80 hours: Rescued hiker shares tale of survival on snowy Colorado 14er

The nights were long, frigid and he barely slept, but all the while Shuei Kato tried to maintain his usual even-keeled nature, subconsciously relying on the belief that his abilities to problem solve would eventually bring him home.

With little more than a day’s worth of supplies and perhaps slightly more gear than a typical afternoon hiker, the Wildernest resident managed to overcome roughly 80 hours in the backcountry. He not only lived, but suffered little more than some minor soreness and swelling.

The 36-year-old husband and father of two acknowledged pessimism occasionally surfaced after getting lost during a trek up 14,000foot Missouri Mountain in Chaffee County. But he didn’t let notions of failing cloud his mind or his judgment. The energy was much better spent coming up with solutions.

“All kinds of negative thoughts come down when you stop thinking, or when you stop moving,” Kato said. “I thought about it, that I might be done. But I’m like, ‘I’ve got to survive. If I’m out of options, I’m dead, so I’ve got to always come up with new options and possibilities for what can I do.’ ”

At about 11:15 a.m. on Oct. 7, after summiting the 15th Colorado fourteener of his career, Kato got way off course trying to get back to the Missouri Gulch trailhead and accidentally exited the backside of the peak, ending up in a valley near Mount Harvard several miles from the area where rescuers focused early efforts.

Among his challenges: a depleted cellphone battery, no map or compass and no way to flag the rescue mission helicopters. Overnight snowfall and whiteout conditions only added to the obstacles, particularly for the search team that had to postpone its operation Tuesday due to avalanche concerns.

He said water, not food, was his biggest concern, but with a flowing stream close by, he made consistent hydration a chief objective and that persisted in not allowing hope to be lost. Otherwise, sheer instinct took over and Kato continued to try to figure out where he was.

“I was thinking as long as I have tons of water, I should be good,” he said. “When my body went into survival mode, I didn’t really eat. I could go miles without feeling the hunger. I was eating little by little very conservatively, although the third day, the very cold night, that was very, very tough, and I probably had a super low blood-sugar level.”