���ϳԹ���

Peter Frick-Wright: This is the ���ϳԹ��� Podcast

Claire Nelson: It felt like it was like a second split second of being in the air and then this crack. And I heard my bones break before I felt the pain. For a second, it was just sort of like, Oh, I, you know, I've, ow, that's, that's, I've hurt myself. I've, you know, my body's trying to immediately get up to my feet. And. A

Peter Frick-Wright: solo backcountry trip, it's not for the faint of heart.

The first rule for safe outdoor recreation is don't go alone. And yet, there's something kind of magical and special about solo trips. The stakes are a little higher. Decisions more important. If something goes wrong, of course, you're on your own. Solo trips are great until they're not. This week, we're replaying one of our favorite survival stories from producer Stephanie Joyce about Claire Nelson, a hiker who found herself alone in a lot of ways.

And how she got through that.

Stephanie Joyce: The hike was Claire Nelson's first inside Joshua Tree National Park. She had been house sitting for some friends outside of the park for a little more than a week, and it made a plan so she could maximize her hiking opportunities. She rode out a calendar planning which day she would hike where. The first hike she decided to do inside the park was called the Lost Palms Oasis Trail.

It's a moderately rated hike, seven miles out and back to a cluster of California palms. It's one of the more popular trails in the park, so Claire decided to go on a Tuesday when she thought it would be less busy.

Claire Nelson: It was a beautiful, hot, scorching day in late May, and I had hoped to start setting off early.

Early to try and beat the heat, but I got a little bit lost trying to find the trailhead and I had to stop in at the ranger station and, and, you know, at the visitor center and just ask for some directions. And I also asked if there was anything I should be aware of on the trail and, you know, they warned me there was a little bit of a scramble at some point.

I said, that's fine. I'm uncomfortable with scrambling. Sounds great. And he said, just make sure you've got enough water. Cause it's going to be really hot. And I said, yeah, I've got five liters. He said, that's great. And so by the time I set off on the trail, it was about 9am, which was later than I had wanted to set off.

Um, but you know, I was there.

Stephanie Joyce: And what do you remember about the beginning of the hike? How did the hike start?

Claire Nelson: It's such a beautiful trail. Um, the, the, it's sort of, you, you come up onto this really high ridge at some, at one point and you're looking, looking down so that the valley just rolls on each side and it just took my breath away.

I, I just remember feeling so happy. Um, I would stop and just kind of look at the surroundings and be like, I can't believe I'm here and that I have all to myself. I'm so, so lucky.

Stephanie Joyce: Claire had been looking for solitude when she came to Joshua Tree. For more than a decade, she had been a journalist in London.

Her most recent job was as an editor at a glossy food magazine. And it was pretty much what you would imagine. Lots of fancy restaurants, Lots of booze, lots of Instagram photos of expensive meals. In some ways, it was a really good life, the kind she had always pictured for herself when she was a kid in New Zealand.

Claire wasn't happy, and so she did the thing that a lot of us have dreamt of doing at some time or another. She up and left. Her plan was to travel for a couple of years and spend time outdoors, figuring out how she really wanted to live, who she wanted to be.

Claire Nelson: All my anxieties and fears in my life really just came down to my role in the lives of other people.

So where I belonged and where I fit in and what my value as a person is, how I'm perceived and understood. And there's something about being out In the wilderness on your own, it's like all of that is stripped away. And that's really what I wanted to go to. I wanted to lean into that and feel safe out in this place on my own, because it was so far from the things that were making me stressed and anxious.

Stephanie Joyce: Not long into her travels, Claire got a message from an old roommate who had since relocated to Joshua Tree. She and her partner were going to be out of town for a few weeks and wondered if Claire wanted to house sit for them and take care of their cats. She jumped at the opportunity, which is how she found herself wandering through a wash in the desert, thinking about how nice it was to be alone with her thoughts in such a beautiful place.

Claire Nelson: So it's eventually I came to this boulder stack big old pile of these massive boulders and I thought oh, that's strange, you know The trails just literally stops and there's these boulders. And I thought, well, they did mention there was some scrambling. Uh, so I guess this is it, this is where it starts.

