Robert Schock

Time stranded: 30 Days

Distance traveled: under 20 miles

Terrain types: Mountain, Forest

Deaths: 0

Situation ended: Rescued after shouting for help

 Location: North Cascades National Park, Washington state.

Washington’s North Cascades National Park is one of the best places in North America to spend some time outdoors. Covering over half a million acres and dozens of mountain peaks, the park offers everything from ice climbing to white-water rafting. It’s popular for any kind of outdoor activity, and looked like the perfect place for a man named Robert Schock to go for an extra long run.

Schock claims that he’s not a hiker, and knows nothing about camping or fishing, but he’s still no stranger to the outdoors and classes himself as an ultra-runner, frequently going for long jogs that would far exceed the average persons length.

On 31 July 2024, he arrived at the National Park with the plan of going for a 20-mile run accompanied by his dog. He planned out his route and started out early in the morning, expecting the whole trip to take no more than 5 or 6 hours.

Due to his lack of outdoor knowledge and wanting to pack as light as possible, Schock started his run with nothing more than a small backpack with a dog bowl for his dog, Freddy, and some water for himself. He was only wearing a pair of shorts and didn’t even bother taking a shirt, expecting the run to keep him warm.

Schock later said in an interview with People magazine:

“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.”

His plan was to head out towards the Chilliwack River Trail and then take a cable car over the river to the next part of his journey. The first problem came with him referencing an old map that didn’t include some of the new trails and also didn’t show which trails had since been closed. The next issue came from the large wildfires that happened a couple of years earlier, resulting in the closure of a large section in the east of the park, forcing him to alter his route.

“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 said in a later interview.

He quickly became lost and just thought the best thing to do would be to keep going, but by now the sun was going down and he knew he was genuinely in trouble. After spending the first night with no sleep, his phone died on the second day and he told his dog, Freddy to try and find his way home by himself, knowing Freddy would have a better chance alone of finding someone.

He ended up traveling in a direction that was the complete opposite of where he would have found people, and in trying to get out of his situation, he just made himself more isolated and lost. The only clothes he had with him were a pair of shorts and running shoes, with his small backpack being the only thing he could use to keep warm. Luckily it was the hottest time of the year so freezing wasn’t going to be a problem, but it could still get quite cold at night. He found an abandoned bear hide and used it for several nights, knowing that if he kept going his situation would just get worse.

As for Freddy, he was picked 2 days after leaving Schock on August 3rd while trotting along one of the trail paths. The person who found him notified the police who called his mother the next day to ask about her son. She didn’t even know that he’d gone to the national park in the first place and the next day, reported him missing to the police.

The same day as reporting him as a missing person, she received a call from the police saying they found his car in one of the park’s carparks. The passenger side window was half open and he’d left his wallet on the seat, which the police claimed was a sign he didn’t intend to come back. His mother knew better and pressed the police to continue with the search.

Schock spent the following days close to the bear hide, and surviving off berries and a single large mushroom he found. During his time in the wilderness, he saw a helicopter fly over. Desperately jumping up and down and shouting as loud as he could, Schock tried to get their attention, but the pilot didn’t signal he had seen him and flew away, crushing his spirits and sapping a tiny bit more energy he didn’t have to spare.

One month after his survival experience started, Schock was sitting on a back by the Chilliwack River and lost control of his bowels. He later claimed that this was the first time he was certain of being close to death. He tried to cup some water into his mouth with his hands before watching the sun go down, probably for the last time. He had been shouting for help since his ordeal started but his attempts became less frequent over the days, partly from exhaustion and partly from not wanting to feel the disappointment again.

Before closing his eyes for the last time, Schock decided to call for help one last time, and as luck would have it, a group of workers from the Pacific Northwest Trail Association were returning along a nearby trail after doing a job nearby.

(A picture of Schock taken by the people who found him)

They heard his call for help and quickly came over, giving him some clothes and calling for an airlift. A helicopter arrived shortly and took Schock to the hospital, where he was only able to eat through a drip for the next 3 days due to his malnourished condition. He made a full recovery after spending about a month in the hospital and was later reunited with his dog Freddy.