{"id":67868,"date":"2017-03-06T23:12:19","date_gmt":"2017-03-07T06:12:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/women-lost-in-wilderness-thought-we-were-going-to-die\/"},"modified":"2017-03-07T06:12:19","modified_gmt":"2017-03-07T06:12:19","slug":"women-lost-in-wilderness-thought-we-were-going-to-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/women-lost-in-wilderness-thought-we-were-going-to-die\/","title":{"rendered":"Women lost in wilderness \u2018thought we were going to die\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Ronda
Ronda Ramsier, left, and Carol Powell set out for a day hike Aug. 12 in the high country northeast of Vallecito Reservoir with their llamas, Dawson and Chai. The women became lost and spent two cold nights in the Weminuche Wilderness before being rescued about 4:30 a.m. Aug. 14 by the Air Force.<\/span>Courtesy of Carol Powell<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Ronda Ramsier and Carol Powell, both nurses, talked about what it would be like to die from hypothermia.<\/p>\n

The grim conversation came on their second night spent lost in near-freezing temperatures above 11,000 feet in elevation in the Weminuche Wilderness<\/a> northeast of Vallecito Reservoir.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were both pretty calm, it was pretty amazing \u2013 just planning our death at the end of the second day,\u201d Ramsier said. \u201cWe talked a lot about how does one die from hypothermia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ramsier, of Bayfield, and Powell, of Rittman, Ohio, left their base camp about 4 p.m. Aug. 12 for what was to be a short hike before dinner. They had water, rain gear, a few snacks and two llamas.<\/p>\n

They set out with Jack McGroder, Ramsier\u2019s husband, who had the most familiarity with Cave Basin on Middle Mountain. But McGroder cut his hike short after experiencing back pain. The two women planned to hike another 20 minutes before turning back.<\/p>\n

But McGroder wouldn\u2019t see or hear from Ramsier and Powell for 36 hours, when the U.S. Air Force plucked them from a steep canyon and flew them to safety.<\/p>\n

Ramsier, 60, who has lived in the area for 19 years, blames herself for getting lost. She admits to having a terrible sense of direction, and Powell, 58, her visiting cousin, is unfamiliar with the mountains or the high-country lifestyle.<\/p>\n

A departure from the trail<\/div>\n

Ramsier spotted a small pond and decided to hike down to it. They hiked back the same way, or so they thought, but the path was nowhere to be found.<\/p>\n

Confident she could find the trail, Ramsier walked toward landmarks she recognized and thought would lead them back to camp. But with every step, she was getting them more lost.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was so sure that I knew where I was going,\u201d Ramsier said. \u201cI was so sure that I broke all the rules that we\u2019ve always been taught, which is when you\u2019re lost, you don\u2019t keep going, you stay in place.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not to say people shouldn\u2019t look for a trail if they lose it, but it\u2019s difficult to know when you\u2019ve gone too far, Ramsier said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe temptation to keep trying, for me, was irresistible,\u201d she said. \u201cI couldn\u2019t stop, and I didn\u2019t stop, and that\u2019s my nature.\u201d<\/p>\n

As nighttime fell, temperatures dropped, and the women realized they would have to spend the night away from camp.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a horrifying feeling,\u201d Powell said.<\/p>\n

They used rocks to build a 2-foot-tall wall to block the breeze. Ramsier laid down beside it, but Powell was too cold. She stood on her feet all night and tried to walk or march in place to stay warm.<\/p>\n

\u201cMorning came, and it got even colder before the sun came up,\u201d Powell said.<\/p>\n

Ramsier\u2019s husband notified La Plata County Search and Rescue the night they failed to return to camp.<\/p>\n

The next morning, the women heard a helicopter and figured it was searching for them. They waived their rain coats.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey would go by, but it seemed like they were at a distance and not really going over where we were,\u201d Powell said.<\/p>\n

Ramsier again decided it would be best if they moved in the direction of camp. Again, she recognized certain land features, including a patch of snow on a mountainside that she believed would lead them toward base camp.<\/p>\n

\u201cAgain I said, \u2018Shouldn\u2019t we stay here and just see if they find us?\u2019\u201d Powell said.<\/p>\n

Ramsier said, \u201cNo, we can do this. It\u2019s out there, we just have to make it.\u201d<\/p>\n

So with their llamas in tow, they set off for a second day looking for camp.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just kept going, and going and going for hours and didn\u2019t get any closer to that mountain,\u201d Powell said.<\/p>\n

They could still hear a helicopter in the distance. In an open clearing, they used rocks to write the word \u201chelp,\u201d in hopes the helicopter would see it. It was getting late, and cold, so Powell uprooted plants and laid them on the ground to dry. She planned to use hospital tape to tie them together and make blankets.<\/p>\n

They were out of water. They could hear a stream, but it was at the bottom of a mountain. With llamas in tow, they made their way down a steep mountainside covered in brown pine needles that were \u201clike ice\u201d to walk down, Powell said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just kind of slipped and slid all the way to the bottom of that canyon,\u201d Powell said.<\/p>\n

They got to the bottom and didn\u2019t find water. So they kept hiking toward the sound of the stream, and finally found it. But there was no way to hike out of the canyon to where they had been \u2013 to where Powell\u2019s plants were drying.<\/p>\n

They found a large rocky area open to the sky and decided to stay there for the night.<\/p>\n

\u201cI looked at the sides (of the canyon) and I said, \u2018This is it. We are not going to get out of this canyon. There\u2019s no way to get back up to where we came. They either find us or we die.\u2019 And that was a horrible reality,\u201d Powell said.<\/p>\n

Ramsier is a nurse practitioner and Powell is a trauma and emergency room nurse. They talked about what it would be like to die from hypothermia.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were certainly pretty aware of what was going to happen, but what a helpless feeling,\u201d Powell said.<\/p>\n