So I clambered up these rocks, easy peasy. And, um, and then the view from the other side was so wild and just so like vast, this sort of endless valley of rocks and boulders and cliffs. And I sat there and I thought I just had a, had a moment of just taking it all in. And. And I thought, well, okay, I guess now I've got to figure out how to get down to the trail on the other side.

And so then I started to test my footing, um, to try and get across the boulder stack and make my way down. I reached out my right foot and I pressed it into this, this big rock that I had to try and get over. It was a very smooth rock. So I was. You know, being a bit gentle with it, tested my footing, I found a foothold.

I, I thought I'll just press my weight into it. I'll swing my other leg over, done, you know, but as soon as I started to put more weight on that foot, I, it just slipped. My foot slipped and I started to slide and everything, it just went in slow motion. It could only have been a couple of seconds. But it was, I remember every movement of my body, you know, my hand, I had a hiking stick in one hand.

And then with my other hand, I'm, you know, just grabbing at this rock and there's just nothing to hold me. And then I dropped off the edge. I was told later I I'd fallen about 25 feet. Um, I'd landed on this, um, little flat kind of circle of, of hard ground and amongst these big boulders and. I, I was sort of flat on my back and realized I couldn't move my legs.

I could wiggle my toes in my boots. So I thought, okay, I'm not paralyzed, but I couldn't move. And it was immediately clear to me that I had broken my pelvis. Yeah, I'd landed on my left side and it was just like pieces of bone. It was, it was in pieces.

Stephanie Joyce: You've landed on your back and you're just stuck there. Stuck

Claire Nelson: there. Yeah. So, you know, I, I can move my arms, I can move my head, but from, from literally the ways down, my, my hinge was broken. I couldn't, couldn't even get up my elbows, but then, you know, I still thought, okay, instinctually grabbed my phone out of my bag.

Dialed 9 1 1 and then of course there's no signal and it was at that point, I think that the horror of the situation hit me is that I can't move and I can't actually tell anyone what's happened. And then I remembered, but also on top of that, I haven't told anyone where I was going and I just, it just felt like.

Wham, wham, wham. These realizations just like landing on me like a body blow and it was just, just horrible.

Stephanie Joyce: Even as she realized how bad of a situation she was in, Claire was mad at herself. She knew better than to go hiking alone without telling anyone where she was going. In fact, she had judged those people before.

Now, she was one of them.

Claire Nelson: And so I thought, okay, so if I can't reach anybody, And I haven't told anyone where I'm going. I'm going to have to wait for another, someone else to walk the trail. And at this time it was, it was about late morning, about 11 o'clock. So I thought, okay, well, you know, someone's going to come and walk the trail today, surely.

And then I, I'd been combing my phone for any kind of, um, you know, means of, of alerting people. There's an SOS function and. The iPhone that I thought, Oh, this, this is going to be my savior. And then realize that you still need to have phone signal for it to work. But while I was kind of desperately, you know, tapping away at my phone to see what I could use it for.

I opened up my maps and I had downloaded all my, my Google maps because I knew I wouldn't get signal out there. And that's when I could see the little blue GPS dot of where I was. And then I zoomed in and realized that I was at least a mile off the trail. And so it was like, that was my last, my last chance of someone finding me was gone.

And at that point I was like, just, The, the complete horror of that situation was, was really sunk in.

Stephanie Joyce: Before Claire realized she was nowhere near the trail, her situation had been dire. Now it was desperate.

Claire Nelson: It's a really hard thing to accept, that realization that you've put yourself in the prime position to die out in the wilderness. Like, I couldn't, I couldn't process it. But it was just really, really hard to, to kind of absorb it, to absorb that blow.

So I was like, okay, well, I'm not going to think about that. I know it's, I know it's a reality, but then my mind kind of, kind of narrowed in like like a telescope on, okay, what can I do to survive? I mean, it really sort of went straight into the survival mode. In a way that, that really surprised me and impressed me of what we're capable of doing.

It's just like, let's shut down everything in your mind that we don't need right now. Let's just focus on the practical.

Stephanie Joyce: And so, you know, there are obviously a lot of survival things to focus on in that moment. What did you prioritize as you got into that survival mode?

Claire Nelson: The first thing that I was very aware of was the heat.

