodness! Nothing broken. What a relief! I step back and walk around the truck. I see the streaked scratches on both sides of the truck. I think it’s only surface scratches. I run my fingers to feel the surface - still smooth. No paint has been scratched off, thank goodness. I circle around the truck again but this time taking in environmental information about our surroundings. The wind - it’s blowing hard again and whistling down the canyon. The temperature - it’s still very cold and we are shivering. We need something hot to eat or drink but with the is wind bearing down onto the canyon and we can’t make a camp fire.

To be continued... Part 4: Sunday, the first day.

W(r)ong Turn: Surviving Death Valley (Part 2)

2011-02-06T20:12:00.001-08:00

The story continues. The night is very long ….

A little disappointed that I can’t engage him into talking about the stars. But who can blame him. I’m thinking about my family and friends. “Oh boy, I am going to get my A.. reamed for sure by grandma.” I told Jason. “Frank is going to ream my A.. for sure, too.” I continue. “I’m worrying for the people who are going to worry about us, Jason. If grandma’s cancer comes back because of this… how am I going to live with that? They don’t know where we are. And how are they going to find us?” Jason cuts in, “It’s my fault, mom. I didn’t give you the right directions. It’s my fault.” My heart sinks and my throat tighten and I can hardly swallow when hearing this. Trying very hard to control my emotions I continue stoically. “No, Jason, it’s my fault. It’s not your fault. I’m a bad mom. I’m a bad mom for letting you take such a big responsibility reading the map. I’m the bad mom, Jason.” We continue to argue about it, going back and forth. “Stop.” I tell Jason. “This is not helping. Let’s not talk about it. We’re here now. So let’s focus on what we are going to do to stay alive.” We both fall silent. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly but heavily putting my forehead on the steering wheel. My heart is heavy and in pain for my child who blames himself for something he didn’t have a full understanding of. I can’t let him think he’s to blame. Another deep sigh comes out of me. I am so helpless. I put my face in my hands and massage my face and then I run my hand and fingers through my hair and pull my hair to relieve the stress and the anxiety. I do this several times until my head hurts.

I lean back into the seat and look out the windshield and let my mind drift for a moment. My mind begins to see an imaginary rotary index cardholder of things I should be doing in an emergency situation. Suddenly, I sit up. Thinking to myself, we don’t have ID cards on our body. I quickly look for my purse. Good, it’s in the front seat. I unzip the many zippers on my little red Baggallini purse and rummage through the many pockets until I finally find my driver’s license. I pull it out and hold it on my left hand. I continue to rummage and I find one of my business cards and my medical card. I put these together with my driver’s license in my inner fleece jacket pocket snugly tucked so they don’t fall out. If they find my body, I can be identified. If I need medical attention, the medical card will be handy. I go through my purse again for Jason’s medical card, found it! I hand it to him. “Here, Jason, put it in your pocket where it won’t fall out. You probably didn’t bring your school ID.” I asked him half-heartedly. I pull out the ashtray and pull a stash of my business cards. I write “Jason Wong” on the card and hand it to Jason with the rest put back into the ashtray. I make sure I shut the ashtray tight otherwise the little light inside the ashtray stays on and this will drain the truck battery, and is NOT good to have a dead battery out in the middle of nowhere. I purposely avoid telling Jason the reason for having the ID on him. I didn’t want him to think that we are going to die anytime soon. I flip through my credit cards and junk and I find the AAA plastic car key duplicate. I give this to Jason. “Here Jason, I’m giving you this plastic duplicate car key in case I drop my keys in the wilderness or lock ourselves out of the truck.” He puts all this into his pant side pocket where there is Velcro to “lock” the flap of the pocket. Feeling a little more secure that we would be identifiable if we were found dead, and less chance of being lock out of the truck and end up freezing to death at night. The truck is our castle and home for now.

