It was a frigid night for a 10-year-old girl alone in the wilderness. Even so, Shughla Mashwani, of Federal Way, Washington was resourceful enough to survive. The brave explorer was located by rescuers on Monday and the worst she had suffered were some “minor scrapes.”
Girl lost in wilderness
Shughla Mashwani is safely home with her family after the girl endured a wilderness survival adventure. The search for her ended Monday when she was spotted along the Cathedral Rock Trail near Cle Elum almost exactly 24 hours after she went missing.
She had originally been with a group of “about 30 of her family members” hiking the trail, about 90 miles southeast of Seattle.
Everything was going fine until the group of family members crossed a footbridge across the Cle Elum River. That’s when the girl found herself “suddenly separated and alone.” The level headed hiker “knew it was the right thing to follow the river.”
Shughla Mashwani slept the cold night between two trees, hoping when she woke up the next morning her mom and dad would find her. https://t.co/3svgMcDrwy
— KING 5 News (@KING5Seattle) June 7, 2023
As noted by the sheriff’s department, “she proved an extraordinarily resourceful and resilient 10-year-old.” After it was over she told her story to reporters.
“I was thinking I would go to sleep and wake up and find my mom and dad in the forest,” Shughla relates. “I was thinking, I will find my dad and keep walking in the forest to find my dad.”
The girl continued hiking downstream until it got too dark to keep moving. She spent the night nestled in between two fallen trees.
Afraid of the rescuers
Even though she was lost and alone in dense forest, the girl kept her head when she did encounter adults who weren’t her family. As New York Post writes, when Shughla “first saw the rescuers the following morning, she explained, she was worried that they were actually trying to hurt her.”
The way she put it is “I think they are thief and they’re gonna steal me.” She was absolutely right to consider the possibility that just because adults said they were there to rescue her doesn’t mean they wouldn’t kidnap her instead.
Because they kept calling her by name, then backed it up with pictures of her relatives, she finally became convinced enough to agree to go with the rescuers. In an inflatable canoe. Soon she was hugging her father. According to Inspector Chris Whittsett with the Kittitas County Sheriff’s office, “this is a total vindication of the drive to keep this kind of call a rescue as long as you possibly can.”
Who is Shughla Mashwani? Wiki, Bio, Age, Parents, Rescued After Night Alone in Washington State Wildernesshttps://t.co/I9pjpboxYe
— The Fam News (@TheFamNews41705) June 7, 2023
They were already bracing themselves for a less satisfactory outcome to their search. Whittsett admits “the team was prepared to find that the girl succumbed to the cold or was swept away by the river.”
Shugla moved to United States from Afghanistan two years ago. apparently, the girl and her family got out of there just in time. They explained to the sheriff that “they visited the Cathedral Rock Trail area because it reminds them of their home country.”
After her solo survival experience, Shughla is just “very happy” to be home.
