The three American hunters who discovered Rita Chretien stranded in the Nevada wilderness last week believe divine intervention guided them to her.

Chad Herman, his wife Whitnie Herman and her father Troy Sills were out on their ATVs looking for elk antlers in Elko County last Friday when they stumbled upon Chretien's van, stuck in the mud on a deserted logging road 16 kilometres from the nearest highway.

"We feel it was meant to be and I think it was the heavenly father leading us in the right direction," Chad Herman said.

The trio had not intended to take the route that led them to Rita, he says, but his father-in-law was leading the group and made a wrong turn, sending them straight for the stranded B.C. woman.

"He thought we were going to go right up the canyon a ways. Instead, I went left," Sill explained.

"The funny thing is that usually when we do that, I'll always wait, or he'll wait for me to get up and discuss it, and for some reason I didn't wait -- just kept going around that corner."

Sill says he doesn't know what pushed him to head in that direction, but he felt a compulsion to keep on going.

The family had travelled across washed-out roads and through snow drifts to get to the spot where Rita and Al Chretien's Chevrolet Astro van had become mired in the mud seven weeks earlier.

"I come around a little rock outcropping and seen a van there and thought, ‘What is going on here? How did this van get here after the terrain we'd just come through?' It blew me away," Sill said.

Rita had hung brightly coloured blankets in the van's windows to attract attention and attached a note to the exterior asking for help.

She popped her head up as the trio approached. Sill asked if she was okay, and she shook her head, no.

"We were all just shocked, and she's like, ‘I'm going to make it, I'm going to make it,'" Sill said.

Rita told the family how she and her husband had gotten lost on a road trip from their home in Penticton to a trade show in Las Vegas. She said that Al had left the van on March 22, three days after they became stranded, to go find help and she hadn't seen him since.

"Her first concern was of her husband," Sill said. "And then basically she just broke down that someone had found her."

Despite the long weeks alone, Rita was doing her best to keep up appearances. She had braided her hair and made sure the van and her clothing were neat and tidy.

The family decided to leave Rita alone again while they went to find help at the closest ranch. But before they took off, they left her with Doritos and beef jerky to fill her stomach after weeks of nothing but water and a meager amount of trail mix.

"The sweet little lady, when we got back she had rolled the Doritos bag up and clipped it like she would have if you were at home putting away your chips," Whitnie Herman said.

"She's an amazing lady to live up there how she did and still be as calm like she was. It's pretty amazing."

Rita even wrote in a journal during her time alone in the wilderness to keep track of the days. Just four days after she was airlifted to hospital in Idaho, she is listed as in good condition and has made the transition back to solid foods.

Rescuers have been scouring the area around the Chretiens' van for any sign of Al, but bad weather has hampered the search. Rescue efforts were suspended Tuesday because of poor conditions.

Until Friday, searchers were hunting for the Chretiens 300 km further north, in southern Oregon, near the convenience store where they were last seen in late March.