To pass the time, I go through my map bag to find our emergency kits. I take it out of the bag, one by one. My fingers are cold and numb from the dropping temperature. They are clumsy and I am feeling around the tape to find the end, but I can’t feel it. My fingers are hurting and numb at the same time. It’s like having them submerged in icy cold water. I try to rip the tape off, but it is tightly wrapped around the tin. I keep turning and turning the tin until I finally find the end of the tape. “Yes.” I said under my breath. I gingerly peel the tape end off the tin box and start turning the tin to unwind the tape. With the tape off, I wriggle the top open and it comes off. I peer into the box. The emergency items are all neatly packed in a zip lock bag and tightly packed into the tin. I gingerly pull the zip lock bag out carefully not to break the bag. It’s so tightly packed. I wiggle it a little bit at a time but it gets stuck in the tin partway and the zip lock bag begins to stretch and stretch from my pulling. The bag rips. Dang! I made a hole in the bag. Everything in this tin has a purpose and use. The bag is to hold water and it’s torn. That’s not good, Dee. I said to myself in my head. I continue to pull the bag gingerly and with a sudden jerk, the bag is out. I pull the zip lock bag open taking out each item to see what it is and what I should do with it. A candle, matches – I put it back into the tin. A small jack knife – I hand the knife to Jason. “Keep it closed, Jason.” I said, “and don’t play with it.” I continue. I look at Jason to make sure he makes eye contact with me and to take me seriously. Jason takes it and puts it in his pocket. A whistle – I hand it to Jason. I ask for Jason’s key chain he carries for the house key. He gives it to me, and I take it from him. I look for a spare key ring to loop the whistle to his outer jacket zipper. “We can’t loose the whistle, Jason, so I’m going to loop it to your zipper on your outer jacket.” I manage to get the whistle looped onto his jacket. Jason gives it blow and my ear is ringing from it. I pull back from him and plug my ears with my fingers. Controlling my annoyance, “Maybe, we should do that in the morning when were outside.” I said with a smile. I continue to go through the box. Everything else I stuff back into the bag and then into the tin. I open the second tin, and I go through the same trouble as with the first tin except this time, the bag comes out unbroken. I take the jack knife and the whistle and put it in my jacket pocket. I stuff everything I didn’t need for now back into the tin and put both tins back in the map bag and put the map bag behind my seat. We both relax a little and make small talk about what to do and what not to do. “We must stay by the truck until we get rescued. Our food and water is here and this is our base camp. We will never make it out of here if we try to walk out of here over the mountains. We’ll freeze to death at night.” Jason agrees to my every word. I tell him the story about a man and his family that got lost on a snowy road somewhere up north. The man left the car to walk to find help while his family stayed in the car. The man died of exposure in the freezing cold. His family was rescued and survived the ordeal. “We want to live through this.” I told Jason. Trying to give him encouragement and strength to deal with our ordeal.

We adjust our sleeping bags and blanket trying to get comfortable. Just as I am getting comfortable, “Oh darn it, I got go pee!” I tell Jason. This is the part I dread. I’m all bundled up in my layers of comfort – the sleeping bag, the down blankets, and layers and layers of clothing – it takes a lot of energy to move and get out of the truck. I fumble to find the flashlight. It’s a new kind that looks like a glow stick. It has a whistle at the end and has a string attached that can be hung around the neck. I find it, it’s hanging on the rear view mirror and I turn it on. I wriggle like a caterpillar trying to shed its skin in between growth stage to get out of my sleeping bag and the down blankets. I take the flashlight off the rear view mirror and I open the door slightly to make sure there aren’t any wild animals outside waiting for me. I stick my flashlight out and wave it and make hand gesture like I’m shooing away something. I look left, then right, then straight ahead. Good, no glowing eyes of animals or critters in sight. I look on the ground to make sure there aren’t any critters I might step on. None. I decided it would not be smart to leave the safety of the truck to relieve myself instead. I stand with my back against the truck. I quickly unbuckle my belt and pull my pants down and go as quickly as I can. I quickly finish up and get back into the truck shivering. I turn off the flashlight. I give a loud sigh. Jason asks, “What’s wrong?” I reply, “it’s cold out there, and it’s windy. I don’t see anything out there. Which is a good sign. Jason, when you go pee DO NOT leave the truck, just stand next to truck and go. It’s ok if you get the truck dirty.” I wriggle back into my layers and try to get comfortable again.

