Kern Lives for Adventure

By FRANK BODANI

Monday, April 4, 2005

He's a first-year college student whose idea of spring break is spending five days alone in the woods. Without a shelter. Without a gun or a hunting bow. With only a bit of food. Just to see if he could do it. Clayton Kern, a Northeastern High graduate, is the kind of guy who will stop on a desolate logging road to pick up a rattlesnake. By himself. "Everybody thinks I'm crazy," Kern said, laughing. Maybe a little too adventurous. Certainly, this is unusual stuff, head-turning even. But there also is a serious side. This does make some sense. Kern grew up as hard-core nature kid, the kind who loved swinging from the tops of tree branches. Now, he is studying environmental biology at Unity University in Maine — "America's Environmental College." He read plenty of survival books to prepare for his recent spring break trip. He went to Bald Eagle State Park, near State College, in the middle of March. He arrived to a foot of snow, no sprouting plants to eat and coyote tracks. He brought only a pocket knife, machete, first-aid kit, a flint, some fishing line and a cell phone. So he found a creek and dug out a sleeping spot in the snow and fashioned a makeshift shelter out of some logs, leaves, sticks and dried bark. It was much more difficult than expected. The cold forced him to retrieve his emergency sleeping bag out of his car. The only things he could find to eat were two crayfish, a vole and some bug larva. He actually cooked the crayfish and vole over a fire that he started. He made the larva into a stew. And ate them. Really. He's got the pictures to prove it. He saw turkeys and deer and a squirrel but couldn't get his homemade traps to work. Fish wouldn't bite his hook and lure. He was forced to rely on his emergency baked oatmeal and sugar cookies that his mother made him take. He became weak and cut his trip short from seven days to five. But at least he lasted five days. And he did do some wood and stone carvings. He took pictures. He thought and prayed. He didn't see anyone. He realized that he didn't have to rely on anyone. "It seemed like I was out there for a month. It was amazing how time slows to a crawl when you're out doing something like that. It was really hard to leave. It sounds corny, but it started to feel like home to me. "The whole thing was for me to grow but also to show other people (how) they can go out and do something they always wanted to do, no matter how wild and crazy it is." Like trying to pick up a rattlesnake. That was last summer on another solo excursion to Bald Eagle State Park. Kern stopped his car when he noticed the poisonous snake in the middle of the road. He took pictures. And he decided to pick it up because he loves snakes and has handled them for years. And just to see if he could do it. He held the snake down with a stick. He grabbed its head. But he didn't plan on the rattler still being able to twist its head around, pop out its fangs and jab him in the middle finger. His finger, hand and arm swelled in 15 minutes. He started sweating. He felt nauseous and began throwing up. He got out of his car and lay on the side of the road, too sick to drive. He drifted in and out of consciousness. He prayed. "At least I knew that there hadn't been a rattlesnake death in Pennsylvania in like 30 years." Eventually, he felt a bit better and drove all the way home. His mother ordered him to York Hospital, where officials sent him to a hospital poison unit in Harrisburg. "It was no shock to me," said his mother, Christina Kern. "It would have been more of a shock if he saw a rattlesnake and didn't pick it up." He ended up being hospitalized for a week and a half with a dangerously low platelet count. Doctors worried that he could have bled to death if he would have been punched or cut or fell. But he recovered. And made his graduation. And went on to college. And survived his survival week. And he plans to intern this summer in Idaho, monitoring the bull trout population. He loves the outdoors more than ever. Even if he is a little too adventurous. Because there also was that time in Florida when a stingray stung him on the hand and ...
Reach Frank Bodani at 771-2104 or fbodani@ydr.com.