More than a dozen police officers from Nevada and Idaho scoured the remote wilderness for any signs of a missing B.C. man Sunday, as his wife celebrated Mother's Day with her loved ones as she recovered in an Idaho hospital.

Against all odds, Rita Chretien, 56, was found alive by hunters on a service road in Elko County, Nevada, on Friday. She had survived for more than seven weeks on a small amount of trail mix, water and reading the bible.

She and Albert were last seen in Baker City, Oregon buying gas on March 19 as they made their way to a trade show in Las Vegas.

Taking remote scenic routes to their destination, their vehicle became stuck on an old logging road in northeastern Nevada, just south of the Idaho border. The road is 16 kilometres from the nearest highway in an area with no cell phone coverage.

Three days after their van became stuck in the mud, Al left to find help. He has not been seen since.

Until this weekend, search efforts to find the Chretien's centred around where they were last seen in Oregon – more than 300 kilometres from where their van ended up being located. Friends, family and police searched for more than a month after the couple were reported missing in late March.

Now the latest starting point to find Al is the couple's mud-coated van.

Teams from Owyhee County have now fanned out from the area, exploring the rough terrain using search and rescue dogs, ATVs and foot searches.

Bad weather prevented authorities from searching by aircraft this weekend.

Detective James Carpenter said it could be midweek before aerial searches are possible because of high winds and rain in the forecast for the next several days.

Although Al was armed with a paper map and a GPS device, authorities do not believe the likelihood of finding the 59 year old alive in the vast wilderness are very good.

Recent bouts of poor weather have seen the surrounding area socked in with up to five feet of snow, said Det. Sgt. Kevin McKinney with Elko Country Sheriff's Dept.

"We've had rockslides and washouts of the roads. It's also very steep and mountainous terrain. There are also predators out there, we're not very confident we'll have a happy result in this," he said.

Authorities are also exploring the possibility that Al was injured somewhere along the way and wasn't able to recover.

"We're hoping he was able to find some shelter and do what his wife did and just stay put until someone can come and find him," McKinney said.

But the effort to find Al will remain a search and not a recovery mission, he added.

"We're going to keep searching until we either find Albert or exhaust every resource to find him," McKinney said.

The couple's son, Raymond Chretien, believes his parents underestimated the poor condition of the logging road they eventually found themselves stuck on.

"They thought it was more reliable but before they knew it it was the evening hours. It didn't turn out to be the road they expected," he told CTV News Sunday from St. Luke's Magic Valley Medical Center, where he is visiting his mother.

Meanwhile, Raymond said their family is prepared for the outcome of the latest search, no matter what it is.

"We're celebrating but we're also praying for another miracle," he said. "We just want to find him."

Rita Chretien told her family she believed she was just a few days away from dying when she was found.

Raymond Chretien told CTV News he had braced for his mother to be in bad shape when he got to the hospital, but said she looked to be in excellent health. 

"I wouldn't have hardly known anything had happened to her. It's just her, just the way I remember," he said. "It's amazing."

Rita lost almost 30 pounds while she subsided on meager rations of hard candy, fish oil pills, trail mix and snow she melted in the afternoon sun. 

Her doctors say she is progressing at a steady rate and have been astonished by her condition when she arrived at the facility.

"I'd expect someone to be much more emaciated, much more malnourished," said Dr. James Westberry.

"It's understandable to call this a miracle."