LEBANON, Ore. - It was supposed to be a quick trip to see family for Christmas, but a GPS’ offer of a shorter route left one couple and their young daughter stranded in deep snow in the middle of nowhere.

Jeramie Griffin and Megan Garrison left Lebanon Christmas Eve with their 11-month-old daughter to visit family in The Dalles when their new GPS unit promised a “back way” would save them more than 40 miles.

But that route left their SUV buried on a Forest Service road near Timothy Lake and the family with no food and only the truck’s heater to melt snow to survive.

The couple recorded their ordeal on home video and at one point began saying their final goodbyes.

“When I looked at him, and I said, ‘I’m scared’ and he said, ‘I’m scared too’ that’s when I was like, ‘oh, this is not good,’” said Garrison.

Griffin tried over and over to dig them out, but the SUV kept getting stuck.

The couple took turns walking for miles to get cell-phone service but had no success.

Hours went by and search and rescuers couldn’t find them. That’s when Griffin’s uncle, Jim Wiens, used a similar GPS unit to map the route that ended up leading him right to them.

“They were getting to a point where they were like, ‘there’s no way they would be down this far,’” said Garrison. But “he saw our footprints, so he kept going.”

Now, the couple said it’ll be highways only next time.

“We should have just went the way we knew and we would have been there,” said Griffin. “Everything would have been all right.”

The couple said they started with only a half tank of gas, so if Wien hadn’t kept going, it wouldn’t have been long until they were just out there in the cold.