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Mountain Views-News SATURDAY, APRIL 26, 1015


CHRISTOPHER Nyerges 

 [Nyerges is an educator and the author of over two dozen books including “Urban Survival 
Guide,” “Extreme Simplicity,” “Foraging Californai,” and other books. More information at 
www.SchoolofSelf-Reliance.com]

A TRUE NATURE WOMAN - Hiking & Biking All over the world


DO YA WANNADOPT A 
BABY? 

Here's the 3rd little guy 
from the sibling trio, previous 
posts. Name's CINCO, 
after his official rescue 
on Cinco de Mayo. He's 
smaller than his brother 
Jack and sister Mermy. These cuties will be ready for 
delivery in June, but pre-adopt now. We prefer that 
you adopt 2 together or 
have another young kitten 
at home. This age is also 
fine to be introduced to a 
nice doggie. We take care 
of vaccines, spay & neuter, 
testing, microchips, and 
more! 

Please go to our website to submit your application to meet 
them, https://www.lifelineforpets.org/babies.html. Hurry! 
They won't be this tiny for long! Born 4/1/25.

KAYLA MICHAEL recently 
led a bird observation walk in 
the Pasadena area, and I followed 
along, realizing how little 
I understood the sounds and sights of the birds.

But the most amazing part was talking with Kayla 
afterwards, and learning her amazing story 
of how she lived on the land for so much of her 
adult life. I realized that she was the “real deal,” 
and she makes all the TV “survival experts” pale 
in comparison.

 

MEET KAYLA

Born in Denver, Colorado in 1956, Kayla Michael 
learned camping and fishing skills from her father, 
and loved it. In time, she backpacked all over the 
mountains of the west, by herself. 

She knew what it took to backpack, and knew how 
to capture fish and small game, and her love of the 
outdoors compelled her to spend more and more 
time in the pristine wilderness.

She began with short backpacking trips of a week 
and a half in the San Juan Mountains and the Gore 
Range of the Colorado wilderness. She started 
going on longer and longer trips every year. She 
calls 1978 to 1980 her “greenhorn years.” When 
she turned 21 in 1978, she travelled around Colorado 
and Utah by herself for a full three months.

She did longer trips in 1979, mostly in Colorado 
and Utah, with one trip lasting 4 months.

In 1980, she went into the wilderness for a month 
and a half in Colorado. She did her first 6 month 
long trip in 1981, spending most of the time in 
Wyoming.

“In 1981, my life changed when I began to go out 
six months, the first real year when I went out 
from Jackson, Yellowstone, and went into the wilderness 
for weeks, coming into town for resupply 
and then I’d go back out,” she says with a smile.

“At first, I carried a stove,” explains Michael, “and 
then I read about a person who never carried a 
stove. So I tried that, taking only nuts, jerky, granola 
bars, raisins, cheese, and other foods that 
didn’t need to be cooked.” She’d also carry macaroni 
and cheese which she could easily cook over 
fire. She explains that she would first go out with 
two weeks worth of food, and learned to stretch it 
out. Then it became normal to live off the land.

In her earlier years, she would carry along flower 
books and learn to identify wild flowers. Then she 
started to learn that certain plants could be eaten. 
She used “Plants for the Rocky Mountains,” and 
“Medicinal and Edible Plants of the Rockies,” and 
others. She learned to identify such wild edibles as 
spring beauty, bistort root, biscuit root, dandelion, 
and others, and she generally used the wild plants 
raw, without cooking. In the high mountains, she 
eats the little yampa tubers. Wild plants would 
supplement whatever foods she carried along. She 
also has learned to catch fish with a fishing line. 
“Someone gave me a compactable backpacking 
fishing rod, and I still have it to this day. I knew 
how to fly fish as a kid.” Occasionally, Michael has 
taken game on her journeys, such as grouse. What 
sort of weapons does she use?

“I get them with a stone or with a throwing stick. 
You get better as you practice. You hit some and 
you miss some,” she explained. “But I’m a pretty 
good aim, from practice.”

“I would work from fall to spring and then hike all 
over from spring to fall. In 2013, she first went to 
Alaska and other places along the way, living out 
of my backback,” she explains

“For many years of travelling in the West, I came 
to love the headwaters of Yellowstone, where I 
would spend all summer and just come back every 
few weeks to a month to get resupplied, and then 
go back into the wilderness,” she explained.

Kayla Michael’s routine was to go hiking and 
backpacking during the summers, and then work 
in the winter. Then she recalls a very good friend 
who bicycled everywhere, who had the same interests 
as Michael. “It got me to thinking and I 
eventually I got a bike of my own, though I was 
still doing more hiking than biking.”

She purchased a Haro bike in 2000, a 24 speed, old 
fashioned mountain pedal bike.

LIVING ON HER BIKE

“On my bike now, I usually carry food, but besides 
the food, there’s hardly anything in my backpack,” 
she explains, with her pack typically weighing 
about 30 lbs.

When she retired from her job in 2021, she began 
to bike everywhere. She began to travel north in 
the spring and summer, and go south in the fall 
and winter. From her home in Jackson Hole, she 
has biked to St. George, wintered there, and then 
biked back to Jackson Hole.

She has bicycled all the way to Arizona, taking 
about 2 .5 months, a trip of well over a thousand 
miles. “I ended up at an RV park, where I wintered. 
I then went to the Winter Count gathering, 
and started going to other gatherings.”

In the mid 1990s, Michael obtained a copy of the 
Wilderness Way magazine and learned about the 
various primitive skills gatherings, such as Rabbit 
Stick every September in Idaho, originally started 
by Larry Dean Olsen (author of “Outdoor Survival 
Skills”). Her first gathering was 2002 at the Rabbit 
Stick Rendesvous in Idaho.

