Being from Colo., you know how the San Luis Valley can be treacherous in winter and to get to Dulce from Saguache, you have to go over some passes.
Pede, 31, says he watches television survival shows. The one lesson he has learned is to stay with the vehicle. So from Thursday morning until Sunday morning — when the last of his gas ran out — he and the dog stayed in the vehicle. They drank a couple of cans of soda, a bottle of water his kids had left in the car and snow that he melted with a fire made from eight chairs that he was delivering to a woman in Topeka, Kan.
When the gasoline ran out, Pede said, he knew he had to try to walk out. The weather wasn't bad; the sun was out. He thought he would freeze to death with temperatures dipping to 6 degrees at night if he stayed in a non-heated vehicle.
He started walking. Much to his surprise, as he headed down the mountain, he found a lot of the heavy snow had melted in the days he had been stuck in the forest.
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"He is a good man, and a good dad. I couldn't imagine a day without him," said his wife Amanda Pede. As for Jason Pede, he said, "You are darn right I feel lucky to be alive. But it won't sink in until I hold my wife."