So I was lying flat on my back in these, the circle of, you know, towering boulders, but I was directly in the sun. And at that time of the year, like the park gets sort of up to like 90 degrees to 95 at the peak of the day. So I was like, okay, I, I've, I've got to get this heat off me. I've got to make sure I don't burn.

Stephanie Joyce: And you're hiking in the desert, so you're, you're not wearing hiking pants and, you know, a sweater.

Claire Nelson: No, no. So I had my shorts in my, in my singlet top and I, I chucked You know, this baggy t shirt that I had, um, just for, you know, an extra, extra layer of sun protection. I had my hat, uh, my boots and I had my hiking, well, I had my friend's hiking stick that I'd borrowed from the house.

I used the hiking stick to apply sunscreen to my legs because I couldn't reach them. And then I held my hat up with one arm over my face to between me and the sun. And that was just kind of how I spent that, that day. I don't really think I was planning anything or, or considering. How long I might be there.

It was simply just, I need to do everything I can right now, right here to survive the elements.

Stephanie Joyce: After doing what she could to protect herself from the sun, Claire took an inventory of her supplies. She had three liters of water left, a few snacks, a small first aid kit with a couple of Tylenol, or as Claire calls them, paracetamol, and a digital camera.

Lying there, alone, wondering if anyone was going to find her. She decided to record a message on the camera.

Claire Nelson: I might die here and I'm really scared that that's the case and I don't know what to do. I can't get a signal out here and I call for help and no one's out here. This is the stupidest thing I've ever done.

I guess when I first realized that I might die here, I thought I need to let people know what happened, like let my, my, my parents know what happened. Um, I was holding this hat up with one arm, so I had just had the camera inside the hat and just, I just started talking to it.

Stephanie Joyce: As she recorded the message, Claire felt a little embarrassed.

She was alone, with a broken pelvis, miles from a trail, without cell service. But still, she felt like she was being overly dramatic. At least until the sun started to set.

Claire Nelson: When I realized I was going to be spending the night out there, that was the moment. So terrifying to me. The idea that I'd ended myself on a hike in the daytime was one thing, like that's an accident.

The fact that I was now going to be out there at night and the, you know, the night is a long time. That was when like, Oh, this, this is really serious. Um, and I, I was terrified, absolutely terrified because now there wasn't anything to hold on to. No one was going to come out at night. Like there was no one was going to come by.

I had nothing to do except to just, you know, survive the night, however many hours that was going to be.

Stephanie Joyce: Did you fall asleep at any point?

Claire Nelson: I did at some point, eventually, um, but honestly, I, I was so, I became so convinced that. there were going to be snakes. It's like a fear response. Like, I know that snakes don't come out at night.

I know they're not nocturnal. Um, but it was rattlesnake season. I was at ground level. I couldn't move. And I felt so vulnerable. I just thought something's going to come out at nighttime. If it's not snakes, it'll be something else. And every little crack or rustle or scuffle that I either heard or perceived, my entire body would freeze up.

Plus, the fact that it was already really, really cold, um, and my body was, you know, shaking from the cold.

Stephanie Joyce: First, Claire had been baking. Now, lying in the cold dirt, she was freezing. But she figured if she could just make it to the morning, someone would find her the next day.

Claire Nelson: I really thought that was it.

Like, that was the worst bit. And um, and so I had this renewed sense of hope, you know, with the daylight. It's just, it's quite amazing what, what the light and the dark will do to your, your state of mind. So I, I recorded another message. My makeshift umbrella. This is basically me for the next six hours.

Now that the sun's coming over me. Legs covered. It's very, very hot. On that second day, um, my phone died. So I was no longer able to keep track of time. And, you know, in a way, I kind of hoped that some way, there'd be some way that maybe someone would pick up my phone tracker, you know, like it would, you know, I'd be able to figure out where I was, my location or something.

However, uh, you know, I have a, I don't know, phone signals supposed to work. I have no idea, but you're like, I don't know. I don't know how this works. So maybe, maybe a signal will just appear. So it was just, it just made me feel a bit safe having it. And so when that died, I, you know, I just, it's just a little bit more hope had just diminished.

But I still have my camera. So I was able to kind of use that to. To have someone to talk to, really, it sort of gave me a bit of comfort, just being able to leave those messages, even if they're just for me.

