One More Day: A Follow-Up with Rescued Hiker Harry Burleigh

“It was only a mile and a quarter.” Harry Burleigh knew the rules and protocols for camping and hiking. He had told his wife of 40 years, Stacy Burleigh, where he was going and about what time he would try to be back. But on the way back from Lake Toketee, Harry wasn’t done adventuring. “I went out and I wanted to have an adventure and get out of the house,” Harry said. “COVID had pretty well put me under wraps for almost a year and so I went fishing and the wind came up cutting short my time on the lake. On the way home I took another adventure to Twin Lakes and failed to do some of the things that I should do. I made the assumption that for just a mile and a quarter, I could do this. I made a lot of errors that compounded and made a bad situation worse.” Harry moved from his original plan and did not have cell phone service to tell anyone, he didn’t know the topography for the off-trail hiking he did, he left his pack in his van. But he did sign in at the trailhead, and he’s been backpacking long enough to develop survival skills. Still, Harry got disoriented and took a bad fall. He didn’t know it then, but he wouldn’t see another person for 17 days. Most search and rescue missions transition from rescue to recovery after four to six days. “I was torn because I know him, he's very capable out there, so I didn't want to waste calling the Sheriff's Office if I didn't need to and he just comes home. I was torn between how long do I wait,” Stacy said. She called on the evening of May 7 and started receiving daily calls from the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office and sharing updates on Roseburg Tracker daily. Search and rescue teams from nine counties from Oregon and California flocked to Twin Lakes to search for Harry, climbing through some of the hardest hikes of their lives in search. On day nine, Stacy was still posting to her Facebook page and the Roseburg Tracker page giving updates, and people were responding. “It was very comforting that people who live in the same community, but didn’t know us, were giving support,” Stacy said. “As days progressed and I would be told the night before what was going on I would relay to the Roseburg tracker community what's going on, and this is what we need you to pray for and they would. Then, on day 10, one of the search and rescue teams found one of Harry’s shelters. Harry was rewriting the book on survival and search and rescue. “Statistics say after day five, you're not going to find someone alive, so day 10 was kind of a last day - at that point you have to get some clue,” Stacy said. “So that was the first clue and that he's making a shelter -- I guess a lot of people don't do shelters -- he had incredible shelters so that was a big uplift.” Around day 10, Harry climbed up out of a steep ravine up to a clearing where he hoped to make more signals. On the climb, his sandal slipped and broke under his foot, then a stick jammed itself in his foot. He knew he wouldn’t be able to walk much after that, with the sandal dangling from his foot. “Everything was kind of just the same thing; Get up high, put signals out, think about water,” Harry said. “I got to the top of this Ridge. I saw the Coast Guard helicopter through an opening but I couldn't get there quick enough to get out of the heavy dense woods to even have a chance to be seen.” With his focus back on finding water, he looked around and found a tree with a hollowed-out root with a pool of water in it. He called it his teapot and said that it gave him a few extra days. He would walk between the clearing and the teapot, making signals and getting water. “That's why I was able to stay -- why I'm here today actually I think. I had a source of water,” Harry said. On day 17, his strength was nearly gone. Meanwhile, a search and rescue team was detoured from their planned route back to the trailhead and forced up a steep ridge they later said was one of the most difficult climbs they’d done. Harry was returning from his teapot to his campsite when the search and rescue team reached the top and spotted the lost man standing there resting, leaning on his sticks to hold him up. Harry was found at the top of a ridge near Twin Lakes 17 days after he was originally supposed to return home, disoriented, malnourished, and dehydrated. He’d spent the last two weeks staying up through the night trying to keep himself from freezing, eating only what he was certain was safe, hiking between water in the ravines and clearings at the top of ridges to try to get the attention of planes and helicopters, leaving voice memos on his phone for Stacy to find later, and fighting for one more day. “I got myself into a situation where I had to take, you know, one more step, do one more push, make one more effort and then that became one more day,” Harry said. “I wanted one more day to get back to my sweetie and my loved ones. A lot of in-your-own-head time. You think about all the things that you have done, your whole life kind of comes into focus and you analyze it and yet you kind of have to focus on your next step and your next step so that you don't trip and you fall because you're distracting yourself. I had to divide my time being focused and mindful when doing something to when I was taking a break and could let my mind wander.” Harry and Stacy have been backpacking their whole lives. They are well-versed in wilderness survival. Stacy held onto hope day in and day out that her husband would be alive, that he would beat the odds and his survival instincts would work. Harry and Stacy presented their story to the search and rescue teams who were looking for him. One search and rescue member came up to speak to Harry and told him Harry’s survival gave him hope for future missions. “He said many of the group felt a little bit dismayed that they had not found me. It’s not a rescue mission it’s a recovery mission usually, beyond day 10,” Harry said. “He said with tears in his eyes that he’d never do that again, no matter what day it was, he'd from now on always have that sense of this is the day we're gonna find and rescue the individual” Harry was found and sent to the Medical Center at Riverbend in Springfield for 15 days. He said he felt so much love and care from the people in the hospital and feels like he has a second chance to be intentional about connecting with people. “I know that I couldn't have gotten out of there on my own, walking,” Harry said. “That part was done by the time I got up to my last ridge top. I really stirred the pot up when I was just trying to do my own thing but I cost a lot of people a lot of energy, a lot of effort, and a lot of their love expended for me. I mean that in a very humble heartfelt way. I'm so grateful for what they did, what they offered me.” Harry has gained back almost all of his weight and feels like a 16-year-old watching his muscles grow back. He got his cell phone back and he and Stacy listened to the daily voice memos he left for her. They are still processing the experience and Harry’s feet are still recovering. They’ve gone out to Ford’s Pond in Sutherlin, but have kept the adventures simple. Harry said the attention can be overwhelming at times, but as long as the story of his survival is helpful, he will keep sharing it.