10-Year-Old Girl Found Safe After Spending 24 Hours Lost By Herself In Cascade Mountains

Ten-year-old Shughla Mashwani was hiking with her family at Cathedral Rock in the Cascades in Washington state when she got lost. Members of the family realized that Shughla was gone when they stopped for lunch.

Twenty adults from the group began to look for the little girl, but they were hindered by a lack of cell service in the area. Eventually, the Kittitas County police were called in to help.

Authorities described the area in which the girl vanished as "steep, rugged and remote, with dense trees and undergrowth."

Thankfully, she was found by a group of search teams the following day, approximately a mile and a half from where she got separated from her family.

Police described her as "an extraordinarily resourceful and resilient 10-year-old" and added, "Mashwani hiked downstream through the dense forest and spent the cold night between some trees."

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The family told authorities that they enjoy the area where they were hiking because it reminds them of Afghanistan. The family moved to the United States from Afghanistan two years ago.

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