BILLINGS - With the situation looking grim and lacking pencil or paper, Chris Schuck used his pocket knife to carve a note to his wife into a walking stick he'd picked up.

The message read: "I love you Pam my lovely wife."

"I really wondered if I was going to make it out," Schuck said in an interview recounting his ordeal.

Schuck, 46, was stranded by a heavy snowstorm for four days in late October while hunting in the Little Belt Mountains of central Montana. He had parked his camp trailer near Sheep Creek, about 25 miles north of White Sulphur Springs. It was the first week of the elk rifle season, and Schuck had walked too far from his camper while tracking an elk as snow began to fall.

Worried that night was fast approaching and that his wet clothes might lead to hypothermia, he trudged to a small collection of sheds he'd spotted earlier in the Tenderfoot Experimental Forest. He forced open the door of a 4-by-4-foot plywood shed with metal siding, stripped off his soaked clothes and lighted a small propane heater he'd found in the shed to dry out. That took five hours.

By the following morning, 4-5 feet of snow blanketed the countryside.

Schuck wasn't the only one trapped by the storm, but most of the other hunters got back to their camps or walked or drove out before the snow got so deep. Those who stayed had to hire snowplows to free their rigs. U.S. Forest Service and search and rescue crews from Meagher and Cascade counties were dispatched to check on hunters.

But no one knew of Schuck's plight. And his options were limited. Trying to walk back to his trailer was impossible.

"The snow was up around my belt to my belly," he said, noting he stands 5 feet, 10 inches tall. "I thought, ‘This is crazy.' "

Schuck was stuck.

"I turned and went back to the building," he said. "I didn't like the feeling. It's probably the worst feeling I've ever had."

Schuck faced a harsh fact: He wouldn't be missed for at least another day, when the Fort Benton carpenter was expected home to meet with a real estate agent. Schuck and his wife, Pam, were in the middle of selling their home to move back to the Flathead Valley. But Pam might wait a day until calling for a search party, since Schuck had been late getting home before when he went hunting.

"I figured at best I had to wait three days," he said.

With days before his wife might report him missing, Schuck decided his best course of action would be to hunker down and wait for help. The shed, which contained electronic equipment used to chart the flow of Tenderfoot Creek, was a life-saver. But his personal possessions were slim. His only food was a quarter of a bologna sandwich, a third of an apple, half a Snickers candy bar, a couple of cookies, three Aleve pain pills and some water. He also carried a .338 rifle, bullets, a hunting knife, pocketknife, 20-year-old foldup saw and a cell phone. But he couldn't get cell reception.

It was time to go into survival mode, just like the "MacGyver" and "Survivor" shows he'd watched on television.

"The first thing I did was pray for courage," Schuck said. "The temperature was really low - 10 to 15 in the day. I'd used up half that heater in the night."

While he still had energy, he kept busy doing chores. First he went to another shed, kicked in the door and found another small propane bottle for the heater, as well as some tools and a metal plate. He struggled through the snow to a stand of dead lodgepole pine and began sawing down the trees, from which he made a pile about 10 feet high that he could ignite for a signal fire. That kept him busy most of the first day.

To keep his energy up, he ate a bite of sandwich, one bite of the Snickers and then filled his stomach with water. That night he splurged and ate an entire cookie.

"It was kind of a painstaking thing."

To save fuel at night, he'd run the small heater until the room got warm, then shut it off, close the door tight and plug the air leak under the door with his handkerchief to hold the heat in. About every two hours, he'd wake, rewarm the shed and then shut the heater off again.

By day three, a Chinook wind was warming the countryside. Using his walking stick onto which he'd also carved a cross and "Jesus," he set out to hike to the top of a nearby mountain in hopes of getting his bearings. It was a hard slog. When he reached a clear-cut where he could see the surrounding terrain, nothing looked familiar.

"It looked like I was in an Alaskan wilderness."

