Sam Benastick was found after weeks missing in British Columbia’s frigid Redfern-Keily Provincial Park, and after the official search was called off. The police had feared “this would not be the outcome,” a spokeswoman said.
After half a hundred days surviving in the remote, frigid wilderness of Canada’s northern Rocky Mountains, a missing hiker was found alive this week, the Canadian authorities announced on Wednesday.
The hiker, Sam Benastick, was reported missing on Oct. 19 after he went camping in Redfern-Keily Provincial Park in British Columbia, an area of jagged mountains, fast-changing weather, forest valleys, glaciers, waterfalls and lakes. The police, rescue workers and his family took part in the search, scanning a landscape of austere mountains and blankets of snow.
But as the days passed without sign of Mr. Benastick, hope began to fade. Temperatures plunged to below zero Fahrenheit. In winter, the park warns of avalanches. Year-round, it warns of bears. At some point, the official search was called off, according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
During the search, Mr. Benastick’s family spent weeks at the Buffalo Inn Pink Mountain, a hotel near the park, having nightly meetings in the hotel’s fireplace room, Michael Reid, the general manager, said in a phone interview. The family checked out before Mr. Benastick had been found, he said.
Then, over a month after he was reported missing, two men heading to work down a trail spotted a man heading toward them, the police said in a statement.
The men recognized Mr. Benastick and took him to the hospital, where the authorities confirmed his identity, the police said.
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“Finding Sam alive is the absolute best outcome,” said a police spokeswoman, Cpl. Madonna Saunderson, in the statement. “After all the time he was missing,” she added, the police had feared this “would not be the outcome.”
The sequence of events that led to Mr. Benastick going missing was not immediately clear. According to the police, Mr. Benastick said he had stayed in his car for a few days before walking to a creek on a mountain side and camping for another 10 to 15 days. He told the police that he had then moved into a valley and made camp in a dried-up creek.
The health care provider Northern Health said that he had been taken to a hospital and was “doing well.” Mr. Benastick would not provide comment at this time, it said in a statement.
Mr. Benastick began a 10-day camping trip in the park on Oct. 7 and his family reported him missing after he failed to check in, according to a GoFundMe page that appeared to be set up by his sister. The fund-raiser’s organizer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Reid, the hotel manager, said that there had been jubilation when they heard the news that Mr. Benastick had been found.
“We all gave each other a hug, and we had tears in our eyes,” Mr. Reid said. “I’ve got three kids and five grandkids so I know what they were going through.”
Mr. Reid said Mr. Benastick was still in the hospital but that his family would be stopping by “on their way back.”