Students trapped for nine days in wilderness

Police said the pair survived by rationing their meagre supplies and warming themselves in hot springs.

Alec Brown and Erica Klintworth are both students from the University of Wisconsin who are studying abroad.

They met up with members of a search team on Sunday after making their way back out of the wilderness – famished but otherwise in good shape.

“Unfortunately it rained and rained, day after day, and snowed,” Mr Brown wrote in an email to the Associated Press.

When they realised they were going to be stuck they started rationing: “a biscuit and jelly one day”, then less.

The pair were dropped off on June 1 by friend Katie Jenkins, another UW student, at a national park on the South Island’s West Coast. She continued with her own travels and did not realise they were missing until eight days had passed, which is when she raised the alarm.

The couple did not take much food – some carrots, rice, peanut butter and trail mix, according to Police Sergeant Sean Judd, who co-ordinated rescue attempts. After three days a steady rain started.

“Then on Wednesday the snowstorm hit and it got progressively worse,” he said.

Mr Brown said soaking in the hot pools “helped keep us warm and slow energy loss” until Sunday when the river seemed safe enough to cross again.

He and Miss Klintworth prepared for their hike out by cooking up a “good meal” of rice, marshmallows, peanut butter and chocolate. “We then left and crossed the icy waters only up to our waist.

“We were climbing the mountains under the dense tree cover when we first heard the helicopter we assumed was looking for us. The ’copter never saw us and we walked out just fine and met up with the search and rescue by the road.”