Alone on the Valdez Glacier: Tim Mills’ Survival and Rescue

Tim Mills and his snowmachine shortly after purchase. Photo courtesy of Renee Puma.

By Allison Sayer

On the morning of Monday April 5, 57 year-old Tim Mills of Valdez was found alive but cold on the Valdez Glacier, having been stranded there alone since the afternoon of April 3. Mills’ snowmachine had broken partway into a crevasse and he was unable to retrieve it. He took shelter in a snow cave for over 30 hours. Mills was rescued by a team of approximately 20 snowmachine riders including his brothers Randy and Donny Mills, friend Brian Teale, and many members of the Valdez Snowmachine Club and Valdez Fire Department Backcountry Search and Rescue Team. 

Mills freely admits that he made mistakes during his ordeal and the time leading up to it. He shared his story in detail to help others learn from both his mistakes and from the things he did that helped him to survive. 

On Saturday, April 3, Mills set out alone to explore an area of the Valdez Glacier he had previously reached with other riding partners. He couldn’t find a partner but he went anyway, lured by good weather.

“I hadn’t told anybody specifically where I went,” he said, but he said he and his brother Donny “had said years ago all we have to do is find where your car is parked and we’d have a general idea where you’re at.” 

On his ride, Mills said he “took a chance by getting back there thinking I’d be alright because I’d done it before, but I went a little farther than I had gone. It was super sunny, and [seeing] other tracks I wasn’t super careful. I got a really good advance on why people are so scared of glaciers. I’ve been riding for 10 years saying, ‘the snow is better on the glacier.’ When a glacier is shaped a certain way and coming off the mountain a certain way it’s not the same as the other glaciers. It’s a land mine and a death trap and I drove right into it.” 

Mills continued, “I hit a crack straight on. The snowmachine threw me. The only thing keeping me up was my skis on the two foot [snow] base and my track was just dropping into the air below. I glanced over my shoulder and I puckered up.” Mills spent about an hour trying to free his sled in order to ride back, but eventually realized it was too dangerous to continue. 

Mills didn’t walk away with much.  “I usually carry a whole backpack full of everything I need in case something goes wrong,” he said, “I hadn’t updated it this year. It didn’t have anything in there to try salvaging the sled, no rope, no strap, nothing to anchor it so it wouldn’t fall in while I was gone.” Mills continued, “There was no sleeping bag. That was somebody’s imagination. I just had one of those little silver blankets.” 

Walking back from his snowmachine was a dangerous ordeal. “I fell [partway] through three times coming down,” he said, “I got over to my snowmachine track and I noticed I crossed all these cracks sideways and now there’s a gap. I started evaluating more. Every time something didn’t feel solid under my foot I threw my body and rolled. It was really slow going. I walked on my track because it gave an idea of where the cracks were.” 

Mills said, “I was up by Abercrombie, the big square on the right side. Below the glacier there’s this big black line that goes all the way down the valley. So I walked to the meridian because I knew that the top wouldn’t have big snow.” Mills had also seen tracks there from a party of skiers and although they were headed for Eureka he wondered if they would come back. “They probably had everything I needed to survive,” he said.

Mills planned to walk about five miles per day to rescue himself, sheltering in snow caves at night. He thought that would be a reasonable distance for him, even with snowy conditions and what he called “a bum leg.” 

After reaching the moraine, Mills searched for a place to create a shelter. He found a crescent of rocks surrounding a snow drift where he could make a hole. “It took me three of those to find that,” he said, “The first one went down to rock, the second to ice. The third one worked.” After excavating a hole, he chopped out a little piece of a snow drift and dragged it over the entrance from inside. 

Mills said his first night was not too bad. “I had hard plastic that I wrapped my leg in, the space blanket to keep me out of the snow. I was dry. I had really good gear on.” 

The following day, Mills woke up and planned to continue walking out. However, a snowstorm had moved in. “It was like I turned on a TV in the olden days. I couldn’t see the rocks that I knew were right around me,” he said. “I realized, I can’t find my way, and I won’t be able to find my way back to my hole.” Mills went back to his shelter and took inventory of his supplies. He had a few snacks, and the water he had brought was used up. He found an ice saw in the bottom of his pack, and decided “I’m going to be here another night; I’m going to make this condo bigger.” 

During this time, unbeknownst to Mills, people were already looking for him. A helicopter team was mobilized to remain on standby in case of a weather window. Meanwhile, groups of snowmachiners searched likely locations even though the conditions were poor. The snowmachiners had gotten within a half a mile of his snow cave, but eventually were forced to turn around. “The safety guys said [to Donny Mills and Brian Teale], ‘You guys look like you’re lost.’ They were the ones that made the trail.” 

The following morning, Mills woke up gasping for air. He had not made a breathing hole in the snow cave to allow carbon dioxide to escape and fresh air to get in. “I exhaled and I was just gasping to get new breath in,” he said. “I started to wonder why but then I had to pee and when I knelt my head went up higher, and I could breathe.” Although he now realizes what was happening, he did not understand what was going on at the time. “I decided, ‘I’m going to lay down and try sleeping again,’ and after I laid down I couldn’t breathe again. During this dilemma I decided I was going to start walking because this wasn’t working anymore.”

