Man Was Missing for a Month in National Park, But His Mom Never Lost Hope. Then He Was Found Alive (Exclusive)

• Robert Schock went missing on July 31, after going out for a run with his dog in Washington’s North Cascades National Park, and then getting lost
• “I’m not a hiker,” he tells PEOPLE. “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”
• But despite the odds, his mom never lost hope that her son would be found alive — and a month later, just when he felt like he wasn’t “going to make it through the night,” he was finally rescued

When Robert Schock, 39, parked his vehicle at Hannegan Pass Trailhead in Washington state nearly three months ago, he had his day mapped out: he would run about 20 miles in North Cascades National Park with his dog Freddy and then return home. Simple. And for that reason, he packed very minimal supplies. 

“I am an ultra runner,” Schock tells PEOPLE. “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.”

But what started as a one-day run for Schock became a harrowing month-long ordeal when he got lost with no food, no phone service and barely any clothes. With his backpack as his only shield from the elements, he was starving and near-death when he was finally rescued on Aug. 30. 

“Never would I have dreamt that’s the experience I was headed towards when I was going out for a run,” he says now. “Never did I dream that this kind of survival could ever even be possible.”

A musician from Blaine, Schock says he had been to the national park multiple times, just not in a few years.

On July 31, he left the trailhead to embark on his adventure. Referring to an old map, Schock headed for the Chilliwack River Trail by going up near the Copper Ridge Trail and then using a cable car across the river. However, he quickly lost his way.

As reported by the Cascadia Daily News, wildfires in the North Cascades in 2021 and 2022 resulted in the closure of the trail’s eastern portion and altered the terrain.

“When I got out there, the trail was no longer there,” Schock says. “I was curious to know what happened to this trail and my curiosity kind of kept me going.”

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. 

On the second day, his phone died, but it was on day three when Schock realized things had become serious. Completely lost, he told Freddy to find his way home. “I wasn’t doing well,” he says.

As the days passed, he shares that he sometimes lost track of time, and thought to himself, “‘Please let this be over, I want this to end.’ ”

Schock ended up inheriting old nesting grounds made and later abandoned by bears. One day he 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,” he says. “It was the only thing I had to eat the entire time other than berries, they were pretty nasty.”

During the time he was lost, Schock says that once he spotted a helicopter.

“I started screaming ‘Help,’ and they didn’t respond,” Schock says. Although he saw the helicopter twice and “waved” to try and get the pilot’s attention, help didn’t come that day.

Meanwhile, on Aug. 4, Jan Thompson, Schock’s mother, received a phone call from the Whatcom Humane Society in Washington state. They told her that her son’s dog had been found the previous day on a trail near the Chilliwack River.

Thompson, who lives in North Carolina, tells PEOPLE that she had no idea that her son was planning to run in the North Cascades, and that she’s actually tried calling him without success on July 31, the day he went missing.

Within minutes of reporting her son as missing on Aug. 5, Thompson says she “received a call from a deputy at the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office saying they knew where Rob’s car was. It had been at the trailhead since July 31.”

“The fact that Rob left his car window halfway down on the passenger side and his wallet in the car led the deputy to believe Rob went into the wilderness with no intention of coming out. I knew that wasn’t the case,” she says. “Honestly, I never felt he had perished in the park despite the odds.” 

Back in the North Cascades, Schock’s strength was waning, as were his attempts to get help. “I wasn’t screaming for help very much anymore,” he says. “I was just doing it on occasion… I was not doing very well.”

On Aug. 30, as he was by a bank of the Chilliwack River, Schock says he lost control of his bowels and “really felt like I was close to death.”

Schock funneled water into his mouth as the sun went down, a time of day he hated because the rays provided heat for him. “I was sitting there naked and knew I wasn’t going to make it through the night,” he says. “So I was like, ‘I’m going to scream one last time.’ I said, ‘Help!’ ”

Fortunately, members of the Pacific Northwest Trail Association, who were returning to their camp after performing maintenance work on a trail, heard Schock’s cries and found him. “One of the guys took his shirt off and gave it to me,” Schock recalls. “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.”

Schock was airlifted by helicopter to a hospital where he was finally able to sleep for the first time in a long while. He was only able to take in food intravenously for three days. Later, he made contact with his mother.

“His voice was very faint and I knew he was so weak and tired so I kept our conversation brief,” Thompson recalls of their initial phone conversation. “I’ve learned details of his story in bits and pieces, mostly through phone calls. Part of me doesn’t want to know because I can’t bear to think of how he suffered.”

Schock spent about a month in the hospital where Thompson and his stepfather traveled to visit him. “He looked remarkably well for what he had been through,” Thompson says. “He’d obviously lost a lot of weight. It’s so hard to believe he came out of this relatively unscathed.”

As Schock was ready to be discharged from the hospital, his father and stepmother arrived to help him travel to Ohio where he grew up. “Other than some underlying joint pain, I’m recovering pretty well,” he says, adding that he’s gained back about 40 lbs.

Thompson is grateful to the many people who searched and cared for her son during his ordeal and after his rescue. “From not knowing Rob was even in the park, to finding out he was, to realizing he had already been in there almost a week with no provisions before anyone knew he was missing, to his rescue, and his recovery… it hasn’t really sunk in,” she says. “I am beyond amazed and so thankful it had a happy ending.”

Schock says he is looking forward to returning to the Northwest and continuing to play music. He acknowledges his ordeal “has taken its toll on me, and I’ve aged several years because of it.”

“Hopefully, I get those years back,” he says.

But one thing is for certain: Schock will not be returning to the North Cascades anytime soon. He says, “I don’t want to go to that particular region for quite some time until I forget about it.”