![\"Guitar\"](\"http:\/\/www.covchurch.org\/uploads\/HA\/SZ\/HASZ4xCNOObaomFBPrD10Q\/AK-guitar.jpg\")
That meant riding his snow machine (snowmobile) at least 80 miles to where the caribou could be found, Ashenfelder says. \u201cIt took a couple of hours to get there.\u201d<\/p>\nBy Stan Friedman<\/p>\n
WHITE MOUNTAIN, AK (May 1, 2008) \u2013 Seventy-one-year-old Karl Ashenfelder thanks God he is still alive after spending three days and two nights lost and alone in the Alaskan wilderness earlier this month.
\n
\nAshenfelder, who is an elder at the White Mountain Covenant Church, was 100 miles from home when a pilot spotted him. He is certain he would not have lived another day.<\/p>\n
It was a craving for caribou meat \u2013 and defying common wisdom \u2013 that nearly got him killed, says Ashenfelder. He had left early on the morning of Monday, April 14, to go hunting. Like most other people in the village of 200 people, Ashenfelder lives off the land, eating what he hunts or can grow. That day, he says, \u201cI had other food, but I was hungry for caribou.\u201d<\/p>\n
That meant riding his snow machine (snowmobile) at least 80 miles to where the caribou could be found, Ashenfelder says. \u201cIt took a couple of hours to get there.\u201d<\/p>\n
But he made the mistake of going by himself. Even pastor Ross McElwee, who has lived in the village for only two months, knows that is a cardinal sin. \u201cThey say rule number one is never, never, never leave the village alone,\u201d he says. \u201cRule number two is double check rule number one.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlaska is a place of extremes,\u201d McElwee says. \u201cIt is a place of extreme beauty and extreme danger. There are a thousand ways to get killed.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Ashenfelder frequently had broken the rules. \u201cI\u2019ve been stuck outside before, but never anything like that before,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
The experienced hunter had found the caribou when a snowstorm suddenly developed. \u201cThere was a lot of blowing snow, and I wound up in a place that was unfamiliar,\u201d Ashenfelder says.<\/p>\n
He began following a snow machine trail, and entered a pass thinking he was heading in the right direction towards White Mountain, when in fact he was heading in exactly the wrong direction. He began having snow machine trouble and was running low on fuel when his oil light came on.<\/p>\n
He nudged his machine over to the edge of a grove of trees to give him some protection from the wind. What happened next also may have been the first incident to save his life.<\/p>\n
Shortly after moving into the grove of trees, a herd of caribou wandered by. Ashenfelder, despite later discovering his riflescope calibration was off, shot one of the animals through the heart, so he did not have to chase after a wounded caribou.<\/p>\n
He would eat the caribou, which he was able to cook over a small fire, to help him survive. He also survived by eating snow and eating Spruce gum, secreted from the trees.<\/p>\n
But Ashenfelder was lost in a place called Death Valley, where conditions were exactly the opposite of the desert better known by the name. The outcome for someone getting lost in either place generally is the same, however.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany have died here, both White and Eskimo,\u201d McElwee says. \u201cPeople have been found literally frozen on their sleds, their dogs curled up, frozen solid. The valley is beautiful, but catches the weather and winds in such a way that in the winter it is totally merciless.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Landscape\"](\"http:\/\/www.covchurch.org\/uploads\/wf\/Bq\/wfBqFozRIU6A1pRdDw86rQ\/AK-landscape.jpg\")
The weather showed no mercy, as a stiff wind brought sub-freezing temperatures to nearly 30 below zero at night. Ashenfelder used the cowling from his snow machine to keep himself safe from the elements and was able to keep a small fire burning. But he had to spend his days searching for firewood.<\/p>\n
Because he had lost his axe on Monday while traversing a steep incline, Ashenfelder says, \u201cI had to keep busy knocking down wood. It was rotten cottonwood, so you can knock it down easily.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, he could hear the airplanes and the Army Blackhawk helicopter searching for him, but because Ashenfelder had gone the wrong way, they were looking in the wrong place. By Wednesday afternoon, he had about given up hope.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started to cry,\u201d he recalls. \u201cI finally surrendered. I prayed, \u2018OK God, there\u2019s no way for me to try to get out of here. I need to be found.\u2019 That\u2019s what we have to do with our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
A cold, snowy day had socked in White Mountain with fog, so flying a search plane would have been dangerous, and searchers would not have been able to see anyway. \u201cWe prayed that God would open the heavens,\u201d McElwee says. \u201cBy early afternoon, a beautiful blue sky shown.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eventually an Eskimo guide who takes hunters to hunt for bear flew over the area and discovered Ashenfelder. \u201cHe has exceptional eyesight and can tell the difference between bear prints and moose prints from his airplane – no small feat,\u201d McElwee says.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe told me he just knew he would find me,\u201d Ashenfelder says.<\/p>\n
Ironically, it was warming weather that posed the greatest danger for Ashenfelder had he been stranded another day. \u201cThe warming weather made the snow begin to melt and become sticky,\u201d McElwee says. \u201cThis would have made it harder for search-and-rescue and definitely harder for Karl to have stayed dry, which is critical for staying warm here in the north.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ashenfelder suffered few ill effects from his ordeal, other than minor frostbite on his lips. \u201cI teased him that it was from all the frozen food he was eating,\u201d McElwee says.<\/p>\n
While Ashenfelder was trying to stay alive, what he didn\u2019t know was that people around the world had been praying for him. He learned when he arrived home and ate dinner at McElwee\u2019s house.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe would tell me who was praying for me and I would start to cry,\u201d Ashenfelder says. Then a couple minutes later, he would tell me about another person who had prayed, and I would start to cry again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ashenfelder says he is not a person usually given to tears. He has shed a few since arriving home. \u201cI haven\u2019t cried so much in all my life,\u201d he says. \u201cThey have been tears of happiness.\u201d<\/p>\n