They hiked 9 miles from where their car was stuck in snow before it became waist deep and they couldn't continue on foot.

In North Idaho for the first time in their lives, Trena and William Sissom - who live in rural Oklahoma near the town of Jennings, and have seven children - were now exhausted, weak, soaking wet from snow and rain and unable to start a fire.

"That night we almost froze to death," Trena said Saturday from their home in Oklahoma, recalling the details of their five-day, four-night ordeal from a week earlier when they were stranded in the still snowy mountains of the St. Joe National Forest. "That's kind of still in our heads. It felt like we were out there a lot longer than five days. It's silent out there, like total silence, except for the animals scurrying and the river roaring."

On the morning of Monday, April 8, after a brief visit to Coeur d'Alene for business, Trena, 40, and William, 31, set out for Oklahoma, traveling east along Interstate 90 in their Crown Victoria police interceptor.

They decided it would be relaxing to take their time traveling home. Soon after leaving Coeur d'Alene they spotted a sign saying "Scenic Byway." They decided to take it and turned south on Highway 3 toward St. Maries.

"I like taking pictures, and I like animals," said Trena.

After reaching St. Maries, they headed east on St. Joe River Road and made it to Avery. They continued east, planning to connect up with I-90 again at St. Regis, Mont. According to their map, the winding road would work.

"It showed that the road went all the way through," she said.

Though they apparently missed a road closure sign, it was a pleasant drive until about 29 miles east of Avery, Trena said.

"We went around a bend, and then there was snow," she said.

The car got stuck, and they tried for two days to get it out. They would dig it out, only to get it stuck again.

"The second day, the car died," she said. "We used over a half of a tank of gas trying to get out. We burnt the rear end up."

With the battery dead, and nobody showing up to help, they would have to do something, she said.

"We decided to walk, and on the map it showed St. Regis was closer than Avery," she said.

So they set out on foot toward St. Regis, which they had calculated was about 20 miles ahead.

Avery looked like it was 30 miles or more behind them. They only had a few snacks as they set out. William ate a little, but Trena said she was too upset to eat. They found a bottle of water along the way and also drank from small springs and ate snow.

They both had several layers of clothes and coats on. They wore bags over their feet. He wore cowboy boots, and she had sneakers.

"The snow got really deep," she said. "It was to our waist in the center of the road."

Even in good conditions, it's hard for her to walk vigorously because of back troubles. They just prayed and kept walking.

In the 9 miles, which they kept track of using road markers, they stopped two or three times for rest. At one point they made a fire to dry their clothes off. They had some paper to get the fire going. They also used their map and her hairspray.

But they had to keep moving.

"It was raining, like full-on raining," she said.

When the snow was too deep they stopped, walked up a nearby hill under some trees and settled down.

"I kind of like passed out, and he was worried," she said. "He came over and jostled me around."

They couldn't get a fire going at this point. They covered up with a blanket.

"Our minds weren't all there because we couldn't breathe that good," she said. "We felt like we were breathing really fast. Plus we were really cold, and we were really wet."

She said she could feel herself freezing to death.

"That was the part that was traumatizing," she said. "I was like, 'God, this is cruel.' I thought that for about 30 seconds, and then I thought, 'God is going to take care of us.'"

Doubts did creep in.

"I told (William), I said, 'We may have to accept that this is where we're expected to be,'" she said. "Maybe we're supposed to die up here."

The next morning, Thursday, April 11, when they finally saw daylight, they were convinced their time wasn't up.

Still, it was a brutal night on their bodies. They shook hard throughout the night.

"I know it was at least 20 degrees when we were up there," Trena said. "We froze to the ground. Like literally. Our clothes and everything was stuck to the ground."

They got no sleep that night, she said. In fact, they didn't really sleep the entire time they were stranded, which made the days and nights longer.

"He dozed off once," she said. "He snored and I popped him in the forehead, cause I was like, 'Shush, there's animals around here.'"

They had seen all kinds of animal tracks, found a lot of animal waste, and believed they heard elk and wolves at different points.

They decided their best chance was to turn back.

They mustered every bit of will and strength they had left and set out for the car.

"He said he didn't think he could move his legs," she said. "Our legs stopped working that night, too."

They walked back, slipping their feet and legs into the holes in the deep snow they created on the way in. Through severe fatigue and cramping they reached the car.

"We took breaks on the way up there, but on the way back we did not," she said. "We couldn't, because if we had we wouldn't have been able to make it. We walked straight through."

Once back at the car they tried to light the spare tire on fire to create a smoke signal. But they couldn't get it lit.

They stayed in the car that night. They talked about getting back to Avery, and of the nearly 20 miles they'd walked the past two days for nothing.

"We were afraid our legs weren't going to make it to Avery," she said. "They were really, really bad."

They were too cold and wet to sleep that night.

They left in the morning with everything they could find that was dry. They also took the blanket they used to cover themselves when they slept in the forest, in case they would be spending another night in the elements. They eventually ditched the blanket along the road because it became too wet and heavy.

"There's rags and towels and blankets all over that mountain," she said.

They found several bloody deer carcasses along the road as they hiked back to Avery.

"They hadn't been there a while because they weren't there when we drove up, and then there was blood splattered all over the snow," she said.

All but the animals' legs had been eaten, she said. "Evidently something went through that was killing animals."

They had walked about 8 miles when they spotted a pickup truck driven by Darin Thatcher, who was out horn hunting.

Paramedics and first responders examined them when they reached Avery, and Scheffy's General Store. They were taken to a hospital and treated and released.

"My temperature after being at the store for two hours was 95 degrees," she said. They said they were told they had moderate hypothermia.

Throughout the ordeal their children - they're also raising two grandchildren - and family didn't know where they had gone. The Sissoms couldn't get a cell phone signal.

"My family thought something had happened to us, like we had been kidnapped," she said.

Jay Cunningham, of Jay's Towing in St. Maries, retrieved their car.

"They made a bad choice going up there," he said. "They're lucky they made it out of there alive."

On Saturday, the Sissoms said they still can't feel their toes, and she can't feel her fingers. They're having some trouble sleeping, she said, because of the ordeal.

"We've got to go to another doctor, or counselor, because they said it would be kind of like a post-traumatic stress disorder kind of thing," she said.

They plan to return to North Idaho in the summer.

"Mentally we're kind of stuck in Idaho, I think, but physically we're OK," she said.