Mills tried to walk, but the snow that had fallen overnight made progress impossible. “I was wading,” he said. “I walked 20 minutes and I could still see my hole behind me. And then I realized my gloves were stiff. I looked down at my clothes and they were doing the same thing. It dawns on me, ‘My clothes are wet.’

“I turned around, went back into the hole. I was trying to contemplate my next move and I realized, ‘I’m too wet. I can’t go out there into that wind.’”

Mills did not have breathing problems again, either because getting out of the cave had allowed for gas exchange or because he remained sitting up. Shortly after, “I heard chopper blades. I jumped out and went crazy and got all wet again, and they didn’t see me. That was heartbreaking.” Mills said he did not know whether the helicopters were looking for him or just dropping off skiers. 

It was around this time Mills realized he was not going to be able to rescue himself. “I was getting too wet, too fast, too many times,” Mills said, “There was no way I was going to be able to walk or last, if I wasn’t rescued.” He described that as “one of those real close to God moments we’re not always comfortable with. It makes me feel like a hypocrite because of some of the ways I live.”

Mills thought about what he would do the next time he heard a motor approaching. It had taken him longer than he thought it would to get out of the snow cave, because he was becoming drained. “I wasted time waving my arms standing in the hole,” he said. He had spotted a nearby hill, and decided he would head for that if he heard anything again in order to be more visible. 

Mills hoped that his brother was aware that he was missing. “If someone can tell Donny where I’m at, he’ll go right past me,” he thought. The route was technical, and he knew that not everyone would be capable of riding it. 

Then he heard snowmachines. 

Between the time Mills heard the snowmachines and the time he got out of his cave again, the group had passed him. He already had a plan to park himself right in the middle of their track if they didn’t see him, so that they would find him on their way back out. The third to last rider turned around to look over his shoulder, and that was when he spotted Mills. 

“I was just so grateful,” he said. “The majority of the rescue crew that found me wasn’t actual rescue crew, they were Valdez crew: all the bros that haven’t been together in years because they have families. They all quit their expensive paying jobs to come out for two days and find my a--. I’ve never seen so many of my friends and even acquaintances in one place at one time.”  

Mills was treated at Providence Valdez Medical Center. “I was in there for a few hours getting rehydrated and ‘de-hypothermiated,’” he said. “They have this special bed with hot air hoses hooked up to it. It’s kind of like an exotic sauna with bubble wrap.” He was released from the hospital that day. 

I asked Mills how he was doing now. “I’m really good,” he said. “I was on the brink when they found me of all the things that you would expect. I had no frostbite. I was hypothermic. If you watch those things on TV you can think, ‘If anything goes wrong I’ll just spend a couple nights in a snowbank.’ Well, it’s easier to say than do. I wouldn’t advise it. The amount of stuff I had and not knowing if I was going to be found made it way not fun. I pushed my luck a little too far and I’m not going to do that ever again.”

When we spoke on April 9, Mills said he hoped to go out with some other snowmachiners to try to recover his sled. Although it is insured, the insurance does not cover the specialty parts and aftermarket modifications Mills has installed. 

When asked about what he would do differently in the future, Mills immediately replied, “Have somebody with me.” He said he would also follow Alaska State Trooper Tony Beck’s advice to carry a flare gun and a range extender for his cellphone.

Mills said he will either carry more water or have the ability to melt snow from now on. He said he realized, “If I had had skis I would have been out of there in no time. This walking is for the birds. I even have snowshoes I strap on sometimes but I didn’t have them that day. It wasn’t a deep day. I thought I would be back in an hour.” 

Although he knows he made mistakes, Mills does have advice for other snowmachiners. “If you’ve got the right riding gear to be comfortable at subzero weather riding, you can survive in a snow cave for 30 hours,” he said, “Picking a good spot and staying in there until the weather comes back to being good is the number one thing that saved me.”

Mills also talked about the personal effect of being rescued after a true survival situation. “I’m not going to get upset at nobody for nothing for a really long time, hopefully forever,” he said, “This was a stark reminder that life is short and you’d better do things a little bit better. I don’t know what I need to do. Being a better person is a h--- of a good start I think, make better choices. I’m off-putting to a lot of people and I’m trying not to be that way. That’s why I go to counseling. I don’t like a lot of the things happening in my life on a regular basis.”

Mills said that he had experienced similar gratitude when he was released from prison several years ago. He reflected, “As appreciative as you are when you get out or when you live through something like this, it wears off. You can only be happy to breathe free air for a couple of years. 

I’m so appreciative and I’m just trying not to forget. Me and my girlfriend made up and I’m glad.”

Mills also released a video to the Facebook group Valdez Online Bulletin Board expressing his gratitude to his rescuers, and promising he would never ride alone again.

This article has been edited from a previous version to state that both Randy and Donny Mills were active in Tim Mills’ rescue.

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