Stephanie Joyce: Yeah, I mean, I can imagine that it helped put you a little bit maybe outside of yourself, outside of the immediate discomforts you were experiencing, outside of the focus, you know, narrowly on survival to have this

Claire Nelson: Yeah. It's like when you feel helpless and you feel completely, well, you are completely alone and isolated. Just having that. I mean, I guess it's just like we do when we feel lonely and we reach out on social media just to feel like we're connected to something, even when we're not. It was that kind of same effect of, you know, I'm, I'm talking to somebody.

And I'm feeling seen and heard when I'm really not seen and heard at all.

Stephanie Joyce: It had been 24 hours since Clare's accident, and it was agonizing to wonder if anyone had even noticed that she was missing. On top of that, she was starting to run out of water.

Claire Nelson: It's just, it's water that I'm worried about. Let's drink.

What, three days you can go without?

Stephanie Joyce: When did you really start to notice the effects of dehydration setting in?

Claire Nelson: I mean, I That morning that I woke up, um, I, I really, really felt, really keenly felt the physical effects of the thirst, like really dry mouth, um, sore throat, you know, really dry throat, um, and, and of course being aware that my water was running low, you know, when you can't have it, you want it even more.

And so, you know, I felt like my kidneys hurt. And this whole time I had been trying to catch as much urine as I could in the empty drink bottle that I had. And the only reason I was doing that was because I didn't basically I didn't want to pee my pants. I don't want to be lying there and smelling really attractive to animals and also being really extra uncomfortable on top of everything else.

So I had been using, sort of had a paracetamol jar. In my first aid kit that I'd emptied out, I took all the, there were a couple of paracetamol left and I took those immediately. Um, and then I just used the empty little empty bottle to catch the urine. Um, which was a tricky, tricky enough task, but then tip it into the drink bottle.

So I had this bottle of liquid. that by the second day, when I realized that my water was running dangerously low, that I might need that extra bottle.

Stephanie Joyce: When did you start to feel so dehydrated that you really contemplated drinking this urine that you had been collecting?

Claire Nelson: It was, I mean, again, I had lost track of time at this point, but I would say it was late morning that second day when I was Once I was, you know, I just taken these little sips of, of my water and going, this is not going to last me even till, you know, the evening.

And so I was sort of eyeing up this, this bottle, really it was that survival mode. Again, my brain was going, well, what else have I got that I can drink? You know, it was doing the sort of inventory. I've got sunscreen. I have hand sanitizer. It's like, I can't drink these. Um, But I have this bottle of urine and, you know, I, you know, I thought, well, I can try drinking that.

But I thought before my water runs out, I need to make sure that I can physically drink it. Like I can keep it down. So I still had water when I started drinking the urine. Um, it was exactly as bad as I thought it was going to be. But if I held my nose and kind of just rinsed my mouth to get that moisture feeling, you know, um, and then swallowed that down.

I was like, okay, I didn't gag. I kept it down. Now I know I can fall back on that. And then I'd wash it down with a little bit of the water.

Stephanie Joyce: I mean, that's just such an extreme thing to find yourself doing.

Claire Nelson: And that's what's, what's funny is that it didn't, it wasn't, I didn't go, Oh, I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it.

It was just like, okay, I need to see if I can do it. Like, it was a very pragmatic. decision because the thirst was so great and because the situation was so dire, like all that other kind of queasiness. And the only, my only concern was whether I could physically keep it down, but it wasn't like, Oh, this is too gross or anything like that.

Stephanie Joyce: And so, I mean, that second day, Are you still mostly just focused on surviving or are you, are you, are you thinking other thoughts during the day?

Claire Nelson: Most of the time it was about surviving. Um, that, that same day I, I built myself a sunshade with my hiking stick. Um, I use the hiking stick to drag over another stick.

I used my hair tie to make it into a cross. I put this plastic bag that I had with me and on top of that, like, you know, I was just finding ways to keep myself going. But then when that was done and I had sort of finished a task, the time just moved so slowly. And of course, there were moments when my mind would kind of wander away from the practical stuff and into the more emotional stuff.

Stephanie Joyce: When your mind did wander, what was the dominant train of thought that you were having?