Although the snow in the clear-cut was up to his chest, he stomped out an automobile-sized SOS in the snow, as well as an arrow pointing to the sheds.

"I thought it would be like black writing, but nobody saw it."

With the expenditure of energy from the hike, he was getting very hungry. He'd tried to locate a chattering squirrel, his only neighbor, to shoot for food, but the squirrel proved elusive.

"I remember praying, ‘Lord, bring me some food.' "

On day four of his snowbound stay, his prayer was answered. While standing outside the shed he saw movement nearby. A grouse had alighted on a sagging willow branch. With his large-caliber rifle, Schuck shot and the bird exploded in a plume of feathers. It was too much gun, but enough of the bird remained for a feast Schuck compared to a Thanksgiving turkey.

"By that time, I was thoroughly enjoying myself," he said.

He roasted portions of the grouse on a stick over a small fire next to the shed. Schuck had also fashioned a crude cup out of the metal plate he'd found, heating it in the fire and pounding it with a rock, in which he melted snow and made pine needle tea. After the sumptuous meal, Schuck's spirits were lifted.

"I thought maybe I will get out of here. The Lord is looking after me."

He boiled the grouse bones to make a broth for lunch, then saved them just in case. The rest of the raw grouse he put in a plastic bag and tucked it into the snow, staying cool for a later meal.

It wasn't long after his feast that Schuck heard a helicopter. Scrambling out of the creek bottom to his hillside signal fire, he lit the blaze, which took off perfectly. The copter appeared to be hovering over the SOS he'd tromped in the snow. But with the Chinook winds blowing, the SOS and signal fire's smoke blended in with the snow scattering from the trees.

"This ain't good," Schuck said to himself, knowing the smoke wouldn't be seen.

Dejected, he retreated to his shed. Then he heard snowmobiles whining in the distance. For a moment, he contemplated leaving his shelter and trekking toward the noise. But with his energy level low from the shortage of food, Schuck decided it would be better to stay put, even though he dreaded another night in the cramped shed.

According to Meagher County Sheriff Jon Lopp, the search for Schuck was organized after getting a call from Schuck's wife at around 9 a.m. Friday. By 2 p.m., a helicopter operated by Bill Galt, an area rancher, spotted Schuck's camper. Snowmobile teams were dispatched and found no tracks in the snow.

Snowmobilers continued to search for Schuck until dark.

When asked by Schuck's wife what the situation was, Lopp told her, "We're concerned."

"It was very, very intense," Pam said. "They couldn't ease my mind much."

Her sons, one living in Butte and the other in Maryland, were eager to aid in the search.

On Saturday morning, Schuck awoke and began the routine of making his morning tea over the campfire. Then he heard a plane fly directly overhead. Schuck jumped and waved his arms. Earlier, he'd taped his blaze orange hunting vest to a broom and stuck it into the snow atop the shed. He piled green boughs onto his cook fire to make plumes of smoke as a signal. He stood atop the shed and waved the broom. None of it worked.

Then he heard the helicopter again, and minutes later it roared overhead.

"It was the best thing that happened to me in four days other than the grouse," he said. "I started crying. I was pretty happy to be found."

Uncertain how long he'd have to wait for the snowmobilers to reach him, since the copter couldn't land, Schuck wired up the last of his raw grouse to cook over the campfire as a celebratory meal. But he never had a chance to eat it. The search team's 10-member snowmobile squad roared up and offered him a turkey sandwich, warm homemade burrito and flavored water.

"It was overwhelming," Schuck said.

"Nothing in the world tasted better than that flavored water after that tea and water."

Schuck told his rescuers how happy he was to see them and shed more tears of joy.

"Yeah," one of them joked, "don't you know you were supposed to be home two days ago?"

Despite the ordeal and the roller-coaster ride of emotions, on the ride out on the back of one of the snowmobiles to his truck, Schuck recalled, he couldn't help but look for elk along the way.

Reporter Brett French can be reached at (406) 657-1387 or at french@billingsgazette.com.