1938 Press Photo Laura Piedalue arrives in Albuquerque, was lost for 4 days

Three out-of-state visitors gave little thought to danger when they set out from the El Fidel Hotel in Albuquerque on Tuesday, July 19, 1938. Two of these travelers, Irene Piedalue and Marie Antoinette de Lafarest, had left their homes in Kentucky on July 14. They had met Laura Piedalue, Irene's sister, in St. Louis, Mo., before continuing their trek without incident. Irene, a 45-year-old state extension service worker, and Laura, a 47-year-old New York welfare worker, had planned a grand Western tour with their friend Marie before Marie was scheduled to return to her native France after a two-year stay in the United States. The young French woman had supported herself in the U.S. by teaching French at the University of Kentucky. The trio had planned their month-long itinerary to include stops at the Grand Canyon in Arizona and Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming before visiting Irene and Laura's relatives in Montana. The excursionists planned to drive the entire route by themselves, quite a feat in an era when few women drove cars, no less traveled long distances through largely-isolated areas without male companions. Irene, Laura and Marie were clearly independent, brave individuals who preferred vacations filled with challenges and adventure to those filled with leisure and luxury. They had no way of knowing just how challenging E” and dangerous E” this particular vacation was about to become. Tuesday, July 19, started uneventfully for the Piedalue sisters and their French companion. The three women left the El Fidel at about 7 a.m., dropping off a postcard to a relative in Montana and proceeding west on old Route 66. Irene, Laura, and Marie drove from Albuquerque, over Nine Mile Hill towards Grants. Once in Grants, a gas station attendant told them about the Ice Cave and suggested that they take a detour to see this remarkable, but seldom visited, site. Their curiosity piqued, the women turned off Route 66 and followed the attendant's directions by heading south along an unimproved dirt road. Located 27 miles southwest of Grants, the Ice Cave was famous for its 20-foot deep floor of permanent ice made possible by a temperature that never rose above 31 degrees Fahrenheit. Visitors in the 1930s entered the main cave by climbing down a long, steep, crude ladder. Unlike today, there was no visitor center, no sturdy stairway and no map to locate the cave in the midst of miles of inhospitable dried lava. Irene, Laura and Marie arrived at the Ice Cave about 11 a.m. Parking their Chevy sedan, they ate some sandwiches and eagerly ventured out to find and explore the cave. Not familiar with the area, the women walked within a hundred yards of their destination, but the cave's unmarked entrance was only visible from a short distance, and the women overlooked it. The stranded tourists became disoriented and, within hours, they were hopelessly lost. The three women did their best not to panic, but they soon began to "scramble madly over the rocks, with no idea which way we were going," recalled Irene. Time sped by and, after hours of futile searching, waning daylight and fading hope, the women realized that they would have to spend at least one night in their barren surroundings. Conditions only grew worse the following day. The travelers had had no food since the previous noon. Eating leaves and twigs proved useless. Laura saw a lizard, but couldn't bring herself to capture, much less eat it. Marie saw a rabbit, but said, "I was so surprised to see any living thing I did not think to eat him until he was gone." Luckily, they never encountered more dangerous animals, like snakes, wolves or coyotes. Water was nearly as scarce as food, with thirst a major concern under the sweltering summer sun. Fortunately, it rained every night. The rain was "like a gift from heaven," in Marie's words. With only an aspirin tin to catch the precious liquid, the women resorted to lying on their backs to swallow as much rain as they could with their open mouths. Irene complained of "how hard it is to get water that way. The rain will hit you in the eye, ear, and everywhere but your mouth!" Unfortunately, the cold rain also drenched the shelterless women, leaving them chilled each night. As Marie put it, "If it hadn't been for the rain, we'd have died, but it chilled us through." Marie and her friends lit small campfires with the few matches Laura carried to light cigarettes. For once, Laura's harmful habit had proven beneficial. By day, the badlands' dark lava absorbed the scorching heat, while shredding the women's footwear and injuring their feet. Ironically, Marie's less expensive $1.98 shoes held up better than Irene and Laura's more expensive $8 footwear. Travel was precarious over the sharp, jagged lava rocks where a person could easily slip, be cut or suffer sprains or broken bones. Although no bones were broken, the lost women were soon covered with cuts and bruises. To make matters worse, no one knew that the woman had decided to stop at the Ice Cave before proceeding in their travels. Irene and Laura's relatives in Montana would probably not miss them for several days E” or until it was too late. Panic began to set in after days of wandering aimlessly through what Marie described as "a maze of unfriendly stones .... The sun beat down on us and burned our flesh almost unbearably." At one point, Irene grew so hysterical that Laura told her to "hush up or I would slap her face" to settle her down. The women stayed together most of the time, although Marie was once separated from her companions when she ventured ahead to climb a small hill for a better vantage point. The French teacher spent an entire night alone before her American friends miraculously met up with her the following morning. Nonplused, Marie claimed that her sleeping place was actually more comfortable than her friends' had been on that otherwise dreadful night. The castaways observed several TWA passenger planes fly high above them. After a few days, they noted the time of day when these flights went by. At those moments, they frantically waved their hands and yelled as loudly as they could, but to no avail. "They either didn't see us, or may have thought we were Indians," said Marie. "No one but an Indian could exist for long in such country." After three days in the wilderness, the exhausted women could not even yell. In fact, they were less and less able to speak to each other through their increasingly parched lips. But with time the women began to think more rationally about how to deal with their plight and, hopefully, survive. More composed and assertive than her companions, Laura became the group's leader. They now hiked from one isolated small tree to the next, resting in the welcomed shade to conserve their dwindling energy. Just as wisely, they left torn pieces of paper along their route so they were able to retrace their steps, if necessary, or determine if they had already traversed the otherwise unmarked terrain. And the women talked while they were still able. "We kept up our morale because we had each other to talk to, and we could encourage each other," said Marie. "One person, left there alone, would be almost certain to perish." Most importantly, the women usually kept their heads and remained optimistic that they would either find their way out or be rescued before too long. Devout Catholics, they prayed often and left their fate in God's hands.

Photo is dated 1938.

Photo measures 7 x 9 inches.