Whitefish mushroom hunter recounts rescue from Frozen Lake area

An outing earlier this month that started as a day trip to pick mushrooms in the Frozen Lake area northeast of Eureka turned into an international search mission for a man many consider a Whitefish legend.

People who know Clifford Persons, 87, of Whitefish, know he is no stranger to the wilderness. As a former smokejumper, ski patroller, and mountain manager at Big Mountain, Persons is used to outdoor extremes.

On July 8, he thought he was just going for a short excursion to pick mushrooms. Four days and 30 miles later, his adventure ended with a helicopter lift from a campground in Canada.

When reached by phone after he was discharged from the hospital, Persons said he was just so happy to be able to hug his family. During his ordeal, he was not so sure he’d have that opportunity again.

Persons got mixed up while mushroom picking and spent the first night struggling to keep warm. The next day, he heard helicopters searching nearby - and heard them fly away. Concluding he was on his own, he began hiking.

It wasn’t until Persons reached the border with Canada that he was able to orient himself. “All of a sudden, I looked up ahead and I could see the ridge cut where the border was cut open about 50 feet wide,” he said. “Then I looked at my shadow and I saw which way was north, and I says, oh my gosh I’m right on the border. To the right is Canada, the left is Montana.”

According to a press release from Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office, a call came into Eureka Dispatch late on the evening of July 8.

Colby Cash of Can-Am Search and Rescue said that Persons’s friend waited until 11 p.m. to call for help, thinking Persons would come out.

Can-Am Search and Rescue arrived on the scene around 1:30 a.m., technically Sunday morning. They set up the rescue efforts and worked on the ground for a few hours, in conjunction with Lincoln County Sheriff’s deputies. “We were kind of thinking an event had taken place, health wise, was kind of our initial thought,” Cash said.

Persons admitted he did not think he’d get lost that day. “I was very unprepared,” he said. “I only figured on being out there by day and probably be home by dark. I didn’t think I’d be going much more than half a mile or so from the truck.” Instead, he accidentally dropped into the Weasel Creek drainage. Persons had brought a GPS with him, but the battery soon died. “If I’d had that battery up, I would have been out of there in five minutes,” he said.

The first night, Persons said he didn’t sleep much at all, opting to stay upright and continue walking around in order to stave off hypothermia. He was only wearing a t-shirt and jeans. “It was pretty chilly and I felt my teeth chattering a little bit,” he said.

Two Bear Air from the Flathead arrived about two hours after Can-Am SAR and did a sweep with a heat sensing apparatus, Cash said. They were then called back out for another emergency, and had to refuel as well. Two Bear ultimately made the decision that this rescue was the priority, and came back out around 8:30 a.m. to run another round until they had to refuel again.

At sunrise the first morning, Persons said he heard and saw the search helicopter about a quarter mile away, but the trees were too tall and thick and they couldn’t see him. As the helicopter left for the last time, he realized they probably hadn’t seen him and might not be back. “I decided I was going to have to get myself out of there,” he said. He waited around for another couple of hours to make sure he didn’t miss them if they came back. Then he set off walking.

That day, Can-Am SAR was joined by dog teams with David Thompson Search and Rescue out of Libby. Throughout this time other folks were helping as well, such as a team of USFS firefighters, family and friends of the missing man, and sheriff’s deputies volunteering their off duty time, Cash said.

Cash said numerous local agencies responded to assist with the search, including Border Patrol Officers, Eureka Volunteer Ambulance Service, and Fernie Search and Rescue.

Searchers scoured the area over the course of three days and four nights, focusing on an area bound by steep terrain. “No one thought he would dive off into one of these other spots or cross the road,” Cash said.

Up to 18 people at a time were on the ground as searchers rotated in and out. Some local folks were given paid time off to help with the search, Cash said. Local businesses Subway, North Point Grill, and Valley Pizza provided food for the search teams.

Meanwhile, Persons kept walking, stopping often to rest, and sleeping for brief stretches at night. The second night, he found some thick moss near a creek bed. On the third night, he crawled under a spruce tree where a squirrel had left several inches of dry cone debris. “That was the best sleep I had,” Persons said.

The terrain was pretty rough at times, he said, and since he has a pacemaker and has had a heart attack in the past, he was concerned about overexerting himself. “If I overdo myself I was afraid I’d probably have another heart attack, if I tried to climb back out of there,” he said.

Eventually, Persons found a dirt road and stuck to it. On Tuesday, July 11, he encountered a pair of bicyclists who were on a planned trip to the Mexican border. “I was going down this one hill - not real steep - and all of a sudden a mountain bike comes skidding up to a stop beside me,” he recalled. To his surprise, a second bicyclist came right up after the first one.

Persons told them he was lost. “I said, I’ve been lost for three days, I haven’t had anything to eat. So they dug into their packs and found some old candy bars that looked like they’d been in their packs for a year.”

Persons said the bicyclists showed him on the map where there was a campground another five or six miles away. Since there was no cell service available, they told him to wait at that campground, so they could tell the helicopter where to find him.

Persons got close to the campground when he saw a helicopter. It made a couple passes over him, very closely, and he wasn’t even sure it was for him, at first. “All of sudden here come that helicopter back, and it was Fernie Search and Rescue, and I’m jumping back and forth to make sure they see me, waving my bucket to get their attention,” he said.

After the helicopter found a safe place to land, three Search and Rescue personnel came down the road with equipment, ready to carry him back to the helicopter, but Persons told them he thought he was able to walk there. Once at the helicopter, he began to feel how weak he really was from the days of exertion, no food, and not much sleep. “I got to the helicopter, I started seeing stars. I was getting weak and dizzy,” he said. “I was really wearing down worse and worse, wondering every minute whether I was going to make it,” he said.

Cash said that Persons was in fairly good shape when he reached the helicopter, especially given his age and the ordeal. He was somewhat dehydrated, but was able to walk to the helicopter under his own power.

The helicopter had to get permission to land at Roosville, and a Rocky Mounted Canadian Police officer had to ask him some questions about his experience. Then the helicopter made a flight of about half an hour over the mountains of Canada to meet the Eureka Volunteer Ambulance Service, which transported Persons to North Valley Hospital. He stayed two nights before being discharged.

All told, Persons thinks he probably walked over 30 miles. Cash said Persons was 16 miles from where he started, as the crow flies, but figured his mileage was likely double that since he was wandering up and down and in circles at times.

Persons’s advice for anyone going into the wilderness is to always make sure you’re equipped with emergency supplies, just in case – even if you don’t plan to be out very long. “I hope everybody that hears about this does check their pack out and make sure they have all the stuff they need to spend the night out and to wield a signal with smoke somehow, “ he said.

When reached by text, Persons’s son, Christian Persons, reiterated how thankful the family was for all involved in helping to find his father.

This article is published with permission from the Tobacco Valley News.