A Battle Ground man and his son spent Monday night stranded on a snowy mountaintop in western Skamania County as wind and snow whipped at their truck.
They had driven up Lookout Mountain for a day of recreating and father-son bonding in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, said 44-year-old Michael Rudolph, and that’s exactly what they got. Nine-year-old Aaron Rudolph, of Missoula, Mont., was visiting his father for the holidays. The pair left around 11 a.m. Monday and did some target shooting before driving further up the mountain to look around.
Michael Rudolph’s Chevy Silverado had trouble getting through certain snowy patches. When the forest service road looked impassable up ahead, he decided they needed to turn around.
That’s when they really got stuck. The truck wouldn’t budge and it was getting dark, so they decided to camp out for the night. Rudolph has worked for the U.S. Coast Guard for 26 years, spending the last nine years teaching safety and survival to commercial fishermen.
“I guess my training just kicked in,” Rudolph said.
Together, they went through the seven steps of survival he’s taught to students. They recognized the dire situation they were in and took inventory of the survival supplies they had in the truck.
There was water, sandwiches and fruit snacks to keep hunger at bay, as well as blankets and jackets for warmth. Temperatures on the mountain would dip to 10 degrees that night.
To signal to possible searchers, Rudolph taped an orange vest to the hood of his truck and attached a space blanket that would reflect the sun in the morning. He determined that with half a tank of gas, he could run the truck for five minutes every 30 minutes to keep warm, and still have enough fuel left over to stay another night and drive them home. “The wind was just outrageous. We thought the truck was going to fall off the edge” of a nearby cliff, Rudolph said.
To keep up their spirits, the pair told stories and read from the Bible until Aaron fell asleep. Rudolph, who was cold and wet from the day’s attempts at getting the truck out of the snow, had trouble sleeping. He read his son’s entire 300-page survival book.
When the sun came up, Rudolph made it a priority to get a hold of his family. “I figured people were going to be looking for us,” he said. He thought he saw a radio antenna at the top of Mowich Butte, which is next to Lookout Mountain, so he hiked about a mile up the butte to try to get a cell signal.
“There was nothing. I said, ‘Are you kidding me?’ ” Rudolph said. Realizing their situation was worse than initially thought, the pair tried to dig the truck out of the snow that had crusted over with ice. Rudolph pounded at the snow and ice with a claw hammer. His son, meanwhile, cut down a fir tree with a handsaw and used it to scrape snow out from underneath the truck. Using a bed of tree branches to gain traction, they were able to get out of the snow. Then they slowly made their way down the mountain.
Rudolph found cellphone service and called his family. His fiancée had notified the Clark County Sheriff’s Office Monday night when they didn’t come home that evening as scheduled. Deputies, family and church members were driving in the chilly weather searching for them, he learned.
Near the Sunset Campground in Yacolt, Rudolph and his son met up with a sheriff’s deputy who made sure they safely got the rest of the way down the mountain. Although cold, tired and in need of a shower, they were fine.
“I really feel blessed. And I just can’t thank people enough,” Rudolph said.
When they pulled into the driveway of his Battle Ground home, multiple family members were cheering and eager to dole out hugs.
“It was wonderful to be home,” Rudolph said. “I knew what situation I was in, but they had no idea. They had to assume the worse … The worry people could have not knowing is hard.”
If he could do anything over, Rudolph said he would tell someone exactly where they were going to go. Nobody knew which forest service road they would be traveling on or what their destination would be. “That’s a big no-no,” Rudolph said.
Though daunting, it all turned out to be a special time for father and son that they’ll remember, and even cherish, for years to come, he said.
“Because it had a very happy outcome,” Rudolph said with a laugh.
