Disaster recovery is multidimensional and takes time depending on vulnerabilities. Resilience relies on adaptive capacity or the ability and intention to recover. Nepal’s catastrophic 2015 earthquakes and aftershocks provide critical lessons on rural and Indigenous disaster recoveries in biophysical extremes. To understand tangible and intangible recovery dynamics over the short-term, we identified recovery indicators, demographics, and five domains of adaptive capacity composed of multiple variables: hazard exposure, institutional participation, livelihood diversity, connectivity, and social memory. We surveyed 400 households in two accessible and two inaccessible clusters of settlements at 9 months and 1.5 years after the events and returned at 2.5 years to communicate findings and receive feedback. We will share our lessons learned and recommendations from this study and their relevance to our local region. We will also introduce PSU’s new Emergency Management and Community Resilience Program.