Claire Nelson: I mean, it's, it's so cliche, but you can't help but look back. over your life and kind of assess it, you know, and things would come up on my mind of, well, you know, do you have any regrets? Um, which is also, I guess, an inevitable train of thought.

And I don't like to think about regret because I always think that You know, we do the best we can at the time in our lives. And we, we learn from the things that don't go right, but I was thinking about things I wish I had done differently. And that was, it kind of surprised me what, what those things were.

The most dominant one was the fact that I had spent so much time on social media and thinking about how much of my life and actual hours I had wasted on that, and then thinking about why I had wasted so much of my time on that. Which really, it just came down to fear, you know, like it was a great mask of only putting the side of myself out into the world that I was happy with and then hiding all the parts of myself I didn't like.

And so all of that came down to these sort of primal fears about engaging with people and connecting and being seen and being vulnerable and all of those things. Like I've spent my life looking after myself and I think that's also just been a kind of a survival technique of not being afraid. Having to put myself out there and really connect with people in a real way.

Stephanie Joyce: I mean, that's a, that's a tough thing to be reflecting on as you are there alone.

Claire Nelson: And the irony of it is, is that lying out there and reflecting on it, it's also the realization that by not forming stronger connections and stronger lines of communication with the people in my life is part of the reason I was in that situation in the first place.

[SPONSOR MESSAGE]

Stephanie Joyce: On the afternoon of the second day, Claire decided she needed to try to rescue herself. Using her walking stick as a lever under her body, she tried to roll over.

Claire Nelson: I thought, what if I could roll myself over my front and then maybe I could kind of drag myself. I mean, I don't know where I was going to drag myself to.

But it was a physical impossibility to even, the pain of trying to even move my body an inch was just, You know, like it was blinding white pain and I thought I can't pass out. in this heat because I don't know if I'll wake up. And so I only tried that once. It was quite a fight with the heat today.

I'm not letting it win. But boy, oh boy, I don't want to have to do that again tomorrow. Please.

Stephanie Joyce: How did your hopes for getting rescued change as the sun started to set on the second day?

Claire Nelson: Uh, I, I had, I had some real dips in, in hope by that afternoon. Um, like I just thought, Oh man, this is, this is getting crazy.

Like, am I really going to spend two nights out here? And if I'm spending two nights out here already, I mean, does it mean that no one is going to come at all? It became harder and harder to, to kind of keep fighting back those thoughts of no one's going to come and you're going to die.

Stephanie Joyce: Clare had had no signs that anyone was looking for her, or even knew that she was missing.

And she woke up on Thursday morning, her third day out there, feeling more alone than ever, but also optimistic that this was the day someone was finally going to come.

Claire Nelson: I thought I'm now. Closer to the weekend. And in my mind, the weekend would mean more people in the park would mean more of a chance of me being rescued every opportunity I had for some hope I would cling on to that and use that to keep me going.

Um, so the Thursday I was like, well, Thursday, it's almost Friday and it's practically the weekend. But I also, I think my mind started to go and play tricks on me on that day with the heat. And this crazy heat, I keep thinking I'm hearing a helicopter. Yeah. At one point I thought I heard an ambulance in the distance but it was all in my head.

And it was also the day, the first time I cried was on that third day. I mean, I, I don't wear my emotions on the outside. It's, it's, uh, it's kind of like any emotion you see is like the, the very tip of an iceberg. Um, but there's always a lot going on inside. But that, that third day I, I, I cried. And I think that was me starting to feel like I was running out of hope.

I don't want to be, I don't want to be here.

I really

Peter Frick-Wright: don't want to be

Claire Nelson: here.

Stephanie Joyce: I mean at any point did you, did you feel like that initial survival instinct left you?

Claire Nelson: Almost. I say almost because it was always a fight, like even when I was at my lowest ebb. I would almost like, I was kind of going like in a zigzag, I'd kind of hit this really low point and then I'd kind of shake myself out and be like, no, I'm going to survive this, like I would say this to the, to my videos, I'm going to survive this, you know, this is not where I'm going to end up.

Um, and so it was just, it was an exhausting battle. To be playing. It was almost like I was going through those stages of grief, looking back at it. Um, you know, you've kind of got denial and, and anger and, and sadness and, and, but then that third night, I, um, I think that was when acceptance started to, to sink in a little bit.