The night slowly passes and we both can’t sleep. Jason and I talk about being on the news if we were found. We both agreed we don’t want to be on the news. Some more time passed and I need to pee again. I do my wriggling and wriggling dance out of my layers and do my shooing away ritual as I open the door. As I step out of the truck this time the wind is blowing down harder from the top of the canyon whistling intermittently. I raise my arm up into the air like Statue of Liberty with the flashlight in my right hand to scan the dark canyon. The glow of my flashlight produces a snowflake globe effect when the flurry of snowflakes and raindrops swirl into view that fall within the range of the light. Darn it, it’s snowing and raining a little. This makes me very nervous. For a moment of untamed beauty, unforeseen danger may be building up if the snowing and raining starts to get heavy. I’m thinking this is not good at all and I begin to worry. I shine the flashlight towards the bushes to see what kind of terrain we are in and I see a dry creek below. Good, we’re above the lowest point which mean if we get any flash flood, I’m hoping we have a little time to escape out of the truck. I am tempted to seek higher grounds, but it is too dark and dangerous to be looking around in an unfamiliar place. I abandon the idea. I quickly relieve myself and get back into the truck and turn off the flashlight.

To be continued...

The W(r)ong Turn: Surviving Death Valley (Part One)

2010-12-18T07:30:00.001-08:00

Written by Dee Wong and Jason Wong

Photos by Dee Wong

What a nice short weekend Thanksgiving trip to Death Valley National Park turned out to be a nightmare facing a possible slow death with a miraculous ending.Stranded for 3 freezing nights in a dead end canyon in Hunter's Mountain on an unmarked road. Surviving on only what we had in our truck, common sense, and 2 emergency kits.

Jason and I are forever grateful and thankful with all our

hearts my co-workers and our family, the San Mateo County Sheriff, the Mountain View Police, the National Park Service, the CHP, and the CHP Airops pilots (Shane and Scotty), and anyone reported our siting. They were all our heroes.

We also thank all those who prayed for us from afar and sen

t blessings and good vibes to us or even just thinking about us to get us through each day in the wild - it

all helped miraculously every second of our lives out there. Death Valley is over a million a

cres. Finding us was finding a needle in a haystack! They found us in a day and a half! A miracle!

We have already spent Friday

afternoon and all day Saturday exploring the most popular tourist spots in Death Valley. Saturday morning, we went to tour Scotty's Castle and had lunch there.

We then went to Ubehebe Crater. By the time we finished climbing out of Ubehebe Crater, we decided to head to the Racetrack to take some quick photos ops and look for those "moving rocks" I have been reading about. By the time we got there, the sun was beginning to set behind the mountains, and most of the other people are heading out of The Racetrack.

We’re beginning to get anxious to get back to Furnace Creek Campground for the night. It’s our last night here leaving tomorrow morning going home in Silicon Valley. I look for Jason who was still climbing The Grandstand.

I circled The Grandstand and I suddenly see him pop out of the rocks above me. I signal him with a flick of my head to the direction of the parking area and ask him if he’s ready to go. He nods and grunts in a typical teen reply and we head back to the parking lot where our truck is parked. We get to our truck finding a young man between our truck and his station wagon cooking something in a pot over his camp stove – dinner I presume. His dog, inside his station wagon, barks at us as we approached them. I let the man know we where leaving and will be starting the truck, “Hello, we’re leaving. It’ll be dusty.” I said cheerfully to him.

We pull out of the parking lot only to stop suddenly to have a QUICK scan of the park map we picked up on our way in – MISTAKE NO. 1. We wanted to get back to camp as fast as we could, thinking the SHORTEST ROUTE would be our answer – MISTAKE NO. 2. We looked at the park map quickly pointing and following with our fingers the route we would want to take through the mountains. “It looks like it’s mostly left turns at the junctions, Jason.” Jason agrees without really know what he's agreeing to. We make our way out of The Racetrack arriving at our first junction, Teakettle Junction, taking one last QUICK check on the sign for directions – MISTAKE NO.3. Thinking it was Stovepipe Wells pointing towards Hunters Mountain, it was not.

