A 10-year-old girl returned home safely this week after braving a cold night alone in the dense wilderness of Washington state.

Shughla Mashwani, of Federal Way, Wa. was found with only minor scrapes on Monday along the Cathedral Rock Trail near Cle Elum after getting lost from about 30 of her family members during a hike, KIRO 7 reported.

Twenty-four hours earlier Shughla was “suddenly separated and alone” from family members who had crossed a footbridge across the Cle Elum River, about 90 miles southeast of Seattle, officials told the outlet.

“She said she knew it was the right thing to follow the river,” the sheriff’s department said. “She proved an extraordinarily resourceful and resilient 10-year-old.”

“I was thinking I would go to sleep and wake up and find my mom and dad in the forest,” Shughla told KING 5 of the ordeal.

“I was thinking, I will find my dad and keep walking in the forest to find my dad.”

Shughla added that she eventually hiked downstream and slept between two trees.

When she first saw the rescuers the following morning, she explained, she was worried that they were actually trying to hurt her.

“I think they are thief and they’re gonna steal me,” Shughla told KIRO 7.

After they kept calling her name and showed her pictures of her relatives, she finally agreed to go with them.

A photo of the miraculous discovery shows Shughla riding in a blowup canoe alongside two rescuers. Another snap shows the touching moment she finally got to hug her father while another smiling relative looked on.

“This is a total vindication of the drive to keep this kind of call a rescue as long as you possibly can,” Kittitas County Sheriff’s Inspector Chris Whittsett said to KIRO 7, noting that the team was prepared to find that the girl succumbed to the cold or was swept away by the river.

The massive search effort involved teams from at least seven counties.

“She proved an extraordinarily resourceful and resilient 10-year-old,” the Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

Shughla and her family came to the US from Afghanistan two years ago, KING 5 reported.

They told the sheriff that they visited the Cathedral Rock Trail area because it reminds them of their home country.

When asked how it felt to be home in the apartment she shares with her relatives, Shughla said she was “very happy.”