Hiker found alive after 10 days lost in California mountains reveals how he survived

A shirtless hiker who went missing in remote California mountains has been found alive ten days after he vanished - having survived by drinking water from his boot and eating wild berries.

Lukas McClish, 34, set off on June 11 on what should have been a three-hour walk to visit some rare granite outcroppings in the Big Basin Redwoods State Park in Boulder Creek.

He had only a few supplies with him and had not told anyone where he was going because he only planned to be out for the afternoon. He didn't even bother putting a shirt on.

'I left with a pair of pants, and my hiking shoes and a hat,' McClish told KGO-TV. 'I had a flashlight and a pair of folding scissors, like a Leatherman tool - and that was about it.'

McClish, an experienced hiker who does landscaping in forests razed by wildfires, said he was 'astounded' that he got lost - and so quickly.  The alarm was raised by his parents only when he failed to turn up for lunch on Father's Day on June 16 - five days after he set off.

Before he was rescued on June 20, he spent nine nights and 10 days wandering through the wilderness, drinking water from the creek out of his boot, eating wild berries and sleeping on wet leaves.

'I just made sure I drank a gallon of water every day, but then after, getting close to the end of it, my body needed food and some kind of sustenance,' he said.

McClish lost around 2.5st (30lbs) in weight.

At one point a mountain lion began following him, and things got worse on day eight when he came down with hypothermia and slipped while clambering over a rock face.

Eventually a pair of rangers, who were among nearly 300 people searching for him, heard his cries for help.

A drone was sent up and he was quickly found with the help of a sniffer dog. And remarkably he needed only one night in hospital before he could return home to his family, who had been waiting for him at the forest's edge when he was rescued.

The area in which he was hiking had been razed in the CZU Lightning Complex fire of 2020 and 'looks completely different from all of the other terrain,' he explained.

'That's one thing I didn't take into consideration - when the fire comes through like that and decimates it, it turns into the desert and you're unable to find your bearings.'

The typical markers to indicate direction, such as deer trails or hiking paths, were gone.

But at first, McClish considered his predicament a chance to test his survival skills, according to the New York Times .

'I'm an avid backpacker, so for me to go out for a night or two is not out of the norm,' he told the Times.

On that first cold night, though, McClish tried to build himself a camp - but the brush he used to start a fire was wet.

He then hiked across a canyon for better shelter, and the next day set out to find a stream he thought would be nearby.

'So I just kind of hiked,' McClish told WDBJ. 'Each day I go up a canyon, down a canyon, to the next waterfall, drank water out of my boot.

'I felt comfortable every time I was out there - I wasn't worried about it.

'I had a mountain lion that was following me, but it was cool,' McClish added. 'It kept its distance. I think it was just somebody watching over me.'

But by day five, McClish started to grow concerned - and tried to find a way back to civilization.

'I knew if I kept following the sun, I'd get to the ocean eventually, but I didn't know how far from the ocean I was,' he said.

Meanwhile, his family began to worry when he did not show up for Father's Day, and filed a missing persons report.

That sparked a massive manhunt, involving nearly 300 people and emergency personnel from several agencies.

His mother, Diane McClish, told WDBJ: 'I just had to trust God that he was going to be OK - and that was hard to do some nights, when we would go to bed, because I would worry about where he was, where he was sleeping and how cold he was.'

As search efforts continued, McClish started shouting for help as he experienced hypothermia and slipped while going over a rock face.

'Help, help, I'm over here,' he remembers screaming over and over during days eight and nine, along with 'Is anybody out there?'

At the same time, McClish said he kept dreaming about his next meal as he was forced to survive on wild berries.

'I wanted a burrito or a taco bowl,' he said. 'That's what I thought about every day when I, after the first five days, when I started to kind of realize that I might be in over my head.'

Finally, at around 7.30pm on Thursday, two park rangers were making their way up a hill and heard McClish's screams.

'I'm thinking, I hope this isn't a mirage,' McClish recounted.

But the Boulder Creek Fire Department soon deployed a drone and spotted him, while a dog tracked him down.

He was then escorted out of the wilderness by police, and was reunited with his anxious family.

McClish would go on to spend Thursday night safely at a local hospital, where doctors removed rocks from his back.

He said he still doesn't fear the wilderness, but admitted: 'I did enough hiking for probably the whole rest of the year.'