We slowly make our way up the road towards Hunter Mountain. We are wash boarding on the road. I slow down even more. There are cars behind us and I let each one pass as they come behind us and I am hoping to follow them out. I follow them as fast as I could only to be driving in their wake of dust. They are racing out of there which makes me more anxious. The last car I see is making it over a steep incline and like a puff of smoke "IT'S GONE" as I scream inside my head. As I reach the same incline, there is no one there not even a dust trail to follow. I turn to Jason and ask, “Where the heck did they all go? I can’t believe they can drive so fast here.” I don’t recall what Jason says as I begin to panic. I stop and I look at Jason again and paused and I said “shit”. We franticly look at the map again but by now we are confused and scared. I make a left turn at the junction and continue to drive. We hit another junction and did the same routine, making a left turn. On our third junction and last junction, I stopped again and ask Jason where are we. How did I expect my son to know where we are when I don't even know where we were. By now we are both disoriented, I make the last left turn and we began to descend downhill into a narrow rocky road. The headlights are already on but can't see very far. I see a hiking post sign with 3 symbols that I could barely make out. One was a man walking with a red circle and crossed out. I ask Jason, “What does that post say?” Within seconds, we rolled passed it continuing our downhill descent. I quickly change to my lowest gear L with the H4wheel drive engage to have more control of the truck. We come across a wooden plank. I stop the truck, unbuckle myself, open my door and jump out to pull the plank aside. I didn't want to drive over it and it has nails in it and get a flat tire. I jump back in the truck, buckle up, and continue to drive downhill. The road was windy and very bumpy with rocks and boulders jutting out. I maneuver carefully to miss the rocks and boulders but could not avoid the brushes from scraping against the side of the truck. I could hear branches breaking, snapping, and the scraping sounds like someone running their long nails against a chalkboard. I thought to myself, “boy oh boy what did I get us into. I continue downhill for what seemed like forever. We come out of the brushes what seem like a long stretch of straight road.” I step on the gas a little to speed up the car. Within seconds, we hit a wall of brushes and I slam on the brakes, which makes the car slide forward slightly. “OH SHIT” saying it under my breath so I don’t cause Jason to panic. I disengaged the 4wheel drive and shifted to reverse. I can hear the rear wheels spinning as they are grinding against the gravel burying itself into the sand. I stop and took a deep breath and then shift to L and then back to reverse to hopefully rock it out of the hole. Remembering, I’ve done this before in a Ford Ranger when I was at Pacific Nursery one time. But this time, it only keeps digging deeper into the gravel. I finally stop after 3 attempts, as I didn’t want all the wheels buried making it worse. Quickly, I turn off the engine, the headlights, and the radio to conserve the battery. I slump over the steering wheel, feeling devastated and sick to my stomach. It felt like my stomach and heart is in my throat.

It is now dead quiet with the occasional whistling of the wind coming down from top of the canyon. The wind slightly rocks the truck and I take another deep breath. I look out thru the window and windshield into the wilderness. The mountain ranges surround us on all four sides its silhouette against the darkening orange sky dapped with some clouds. It is now dusk and the glow of the sunset starts to diminish with every blink of my eyes.

