California man, 34, was supposed to go on a 3-hour hike. He was found 10 days later covered in mud

A Californian man who embarked on a three-hour hike has been found after being stranded for 10 days in the mountains, surviving mostly off water.

Lukas McClish, 34, covered in dirt, reunited with his family late last week afer his ordeal in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

McClish told KGO that he set out on a hike on June 11 from his hometown of Boulder Creek in what he thought would be a short outing that Tuesday on his way to work; however, the further he got into the hike he became lost after he did not recognize several guiding landmarks that had been burned down in wildfires.

McClish, a hiker and experienced backpacker who does landscaping in forests that have been destroyed by wildfires, told The New York Times that he was intending to go and look at a granite outcropping in a nearby woods, but ended up becoming lost in the area that was devastated by the CZU Lightning Complex fire in 2020.

“That’s one thing that 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,” he told the outlet.

On June 16, McClish was supposed to attend a Father’s Day dinner with his family, but after becoming a no-show, he was declared missing that day once they had alerted authorities.

Four days later, McClish was found after multiple reports came into local agencies that they could hear the sound of someone yelling for help in the Big Basin Redwoods State Park.

“Just help, help. I’m over here. Or is anybody out there? I want a burrito and a taco bowl, that’s what I thought about every day when after the first five days, when I started to kind of realize that I might be in over my head,” McClish told KSBW.

Around 3pm in the afternoon, several witnesses reported hearing someone yelling for help in Foreman Creek off Big Basin Highway, the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office wrote in a social media post.

The deputies from the sheriff’s office, State Parks, Cal Fire and Boulder Creek Fire Department all responded to the area, where they eventually found McClish, who had been missing for around 10 days at that point.

The agencies used drones to find McClish’s exact location, and State Park rangers were shortly on scene with the missing man, with fire crews behind them to bring him to safety.

Fortunately, the hiker had no major injuries and was able to reunite with his family, the sheriff’s office wrote.

The hiker told KGO that he was overwhelmed by the amount of personnel that joined in his rescue.

"It was just really humbling and I don’t know, it was an awesome experience," McClish said.

"I left with just a pair of pants, and my pair of hiking shoes, and a hat. I had a flashlight, and a pair of folding scissors, like a Leatherman tool. And that was about it," McClish added.

While he was lost in the Big Basin State Parks area, McClish told the outlet he managed to survive by drinking lots of water.

"I just make 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," McClish said.

He told KSBW that on the days he was out in the wilderness, he just kept hiking, going up and down canyons, and even encountered a mountain lion while trying to find his way out.

“I felt comfortable the whole time I was out there; I wasn’t worried,” McClish, who has backpacked through other regions in the US, told the outlet. “I had a mountain lion that was following me, and it was cool. It kept its distance. I think it was just somebody watching over me.”

McClish, who likes to “embrace the wilderness,” used the opportunity to test his survival skills while he was lost; however, the hiker ended up losing around 30 pounds in 10 days, the New York Times reported.

Now he has been rescued, he told KGO that he thinks he has done “enough hiking for probably the whole rest of the year.”