I go see one more hot day like this on, oh my God, I, I've got, I've got no more resources. I, I remember it being. A really strangely calm night. I, you know, I, I don't know if it was just because of the state of mind I was in and my weak physical state or whether it just really was a very calm night. Um, but I remember just lying there and, um, and starting to think about, well, if I do die here, then, you know, then how lucky am I?

Because this is such a beautiful place and I've died doing something that I loved. And. And sort of, in that way, I did start to, to give into it.

Peter Frick-Wright: That

Claire Nelson: fourth morning, I remember that my first thought when I woke up was, Oh, I'm still here. And I was so weak at that point. And like physically and mentally, I just hadn't, I didn't have any fight left in me. Is someone going to come looking for me?

It was also, I was trying to sort of, Leave another message on my camera and it died. And when that happened, I think that it was like, that was the last of my, was gone because I just felt so completely alone. And I hadn't even realized at that point how much I had relied on this camera to be my kind of company.

Um, but now it was like, oh man, I'm, I'm so alone out here and no one's coming for me.

And once the sun. hit me again. I was like, I can't fight this anymore. And I couldn't even hold up my sunshade at that point. So I just draped it over me, like lay it, lay it on top of me and just sort of went into this bit of a fever dream, I think.

Stephanie Joyce: Claire lay there floating in and out of consciousness. Then she heard what she thought was the sound of a helicopter flying low and voices.

Claire Nelson: And that really threw me and I went, man, like my, my brain is really, Really messing with me now. But then I heard the helicopter again, and this time I'm like, Oh no, that really is a helicopter.

And I heard this voice come again over the, kind of the loud speaker. And they said, you know, we're looking for a missing hiker. Um, and at that point I didn't know whether that was me that they were looking for or another hiker, anything was possible, but the fact that there was a search helicopter out there, it was like, this is, This is my chance.

This is the only chance I've got. Um, I don't have much flight left in me, but they've got to see me. Um, and the helicopter wasn't nearby, like it was in the distance. And I just thought, you know, they've got to come by. And so I, I started waving my sunshade and I'm screaming, um, with my croaky voice. And of course the helicopter's nowhere near me.

It's, it didn't come over in my direction and then I just heard it. Get quiet. And then it disappeared. I was so heartbroken and I thought I just need them to come back. So I sort of was waiting and waiting and waiting. I don't know how much time passed. I completely lost all sense of time at that point, but the helicopter did come back.

And this time I caught a glimpse of it. By a cliff off in the distance. But what, what really threw me was that they said my name. I mean, they said they were looking for me and to make myself known. And so of course I'm trying and I'm trying to wave the sunshade, you know, but keep in mind, I'm, I'm in this little circle of tall boulders.

I'd really have to be right over the top of me to see me. And I'm screaming, even though no one's going to hear me. Um, and then I hear it go away again. And I honestly thought at that point that I'd missed my chance and that was it. And that I was just, Oh, this, this ache. Like I just, I just need them to come back and I need them to come over here.

Like if they're looking for me, then clearly they're looking for me on the trail and I'm not on the trail. And so then I, I don't know how much time passed, but I decided I would reinforce. The sunshade and make it as big as I could. I put my t shirt on it, you know, I put my hat on it. I thought if they come back, I just need them to see this, this thing.

Um, and then they did come back and I, I stretched my arms up. I mean, I, it was full of adrenaline at this point. I'd gone from being completely, uh, you know, on my lowest, ebb that I've ever been in my life to this surge of adrenaline and I, I'm stretching my arms up and my body is aching and just agony but I'm waving the sunshade and screaming like I'm here, I'm here, I'm here and I still can't see the helicopter but then I hear them say We see you, we're going to come and get you.

I will never forget those words. I will never in my life, forget those words. And I dropped my sunshade. My arms fell to my sides and I just thought I don't have to fight anymore. And I'm going, I'm going to live.

Stephanie Joyce: It took her rescuers an hour or more to actually hike down to Claire, stuck in her remote canyon, and then another few hours before they could figure out how to get her out of there. But eventually, they carried her in a litter to a clearing, where she was picked up by a helicopter and flown to a hospital in Palm Springs.

