As coyotes howled, James Stolpa trudged on frozen feet, desperately seeking help in the snow-covered desert for the wife and baby he'd left sheltered by a sleeping bag hanging from a rock shelf.
After 22 hours of wandering through waist-high drifts, Stolpa spotted a highway worker Wednesday, and the end to his family's eight-day ordeal was in sight.Five hours later, using directions from Stolpa, California Highway Patrol Officer Pat Green discovered Jennifer Stolpa, 20, cuddling 5-month-old Clayton beneath an outcropping "in the middle of nowhere."
The couple ate coconut cookies, corn chips and prenatal vitamins but had run out of food by Sunday. Jennifer Stolpa nursed Clayton and melted ice in her mouth for water.
"We were worried about freezing to death or starving to death," James Stolpa said Thursday at Surprise Valley Community Hospital, his damaged feet wrapped and little Clayton cradled in his arms. "We did a lot of praying."
The ordeal began in northern California on Dec. 29 when the Stolpas borrowed a pickup truck to attend the funeral of Stolpa's grandmother in Pocatello, Idaho.
Just as they left, a severe storm struck, bringing 9 feet of snow to the area. Authorities believe the Stolpas got stuck the first night.
After five nights in the snowbound truck without seeing another car, "we had to decide whether to stay and die or try and do something and die," said Stolpa, a 21-year-old U.S. Army private stationed at Camp Roberts, near Paso Robles.
"I would tell her, `We're not doing it for me. We're not doing it for you. We're doing it for the baby,' " he said.
The couple walked 12 miles through drifts up to waist-high until they found shelter under a ledge Sunday where Jennifer Stolpa and the baby stayed while Stolpa continued his trek for help.
While trudging through the high desert, Stolpa told doctors, he could hear the coyotes.
Jennifer Stolpa said her husband "is more than a hero to me."
"I don't think I could have picked anyone better. He had the courage and the drive to get us out of there, and he did," she said from her hospital bed.
Stolpa and his wife were in stable condition with severe frostbite to their toes and feet. The baby was unharmed. Both adults had been suffering from hypothermia when found.
"They never lost their heads and that's what saved their lives," said Modoc County Sheriff Bruce Mix.
The Stolpas were transferred later Thursday to Washoe Medical Center in Reno, Nev. A plow cleared a path for their ambulance on Highway 395 as more snow fell.
Stolpa was "somewhat incoherent when he was found" 30 miles north of Vya in the wilderness of northwestern Nevada, said Dave Reider, a spokesman for Lassen National Forest.
Dr. Hugh Washburn said highway worker Dave Peterson took Stolpa home, where his wife "heated (Stolpa's) feet with a blow dryer so his socks could be pulled off without tearing off the tissue." Stolpa was wearing panty hose and heavy socks, but only light shoes, Washburn said.
The baby was dressed in multiple layers of clothes, wrapped in a baby sleeping bag and an adult sleeping bag.
Temperatures fell to minus 4 and rose only to 42, according to the National Weather Service.
Stolpa said he and his wife placed Clayton in a garment bag that acted as a sled, and the motion "soothed him" on their hike.
The truck was found about 40 miles east of the California-Nevada line in the Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge. It was 15 miles east of Vya and 140 miles off the route Stolpa told relatives he would follow to Idaho.
There are no paved roads and only 20 homes in the 4,000-square-mile area, said Washoe County Sheriff Vince Swinney.
The couple tried to skirt Interstate 80, the main route to Reno through the Sierra Nevada, which was closed by the storm.
It wasn't until Tuesday that Kevin Mulligan, Stolpa's stepfather, got the first clue of the couple's route.
While plastering the region with missing person fliers, a clerk at a convenience store in Downieville, Calif., told him that the Stolpas had inquired about an alternate route to I-80. Downieville is on Highway 49, which intersects I-80 in either direction
"They made a bad judgment call at the start. But after that they made every right decision," Mulligan said.