enlarge Joe Phelan/Blethen Maine News Service

Steve Wright tells his story of surviving for two days in the western Maine woods during an interview Thursday in the Central Maine Medical Center intensive care unit in Lewiston. His wife, Susan Wright, listens at his side.

"I kept thinking of my children and grandchildren," Wright said Thursday from his room in the intensive care unit at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston.

"I kept telling myself not to quit and I just kept trying to figure out the best way to handle the situation," said Wright, a deer hunter from Vermont. "But I didn't think I could make it through another night."

When he was found late Wednesday afternoon by a snowmobiler, Wright was covered with ice and had lost a glove. His muzzleloader was frozen and he feared that he was losing his judgment, he said.

Wright, 53, of Woodford, Vt., is an experienced hunter and outdoorsman, known by his family and friends for his persistence and his skill in tracking deer in the wild. He was on a hunting trip with two friends when he got lost Monday.

Wright's hunting companions reported him missing around 3:30 a.m. Tuesday. By 11 a.m., a search was under way with nearly 50 search-and-rescue personnel, dogs from several agencies, Air National Guard helicopters and Maine Warden Service planes.

By the time Donald Eisenhaur of Madrid found him, near the East Branch of the Swift River near Byron, Wright had walked for miles, following a Global Positioning System unit that he says sent him in the wrong direction.

He had climbed 3,000-foot Tumbledown Mountain on Monday night in a storm and fallen into an icy pond, and was about 11 miles north of where searchers were looking for him.

Wright was listed in serious condition Thursday at Central Maine Medical Center. Doctors were concerned about his kidneys, his fluctuating heart rate and his frostbitten toes, but his son Kerby expects him to recover fully.

"He is pretty stubborn and he would never admit he was ever lost," Kerby Wright said outside his father's hospital room. "You tell him he can't do something, he does it. That is why he is such a successful hunter. He never gives up."

Wright's wife, Susan, and his two other adult sons, T.J. and Jamie, were also at his side.

Lt. Patrick Dorian of the warden service said rescuers knew they were dealing with a unique individual.

Wright's hunting friends, who call him a "houndsman" for his dogged tracking, said it was not unusual for him to track a deer all day, then walk out of the woods in the middle of the night.

"This is probably one of the most remarkable stories I have heard in my life," Dorian said.

Wright and his hunting companions, Michael Harrington and Barry Bishop of Bennington, Vt., started out after breakfast Monday, off Byron Road by Tumbledown.

Because Wright did not expect to be out long on the first day of their hunting trip, he left his survival kit, with an emergency blanket, a radio and matches, in his truck.

He had his GPS and a compass, and was wearing heavy-duty, weather-resistant clothes.

Late Monday afternoon, when he decided to head back, Wright said, his GPS told him that he was a mile and a half from his truck.

According to Deborah Turcotte, acting director of information for the agency, the unit was working properly even though it was covered with ice when Wright was found.

To keep warm, Wright kept walking after dark Monday. At one point, he fell into a water hole and was submerged up to his neck, he told wardens. Wright later came upon a camper, "but he decided not to break in," Dorian said.

Wright's glasses fogged up after daybreak Tuesday and snow blindness made it impossible for him to continue on during the day. He spent much of the time lying on a road, where he hoped searchers would spot him, then took shelter in a ditch and covered himself with spruce thicket to stave off the cold.

The National Weather Service said temperatures during the two nights that Wright was alone in the woods reached single digits. Dorian said it was...