PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — While a Ponte Vedra woman was pacing the rough terrain of the Pacific Northwest wilderness, her friends and family in Florida were pacing the floor. As those loved ones were worrying about her fate, Stephanie Lincoln was doing everything she could to get back to them alive.
Amid that constant struggle, she occasionally recorded video messages to her husband and other loved ones.
"So I could not have any regrets forward if I were to be found and it was my body being found," she said.
Lincoln was on a day hike Saturday when her navigation app failed and put her on the wrong path in Washington's Olympic National Park – an old logging route instead of her intended trail called Rugged Ridge.
Despite being an experienced outdoorswoman, she eventually realized she was off course, and her efforts to reorient herself didn’t work.
“Literally, my heart seized up and just said, ‘Wow, I am completely lost.’
She survived two days with no food and no sleep.
"I literally paced all night long. I did not sleep because, if I would have laid down, I would have died of hypothermia," she said.
A former Army captain – who now does fitness training for the military and first responders – Lincoln had to use everything she knows.
"I have blisters on my fingers from making fires out there to fight hypothermia, because it dropped into the thirties," she said.
Lincoln survived, in part, because she was able to get the most important necessity: water.
"Using my climbing skills, and literally slid down a mountain to get to a river," she said.
That essential effort came at a cost.
“I have a ton of scrapes and bruises, black and blue all over the place from scrambling and falling and going through brambles,” Lincoln said with a wince.
But it was possible because of her training, both during her military career and after it. Even for a day hike, she had had the presence of mind to pack a water filtration kit, a signal mirror, fire starting materials, and other tools – all of which she would put to use. And, as it turned out, her fitness and know-how wound up making the most difference.
“My training and actually my climbing and grappling skills came in handy as well. If I hadn’t had any of that background I would have been dead on that first day.”
As vital as it was for her to reach water for hydration, being wet with water and sweat proved to be among her most deadly perils. She had to abandon modesty while the sun was up, because the temperature dropped into the 30s when it set.
“I would take all my clothes off and actually, literally lie on the rocks naked, with my clothes laid out so I could get them bone dry, so I could fight hypothermia at night.”
Lincoln said she was able to survive on no food because her fitness regimen at home includes periodic fasting.
"I didn’t even blink an eye that I didn’t have any food out there," she said.
A rescue helicopter found her Monday afternoon. Finally knowing she would be saved, while waiting for the airlift, this warrior could blink at last.
"And just crawled up into a fetal position and sobbed," she said.
While Lincoln was still missing, her former Platoon Sergeant Keith Schiffer said he was confident in her abilities.
"If it comes to mother nature and her, she has a very good chance,” he said Monday.
Still, Lincoln's husband Brad told First Coast News he’s incredibly relieved.
He and friends like Schiffer will be getting a message from Lincoln about how they helped pull her through.
"I want to get back to Jacksonville as soon as possible so I can physically say those things and give a big hug and a kiss to all the people," she said.
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