Jason starts to cry and says in his deep raspy voice, “Fuck, we’re going to die. I don’t want to die.” As he continues to sob, I take a deep breath and slowly say to him in a matter of fact monotone way, “No we’re not, I’m not ready to die, you’re not ready to die, I don’t feel it. It’s not our time to die. I have too much too do.” Jason slowly calms down and we lean over towards each other trying to hug each other for comfort but we are stopped by the side glove compartment where I store my junk. Instead, we hold hands tightly with me desperately giving all the comfort a mother can give possible to her frightened child. Inside, I am shaking with fright and my chest tightens with anxiety triggered by the adrenaline and I can barely breathe or talk anymore. I clasp my hands again my chest as if I was taking my last breath. I feel nauseous. I can feel my panic attacks coming but I take hold of myself and start taking deep breathes. I must keep in control for the sake of my child and myself. It is helping. I take some more slow deep breathes remembering the Yoga breathing technique I learned some months ago for pain management for my sciatica. My mind begins to wonder and split second images comes into my brain. It is taking a stock check of what we bought and brought for this trip. A trip to hell, I thought. Water – 6 gallons; bagels – 2 bags; instant noodles – there’s still 2 more packs; Cha Siu (Chinese BBQ Pork) – one and half quart box left over from previous night; 4 bags of almost expired dehydrated camping food – enough for not sure how many meals; 2 packs of biscuits; dried cranberries; Trader Joe’s prosciutto combo meat; cream cheese with chives; soymilk – 2 litres; papaya and mango salsa; 4 raw eggs; 4 pouches of apple juice; and ... I’m thinking to myself, “well, I’m kinda of prepare for disaster here.”

“Jason”, I said calmly, “I think we should be good with food and water for at least 3 days or even a week, maybe, if we rationed everything.” Hearing that, Jason is calmer and stops crying.

It was about 6:30pm when we stopped at the end of the canyon. It is now about 7:30pm and the sky gets dimmer by the seconds. Each time we blinked, it is darker and darker. Suddenly, I see small black shadows flying in front of the windshield. I point it out to Jason, “Look, what are they?” For a moment, I pause and then I said, “I think they’re bats. They’re bats checking us out! Cool.” We see more flying by and suddenly a loud thud hits the roof of the truck. Jason and I look at each other, then I said, “Either a bat hit us or it did a big crap on the roof of the truck.” We both pondered and wondered about that for a few minutes. Suddenly, the bats disappear – gone – poof. The sky is now dark.

The night is now upon us and I see our first twinkle of stars in the night sky. “What star is that?” I pointed to it in front of us, hopefully to distract Jason but he wasn’t interested. I look again and realize it’s a satellite, not a star. Then another twinkle shows up, another satellite. “Where are the stars?” I say to Jason. “Where is the North Star?” Jason responds with disinterest, “I don’t know. I just want to go home.” I keep staring at the sky on my left, scanning across to the front windshield to the right where Jason is in the passenger seat. The Earth is rotating from my left to my right and the stars are beginning to rise from the cosmic horizon on my left. More stars appear. “I think I see the Big Dipper.” I told Jason. I continue to point to the sky and talking to Jason to get his mind of what just happened, “I see the Milky Way.” Jason replies in a monotone and depressing voice, “I don’t know, I don’t see anything.”

I don’t know how long we were doing this for but it starts to get cold, very cold. In response to the cold, I quickly jump out of the truck with my flashlight. It’s cold, it’s windy, it’s dark, the loud whistling wind coming down from the top of the canyon, I don’t see glowing animal eyes reflecting from my flashlight, phew. I feel a little safer. It’s creepy. I’m shivering. I run to the back of the camper bed, unlock the camper latch and open the top hatch and the tailgate. I begin pulling all the necessities I thought we would need for the night. The 2 large down blankets from my bed at home; sleeping bags; dry snacks; extra jackets; all our water supply, toiletries, and the two emergency kits. I fling them into the back seat of the truck and climb back into my driver seat shivering and scared. I had to keep ALL the water close to us as a security blanket.

As quickly as I can, I get the bedding sorted out haphazardly for the both of us – we each had a sleeping bag, we share the down blankets and layer it on top of one another, thinking it would be warmer – I was so wrong. We wore 5 to 6 layers of clothing earlier in the day as it was getting cold and windy.

We begin to settle down but we are now a bit hungry. We had to eat something to stay warm but couldn’t really eat much or swallow because of the anxiety and trauma we are in. I put my hand in the food bag and fumble through it. I feel something square and solid. I pull it out. Biscuits, Ovaltine biscuits. It’ll have to do for now for our dinner. We each had a pack containing 5 biscuits and ate them cautiously, savoring every bite knowing that with each bite our food supply begins to diminish.