Claire Nelson: They wheeled me into the ICU. All I wanted was water and painkillers. Um, they put me on morphine, put me on fluids. Um, and then, you know, I, I thought I'm going to have to find a way to explain what happened, what's happened to my family, you know, back in New Zealand. But then sort of, you know, after a short while of being in the hospital, this nurse hands me a phone and says, it's your mom.

I was so confused because I thought she had no idea. What was going on? So how on earth did she know I was in this hospital? I barely registered that I'm here, you know? Um, and so I pick up the phone and I say, mom, how did you know I'm here? And she says, we've been looking for you. Everybody's been looking for you.

And, and that was when I'd started to realize that people had noticed that I was missing and they had been trying to figure out where I'd gone and, and, and put all the pieces together. And so then I had to put the pieces together and, you know, I realized I actually wasn't as alone as, as I had thought.

Yeah.

Stephanie Joyce: I mean, how did it feel to know when your mom said that, when she said, we've all been looking for you? How did that feel?

Claire Nelson: I was shocked. I was really shocked because it was so not me. How I had thought things were going and, and what had happened was that, I mean, my mom said she had started to wonder why I wasn't replying to her texts, but she's like, you know, I know you're traveling and you, you're independent and we, we, we're not the sort to like chat every day.

Um, and you know, plus there's a time difference in that. So she left it a little while, but she was like, uh, I don't hear from her soon, you know? And at the same time, the friends I'd been house sitting for. They noticed that I'd not been posting anything on Instagram and they were like, well, that's a bit weird for her because she's always posting pictures when she's out hiking and in the outdoors and traveling.

So then they were trying to message me and, um, and of course I didn't reply. So they sent some friends around to the house to see if I was there and they came into the house and said she's not here. The cats, the cats, I should say were fine, but, um, you know, they, the litter box hadn't been changed for a few days.

So they were like, okay, someone, someone hasn't been here for a few days. And then they found my, my handwritten hiking planner. And the last hike that I had planned was for the Lost Palms Oasis on the Tuesday. And they said, we think she might have gone on that hike and not come back. And that's when they called search and rescue.

And then in the background, they had friends in London who were trying to contact me and they were trying to ask around. If anyone knew where I might have gone and like there was this massive pool of people who were, who were all trying to like connect with each other and figure out where I might have gone.

So it's just, I was just blown away.

Stephanie Joyce: Claire's recovery was slow. She had major surgery to repair her broken pelvis and spent months in a wheelchair, unable to walk. Emotionally, she also had a lot of processing and recovery to do. She left London in order to find out who she was.

Claire Nelson: I definitely don't recommend it as a method of finding yourself, um, but, but certainly what happened ended up fast tracking that journey that I was on. And it was obviously in the most intense and painful way possible, but yeah, I came back I came back to London at the end of the two years thinking, well, yeah, this is, this is the wake up call that I went looking for.

And I think I'm, I'm always probably going to be figuring out who I am in some way. But the big difference now is learning to accept the things that I learn about myself, whether I like them or not, necessarily. Like it's been a real, real path of self acceptance more than anything else.

Stephanie Joyce: Yeah. I think anytime you come really close to dying.

You have that greater sense of, you know, the only person at the end of the day whose judgment you really have to live with is your own.

Claire Nelson: Exactly that. And also the fact that, you know, you only get this one life and it's such a waste to let it be determined by what other people think. I mean, that really is, that's when I, when I say like my life was driven by fear before, those are the kind of fears that I'm referring to.

Sort of, you know, imposter syndrome, fear of being disliked, fear of being misunderstood and all of those things. And while fears are natural and valid, you know, they don't have to control.

Peter Frick-Wright: That was Claire Nelson talking with ���ϳԹ��� Contributor Stephanie Joyce. Claire wrote a book about her experience in Joshua Tree called Things I Learned from Falling. It came out in May of 2020, when this story first aired. This episode was written and produced by Stephanie Joyce, With editing by Mike Roberts.

Music by Louie Weeks. The ���ϳԹ��� Podcast is made possible by our ���ϳԹ��� Plus members. Learn more about all the benefits of membership at outsideonline.com/podplus