A 39-year-old hiker who went missing in Washington’s Northern Cascades National Park for about a month has revealed how he kept himself and his dog alive.
Robert Schock decided to take his dog Freddy on a trek without any overnight gear on July 31.
But the nature lover was soon reported missing and a frantic search was launched for two weeks, before officials called it off.
But on August 30, Pacific Northwest Trail Association crew members eventually found Schock after he spent an entire month with no food, phone service and barely any clothes in a dire, emaciated condition.
‘I am an ultra runner. I’m not a hiker. I don’t put on backpacks and go out for multiple-day trips. I don’t know how to fish. I want to finish a course as fast as I can and come back home. So I had no shirt. I had a pair of shorts, I had Freddy and a dog pan. These were the only items in my small backpack.
‘Never would I have dreamt that’s the experience I was headed towards when I was going out for a run. Never did I dream that this kind of survival could ever even be possible,’ he told PEOPLE.
Schock, who had hiked the trail multiple times, began his journey early in the morning with an old map in hand.
He headed for the Chilliwack River Trail by going up near the Copper Ridge Trail and then using a cable car across the river but did not realize the trail’s eastern portion had been closed down after wildfires in 2021 and 2022.
‘When I got out there, the trail was no longer there. I was curious to know what happened to this trail and my curiosity kind of kept me going,’ Schock remembered.
The next day, his phone died and a day later the gravity of the situation dawned on him.
On the third day, he told Freddy to find his way home as he realized he ‘wasn’t doing well’. As days went by, he began to lose track of time and wished for it ‘to be over’.
Ultimately, he managed to find some old nesting grounds made and later abandoned by bears and saw a large mushroom that became one of his few sources of food.
‘I ate that thing all day long, and it just tasted like a normal mushroom you would have on a pizza or something.
‘It was the only thing I had to eat the entire time other than berries, they were pretty nasty,’ he recalled.
At one point, Schock even spotted a helicopter and and ‘waved’ to try and get the pilot’s attention but to no avail.
As attempts to get help failed, he began to lose strength and ‘wasn’t screaming for help very much anymore. I was just doing it on occasion… I was not doing very well’.
On the day he was rescued, Schock recalled losing control of his bowels and feeling ‘close to death’ as he lay on by a bank of the Chilliwack River.
As he funneled water into his mouth during sunset, he decided to call out for help one more time.
‘I was sitting there naked and knew I wasn’t going to make it through the night. So I was like, “I’m going to scream one last time”. I said, “Help!”.
In was in that moment that the some of the PNTA crew who were returning to their backcountry camp and crossing the Chilliwack River, after a grueling 10-hour shift, heard his cry.
‘One of the guys took his shirt off and gave it to me. That guy who came and clothed me and very well saved my life. It is an understatement to say how truly thankful I am for those people to be there that day because it came pretty close to the finish line,’ he gratefully recalled.
‘Robert was found alive, but not well. It is the belief of those who came to be involved in the rescue that Robert may have only had another day left in him before the outcome of his discovery would have been much more tragic,’ Jeff Kish, Executive Director of the PNTA said in a Facebook post.
His mother, Jan Thompson, who lives in North Carolina, told CDN that she has spoken to him since he was found – and while he was weak from malnourishment, she said that he was uninjured.
Thompson said: ‘He’s in a lot of pain and he isn’t speaking very well, but he’s coherent and seemed in pretty high spirits.’
Days after Schock was reported missing his vehicle was found abandoned near Hannegan Pass trailhead with its windows down and his wallet on the dashboard – raising concern and prompting search efforts for the missing hiker.
His dog, Freddy, was also found, alone, on August 4 eight miles off the remote trail.
Air and ground crews searched the rugged terrain for two weeks but no sign of Schock emerged. The U.S. Border Patrol conducted an air search on August 16 and a ground search near where Freddy was found, but efforts were met with no luck and were called off.
Jeff Kish continued: ‘When our crew found Robert, he was able to communicate to them that he had been immobile, stuck in that exact spot for approximately two weeks, and based on the condition that he was found in, there was no reason for the crew to question it.’
Schock was taken to United General Hospital in Sedro-Wooley for treatment.
The Chilliwack River Trail is known as a hard five-mile hike that can take a lot out of even the most experienced visitors.
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