After eating the biscuits, we drink a little bit of water to wash the dry biscuits down. We are careful not to guzzle too much water as we have to ration the water. Then having to pee often at night in the wilderness was not appealing to me at all. To conserve my energy I had to make myself not worry or stress out. There is nothing I can do now that would change for the better, it would only make matters worse if I went berserk. I hung on to my sanity for the sake of my child.

I begin to feel a little less anxious now. We watched the sky some more. We see airplanes flying by; satellites do their zig zag routine. I think I even see some that spin out of control. “Look!” I shouted to Jason, “I see a monkey, an elephant, a fish! For sure there was a light show just for us. Jason again responds with disinterests and says, “I don’t see anything”. I just want to go home.”

More to come...

Dee's Photo Exhibit at Saratoga Library

2010-08-04T21:11:00.001-07:00

September 2010 is almost here and I am so thrilled to let all my friends and family know that the exhibit begins after Labor Day in September thru October for 2 months at the Saratoga Library! It will be of my earlier works in addition to recent works. I hope to see all my friends there!

Saratoga Library

13650 Saratoga Avenue

Saratoga, CA 95070-5099

Tel: 408.867.6126

Santa Cruz Moutains: Search and Rescue

2010-01-23T21:35:00.000-08:00

Saturday January 23, 2010; 4:18PM

On Russian Ridge, Skyline Blvd, CA

Photo by: Dee Wong

A search and rescue helicopter looking for survivors from a reported downed small airplane over the Santa Cruz Mountains flies across a partial rainbow above Portola Valley / Los Trancos Woods.

While hiking with my 12 year old son, Jason, he spotted a partial rainbow over Portola Valley / Los Trancos Woods area . "Look mom, a rainbow! I turned round an was surprised at the beautiful view. I told him, great job in spotting it. As I began shooting, a helicopter from the search and rescue crew came into view while circling over the Santa Cruz Mountains as it was looking for a reported downed plane over the Santa Cruz Mountains as I was told earlier by a newscaster (don't know the TV station he was with, nor his name) as he was moving up to higher grounds to film the helicpoters on Russian Ridge on Skyline. I hope the rainbow was a good sign ....

RAIN JEWELS ON RUSSIAN RIDGE

2009-11-28T09:01:00.000-08:00

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Russian Ridge on Skyline Blvd

Written and photos by Dee Wong

An early morning hike up at Russian Ridge along Skyline Blvd. It was just cloudy below on the Peninsula, but as I drove further up, it got more and more misty. As I walked through the Ancient Oak forest and under trees, the tree canopy would capture the floating mist and produce raindrops within its own forest, ahhh, our own mini rainforest in action!!! The raindrops produce puddles under the tree providing water for its roots.

Left: California Fuschia, Right: Gumplant

The California Fuschia (Epilobium canum) is a late bloomer from late Summer / early November, perfect blooms in late November hang on covered with peppered mist drops.

The Gumplant found here is most likely the Gindelia hirsutulia blooming late.

The giant seed of the California Buckeye revealed in its thick pod. The pod has cracked open and will begin to "shrivel" back and pop out the seed to the ground for the next step of germination.

A beautiful “diamond studded” carpet, rain droplets make a spider’s den entrance easily visible

With the two rain storms in October with alternating hot and cold weather, it triggered some of the spring flowers to bloom in November, like the California Poppies.

This nasty invasive plant, the Yellow Star Thistle seedhead covered with mistdrops emulating a diamond ring.

Spring Wildflowers at Stile Ranch Trail

2009-03-20T19:13:00.000-07:00

March 15, 2009
Stile Ranch Trail in San Jose:
Written by Dee Wong
All photos by Dee Wong

The weather was perfect, it started out a bit overcast, not too cold nor windy and by midday, the sun came out with temperature in somewhere in upper 50/60's.

