The snowboarder lost for days on Seymour Mountain told CTV News that he never gave up hope that he would make it back alive.
James Martin told CTV News in an exclusive interview that even though rescuers would have written him off for dead on Wednesday night, he didn't realize how close he came to dying.
"It's wonderful to live another day, to live another year, it's wonderful to make it out alive," said Martin from his Vancouver General Hospital bed.
Martin's, who is from Orillia, Ont., had been missing since Sunday. His SUV was sitting in a ski hill parking lot since then, with his wallet and cell phone left inside.
The abandoned vehicle wasn't reported to staff until Tuesday. By then, the snowboarder had been on Seymour Mountain for three days.
North Shore Search and Rescue sent teams to scour the mountainside and canvassed the area by air.
But Martin, who had been walking for days by that point, had taken shelter under a tree and wasn't visible.
"Even today when the helicopters were around me, there were three of them, I waved them down," he said. "I thought he was coming down for sure but he didn't come back."
Martin said he thought he was sticking to "the basic track" on the skihill, but he said it wasn't marked well.
Rescuers came across Martin's tracks on Wednesday, and that led them to where he was huddling.
"Today this particular subject would have succumbed to the cold," said the North Shore Search and Rescue's Tim Jones. "His lower limbs had frozen on him. He was done for."
Martin has severe frostbite, but feeling is returning to his limbs. He says he's going to be more prepared when he goes snowboarding again.
"I thought I was going to get out every single night I was there. I thought I was getting closer to dark. I thought it was just around the corner but it never was," he said.
With a report from CTV British Columbia's Jon Woodward