Throughout their ordeal, Powell had tried to call 911, but there was no cellphone reception, and her phone was almost dead. It would turn off, and she would turn it back on, and it would have a little bit of power. Once, she called 911 and heard, \u201c911 dispatch, what is your emergency?\u201d The phone then went dead. But it was enough to give dispatchers a ping off a cellphone tower \u2013 not enough to pinpoint their exact location, but it provided a little information about where they might be.<\/p>\n

Powell wasn\u2019t sure she was going to make it through the night.<\/p>\n

She used her digital camera to record short messages to her husband, children and grandchildren, especially her 4-year-old grandson, Gavin. She broke down crying while talking about Gavin.<\/p>\n

But it is also Gavin who gave her the most strength to survive another night, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said no matter what, we\u2019re not breaking down, we\u2019re not giving up until the very end,\u201d Powell said.<\/p>\n

The women huddled together. Ramsier stacked rocks to make another windbreak, and Powell pulled more plants from the ground to make mats or blankets.<\/p>\n

As the moon came up, they experienced delusions. At one point, Ramsier thought she was talking to her husband, but it was just a rock.<\/p>\n

Powell saw something moving on top of a rock, and thought she might be hallucinating. They walked toward it, and found a mountain sheep nursing its baby.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithin about a half hour, the whole mountainside filled with animals,\u201d Powell said. \u201cIt was like something out of a movie. All you could see as the moon came up and it got dark were eyes staring at us from everywhere. It was a little unnerving, but almost settling at the same time. It was like we were here with them. They weren\u2019t aggressive and they didn\u2019t feel like a threat. It was the strangest thing to see these eyes everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

They tried to sleep, but shivered violently from the cold. \u201cIt was almost like a seizure,\u201d Powell said.<\/p>\n

Ramsier said the shivering burned a lot of energy, but it was the body doing what it had to do to keep itself warm.<\/p>\n

\u201cI welcomed the shivering,\u201d she said. \u201cI have a whole new relationship with shivering.\u201d<\/p>\n

Llamas are good at carrying 70 to 100 pounds of supplies, but they prefer to keep a couple of feet distance from their handlers. That means they didn\u2019t provide any warmth to Ramsier and Powell on their cold evenings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey wouldn\u2019t have laid down and let us lay with them,\u201d Ramsier said. \u201cThey don\u2019t do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ramsier and Powell sat together on a rock, shivering and cuddling.<\/p>\n

At about 1 or 2 a.m., they heard helicopters. \u201cIt was like, are we hearing things now?\u201d Powell said.<\/p>\n

But two helicopters roared over the ridge.<\/p>\n

A nighttime rescue<\/div>\n

Powell used a small flashlight to signal the choppers, but they kept flying as if they didn\u2019t see them. It was about 4 a.m. when one of the helicopters dropped a flare and hoisted two men to the ground. Powell and Ramsier heard them say, \u201cAre you Carol and Ronda? We\u2019re the U.S. military here to rescue you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was like, are you kidding? We were just screeching,\u201d Powell said.<\/p>\n

They set the llamas free so they could avoid predators and forage for food and water. A search party<\/a> is being organized to retrieve the llamas this week.<\/p>\n

Airmen from Kirtland Air Force Base<\/a> walked Ramsier and Powell up a ridge to a clearing where the helicopter could hoist them into the chopper.<\/p>\n

Powell was instructed to get on her knees and hold onto a rock because the wind from the rotor was so powerful it could blow her off the mountain. The airman hooked a strap on her and she went spinning into the night sky.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe hooked that strap on and said \u2018just close your eyes,\u2019\u201d Powell said. \u201cI felt myself being pulled up through the air. It seemed like forever. And you\u2019re just spinning and spinning and thinking, \u2018Ah, man, am I going to get killed in a blade or what?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Two men in the helicopter grabbed her and pulled her onto the floor. Next they hoisted Ramsier up and tossed her on top of Powell, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just lay there, going, \u2018Are you kidding me? Are we really saved?\u2019 Those guys were just grinning from ear to ear. They said, \u2018That\u2019s what we do. We are the paramilitary guys from Albuquerque.\u2019 It was impossible to believe that we were saved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Said Ramsier: \u201cElation and relief don\u2019t describe it. \u2026 We thought we were going to die.\u201d<\/p>\n

A hero\u2019s welcome<\/div>\n

Powell and Ramsier were flown to the Durango-La Plata County Airport, observed by paramedics and cleared to return home.<\/p>\n

They received a \u201chero\u2019s welcome\u201d at Heartwood Cohousing<\/a>, an intentional community north of Bayfield where Ramsier lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe elation seen in the face of our neighbors when we came home was, for me, by far, the biggest deal,\u201d Ramsier said.<\/p>\n

As it turned out, the women traveled about 2\u00bd miles from their base camp, as the crow flies, which means they probably traveled about 10 miles on foot. \u201cWe went so far trying to find our way home that they couldn\u2019t have guessed that we would have gotten that far,\u201d Ramsier said.<\/p>\n

Ramsier said there is no such thing as a short hike, and people always need to be prepared.<\/p>\n

The experience hasn\u2019t ruined her desire to backpack with llamas, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just ready to be smarter about it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Powell went home with a new appreciation for life and a lesson learned about the human spirit and the will to live.<\/p>\n

She said she plans to make her next vacation a tropical one.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour mountains are beautiful, but I\u2019m going to head to the beach.\u201d<\/p>\n

shane@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Thank you letter (PDF)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

recount two nights spent in Weminuche Wilderness<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":67869,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[13,1807,199,1924],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-67868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-la-plata-county-search-and-rescue","tag-san-juan-national-forest","tag-weminuche-wilderness"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67868"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=67868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}