It’s an easy trail to hike for people of all ages. It ascends gradually switching back and forth along the trail but the path were rocky and sandy, so hiking shoes/boots are recommended with a good tread for good grip. Watch out for the mountain bikers, it's also a popular bike trail, and a horse trail, too. So keep a look out and listen to bike rattles and clopping hooves of horses. Poison oak alert! A clusters of them are amongst some boulders under some bay trees near the trail at the top before descending down on the other side of the hill.

At the beginning of Stile Ranch Trail, there are a couple picnic tables with one table under the shade of a small oak tree. There aren't any restrooms along this trail. The closest public facility would be the mall on the corner of Almaden Expressway and Camdan. The trail sign says, IBM Corp. granted this 1.3 miles easement trail to Santa Clara County Parks & Recreation and was opened to public use in Sept. 1991.

This trail meanders through a mix of clay and Serpentine soil trail. The Serpentine rocks are a mixed color of light green to dark green with off white. They are shiny and feel "waxy". Most plants can't live in serpentine soils due to its low too poor organic and nutrient content and those that can are rare and different which makes all the more interesting.

As you enter the trail, Amsinckia menaiesii var. intermedia (Common Fiddlenecks) are already heavily blooming along side the trail, intermixed with Cryptantha flaccidas (Flaccid Cryptanthas), which look like miniature Fiddlenecks. As you start your ascent, there are welcoming carpets of Plagiobothrys nothofulvus, Common Popcornflower above the trail. Both sides of the trail are also filled with Salvia mellifera (Black Sage), Scrophularia californica (Beeplant), Artemisia californica (California Sagebrush) and of course, Eschscholzia californica (California Poppy).All these plants were thriving in and around this small runoff that flows across the trail path and down below where it pools creating a riparian (water/wet)community.

I also found a Variable Checkerspot caterpillar (Euphydryas chalcedona)
near a Beeplant and another dining on the tips of the new buds. The caterpillars are black with 3 columns of black hairy soft spines from head to the “tail” with several columns of black hairy soft orange spines along its two sides, also from head to tail.

Some Black Sages are starting to bloom with old blooms still hanging on from last year. It's interesting to see how the Black Sage comes back with dense new growth from the base of an old plant that has fallen over and looks half dead! I like the scent of the Black Sage as it's not as strong as other sages I have come across. The color of the flower here on this trail are off white with washed out pale lavender / purple towards the anthers and stigmas.

The artemesias are starting to have new growth but no flowers yet. Watch out for them as the weather gets hotter and dryer. They took a good beating this winter and look ratty.

The California Poppies are scattered in clusters of bouquets at the lower trail and becomes sparse further uphill. It's quite hypnotic looking at the California Poppy flower as it shimmers in the sunlight with its iridescent bright orange petals.

As you get further up the trail, it becomes a meadow of grasses and wildflowers with outcrops of rocks and boulders that "pop up" from nowhere. Some of the rocks and boulders are covered with bright colored lichens, from yellows to bright intense flaming oranges "splashed" all over the rocks. Guess what! The color of the wildflowers match the lichens! It's quite an awesome site. Mother Nature has done it again! So step back and gaze at the landscape to catch the matching rocks and boulders with carpets of the wildflower that are like fairywands with gold stars at the tips waving in the wind.

The "fairywands" waving in the wind are the flowers of the Common Fiddleneck and Flaccid Cryptantha. They are along the trails and in the meadows. The flower stalks are long and tall with blooms that unfurl, just as a fern would unfurl a new frond. Instead the Fiddlenecks unfurl blooms that never seem to end. The oldest blooms are at the bottom of the flower stalk and the newest blooms at the tip of the stalk. The flower stalks are tall so they are above or as tall as the meadow grass at about 8 inches high.

I also found a small cluster of Pellaea andromedifolia (Coffee Fern) tucked between some dry rocky crevices on a south facing slope. It's my first encounter with the Coffee Fern and they were beautiful. The fronds were delicate and fragile looking but are tough and thick to the touch. The small leaflets are about 3/4" or less with rounded tips. The old leaflets are dark dull green with 2 beige or tan colored stripes on the leaflet parallel to the mid-vein. They look like railroad tracks! As the frond age and degrade, the leaflets drop off leaving the stipe (similar to a branch in plants) to dry up becoming brittle and break off providing organic matter or shade for itself. The young leaflet are bright green and have no stripes or not prominent.

