Lost Skier Survives Four Nights

No Food, No Water, No Shelter, Dan Witkowski Is Critical - But Alive

(CBS/AP)  A 25-year-old skier missing for four days and four freezing nights in the central Cascade Mountains was found alive after rescuers spotted his fresh tracks by helicopter.

"It's unbelievable — four tough nights in the teens with no food, no water, just normal ski gear and a helmet," said King County Sheriff's Lt. Jim Fuda.

Dan Witkowski was "lucid and talking," Fuda said Sunday night.

He told Fuda that he got turned around while skiing Wednesday, so decided to head downhill in hopes of finding his way out.

Fuda told Ed Schumacher of CBS radio affiliate KIRO-AM the 25-year-old would travel as far as he could, then rest for a couple of hours.

"He knew the only way he could make it was to keep moving," Fuda said. "What he would do to get out of the wind chill is he would go into a tree well and break himself from the wind."

So for four days, he kept moving, resting in the dips of snow surrounding tree trunks to get out of the wind. He told Fuda his longest break was two hours.

"He's whupped," Fuda said.

Witkowski was listed in critical condition Sunday night at Harborview Medical Center.

Robert Witkowski saw his son early Monday morning.

"He's doing very, very well. He's lucid," Witkowski said on CBS News' The Early Show. "Parts of him hurt like you know what. Parts of him are numb and the rest of him feels great, and we'll take all that. And his prognosis is very good."

Scores of people had been looking for the Ellensburg resident since he was reported missing Thursday. Witkowski had failed to meet up with friends on New Year's Eve and his car was found parked at the Alpental ski area in Snoqualmie Pass, off Interstate 90 about 40 miles east of Seattle.

About a foot of snow fell in the area on Saturday, and searchers feared that if they didn't find him in the clear daylight Sunday, they might not find him at all. A bad storm was expected Monday.

Temperatures in the central Cascades had dropped way below freezing, with a low of zero degrees reported Saturday night at nearby Stampede Pass. Alpental reported 8 degrees Sunday.

"Nobody ever gave up. We would just continue, start again the next morning," ski patrol director Jon Barker told Early Show co-anchor Julie Chen. "We got a great weather break yesterday in which we were able to fly in some helicopters and coordinate with our ground crews. We could actually see some tracks further ahead of where they had been trying to work."

The helicopters might never have flown over the area had not two independent witnesses come forward to say they had seen someone matching Witkowski's description heading northwest out-of-bounds last Wednesday.