She was hooked and began to attend various primitive 
skills gatherings, such as Winter Count every 
February in Arizona. She would usually just 
attend, but sometimes taught about birds. Among 
her many other talents, Michael is an authority on 
bird identity and interpreting bird sounds. Sometimes 
at Rabbit Stick, she would assist Tom Cook 
who is a regular teaching about cooking ducks. “I 
have been bird-watching since in my teens. It’s a 
daily thing for me”.

Michael regards Jackson Hole, Wyoming as her 
home, where she would rent a room to have a 
place to store her things when she was on the road. 
But the man who she rented from was in his 90s 
and sold his house. “ So now I am houseless,” said 
Michael, “living on my bike.” 

“The more I went into the wilderness, the more 
that became my life. I would work winters to have 
income, and then I camped all summer in deep 
back woods.” And though she has hiked and bicycled 
thousands of miles, she does sometimes 
get rides from friends, and even takes Amtrak or 
buses on occasion.

Mention a year and she tells you what wilderness 
area she spent that year. In 1981, she spent summer 
months in deep wilderness in Yellowstone 
and the Wind River Range in Wyoming. In 1982, 
she spent time in Yellowstone and the Absaroka 
Range in Wyoming. In 1983, she spent time in 
Yellowstone, Glacier National Park, and the Bob 
Marshall Wilderness in Montana. In 1984, she was 
travelling again in Wyoming, and in late in summer 
went into the Washington Olympic peninsula.

In 1985, she travelled in Yelllowstone and the Bear 
Tooths in Montana. In 1986, she travelled in Yellowstone 
and the North Absarokas of Wyoming.

She adds that her favorites area was the Thorofare 
of the headwaters of the Yellowstone River in 
Northwest Wyoming. “I lived there many a summer,” 
she explains. “The Thorofare is the furthest 
distance from a road you can get in the lower 48 
states,” says Michael.

It’s quite a resume, and she has always kept journals 
– in fact, she has a box of her journals since 
her first year of hiking in 1978 that she hopes to 
turn into a book one day.

Michael describes many close bear encounters 
where she was very scared . “I was once charged 
once by a griz, came within 5 to 8 ft of me and I 
screamed bloody murder at him and he backed 
off. I’ve had encounters with griz (grizzly bears) 
and wolves, and have come to trust the griz more 
than people. Still, in the wilderness, Michael reports 
that she never had people problems. “You 
actually meet the best people in the wilderness.”

WILDERNESS IS A PARADISE

“In long term living in the wilderness,” she explains, 
“for a month at a time, or more, it becomes 
like paradise. There is no loneliness because life is 
everywhere.”

She says that planning for food has never been 
a problem for her. “I can pick up food here and 
there. In back country, I can usually find a store to 
get food for a month or so. Fo biking, you need to 
do more planning – food for a month is heavy, so I 
would cache my food.” She describes having bear-
proof cases that she caches in secret spots where 
she does her wilderness travels.

Her essential gear is simple: knife, little Bic lighters 
for fire, a pot, never a stove. She cooks over 
the fire. Sleeping bag, change of clothes, and rope/
twine for hanging food, a Leatherman tool and a 
good 8“ sheath knife. She carries a little first aid 
kit “but I have never used it much,” she explains.

As for her bike, “I really don’t have much of a repair 
kit, just a tire repair kit. I occasionally have 
a flat, so I fix it and carry on.” She carries a flip 
phone, spare toilet paper, a small towell, and she 
knows how to wash up by the creek.

“I don’t have a water purifier, since I have figured 
out where to drink from the streams,” she explains. 
Once she got giardia from bad water and she cured 
herself by eating yarrow leaves. “I was way back in 
the Teton National Forest, and couldn’t do much 
for a few days,” she says.

REACHING KAYLA

Don’t expect an immediate response, because she’s 
often in the field and on the trail, but she does have 
a phone and email, and even a web site.

Phone 307) 413-2978. Email is kmatjhwy@ yahoo.
com, and the web site is www.reflectionsofthewild.
zenfolio.com, where she goes by the name Lone 
Eagle Woman


Pet of the Week

Kira is a 4-year-old Malinois mix with a calm, 
gentle spirit. This soulful girl is a perfect blend 
of couch potato and adventure buddy — content 
to lounge around the house but always up for 
a good walk or a romp at the dog park (where 
she's a total social butterfly!). She's house-
trained, crate-trained, and low maintenance, 
making her an easy companion for a variety of 
home environments.

 While Kira can be a little leash-reactive 
around other dogs and very enthusiastic about 
squirrels, she's been working on her training 
and improving every day. Off-leash at the park, 
she's all charm and grace with other dogs. 
She adores people — including kids — but 
sometimes forgets her size in her eagerness 
to say hello. She's not a barker, loves a good 
cuddle, and has a sweet, quiet way of making 
you feel like the center of her world.

If you're looking for a laid-back, loyal, and loving companion with just enough quirk to 
keep life interesting, Kira might just be your perfect match. Come meet this beautiful girl 
— she’s ready to steal your heart.

The adoption fee for dogs is $150. All dog adoptions include spay or neuter, microchip, 
and age-appropriate vaccines. Walk-in adoptions are available every day from 10:00 – 5:00. 
View photos of adoptable pets at pasadenahumane.org.

 New adopters will receive a complimentary health-and-wellness exam from VCA Animal 
Hospitals, as well as a goody bag filled with information about how to care for your pet. 

 Pets may not be available for adoption and cannot be held for potential adopters by phone 
calls or email.


Mountain Views News 80 W Sierra Madre Blvd. No. 327 Sierra Madre, Ca. 91024 Office: 626.355.2737 Fax: 626.609.3285 Email: editor@mtnviewsnews.com Website: www.mtnviewsnews.com