There were patches of Lasthenia californica (California Goldfields) scattered throughout the meadows. They grow closer to the ground at about 6 inches or less. So where there are less grass, the Goldfields make claim to those grounds.

Only a few Lomatium utriculatum (Spring-gold) are just emerging and can be found near the trail. They grow close to the ground.

Layia gaillardioides (Woodland Layia / Gaillardia-Flowered Tidytips) are also just emerging and more should be out by April. The yellow petals of the new flowers emerge rolled inwards looking like tubes with a tinge of pink on its underside. The entire plant is covered with soft fine hairs with rust red color specks except for the petals. Will need to go back in April to see them in full bloom

As I made my way over the hill to the other side on the south eastern slope, Dodecatheon hendersonii (Woodland Shooting Star) are bloom. They look like miniature Cyclamens. The flowers are pink to lavender in color and measures about 1" or less and the plant is about 6" to 8" tall.

Claytonia gypsophiloides, Coast Range Montia are found growing in the same south easterly facing slopes as the Shooting Stars but at the edge of the trail top that has excellant drainage with sandy soil. The whitish pinkish petals are delicately "white washed" with darker pastel pinks and with stripings.

Crassula connata (Sand Pygmyweed) and
Plantago erecta (California Plantain) are found co-existing where there are shorter grasses with sandy soil. The Sandy Pygmy Weed are about 1" to 1-1/2" tall with pinkish to reddish tones.

The Plantago erecta (California Plantain) is really pretty and delicate with translucent, tiny paper thin "petals" with the anthers protruding above it's flower to either self pollinate or be blown in the wind for cross pollination. You have to kneel down to get a real close look at them to see their beauty.

Lots of Gilia achilleifolia (California Gilia) are popping up and they are bluish to lavender in color. My digital camera can't seem to pick up the blue color that I see with my eyes, it comes out lavendar to pastel purple instead.

It was late and hadn't had lunch yet, so I turned back just after reaching the first part of the downhill trail towards Santa Teresa County Park. It will be another day to do more hiking there. But for now, here is what CA native wildflowers and plants that were blooming.

WILDFLOWERS AND PLANTS IN BLOOM:
Achillea millefolium, Common Yarrow
Amsinckia menaiesii var. intermedia, Common Fiddleneck
Camissonia graciliflora (Oenothera graciliflora),
Slender flowered Primrose
Carex serratodens, Bifid Sedge
Claytonia gypsophiloides, Coast Range Montia
Crassula connata, Sand Pygmyweed
Cryptantha flaccida, Flaccid Cryptantha
Dichelostemma capitiatum, Bluedicks
Dodecatheon hendersonii, Woodland Shooting Star
Erodium cicutarium, Redstem Filaree
Eschscholzia californica, California Poppy
Gilia achilleifolia, California Gilia
Lasthenia californica, California Goldfields
Layia gaillardioides, Gaillardia-Flowered Tidytips /
Woodland Layia
Lomatium utriculatum, Spring-gold
Plagiobothrys nothofulvus, Common Popcornflower
Plantago erecta, California Plantain
Ranunculus californicus, California Buttercup
Scrophularia californica, Beeplant

Besides wildflowers, I also found ...
Artemisia californica (California Sagebrush)
Pellaea andromedifolia, Coffee Fern
Polypodium californicum, California Polypody
Salvia mellifera, Black Sage

INSECT WORTH NOTING:
Euphydryas chalcedona,Variable Checkerspot (caterpillar)

Click here to see the entire slide show.

Above plants are referenced against the following sources:
Plants of the SF Bay Region, Linda H. Beidlemann and Eugene N. Kozloff
CNPS, SCV, Blazing Star Website, Plant List Page
Googling