His body temperature had fallen to 89 degrees, and he had lost 20 pounds. He wasn't sure if he had slept. He remembers almost nothing - except the whirring of the helicopter that reached him just a few hours before he would have died last Sunday.

Witkowski spoke publicly Friday for the first time since his five-day, four-night ordeal in the backcountry near Alpental ski area, which began New Year's Eve when the 25-year-old extreme skier plunged down an out-of-bounds chute he had never skied before.

"Mentally, I was gone," he said, flanked by his doctor and family during a news conference at Harborview Medical Center. "The last couple of days were kind of hopeless. I couldn't stand up or think very well. ... I just didn't want to die. I didn't want my parents to have to put me in the ground."

Witkowski has been in Harborview's Burn Unit since he was picked up by helicopter last Sunday afternoon. He was expected to be released Saturday morning, and his doctors, who heated his hands and feet by soaking them in warm water, planned to monitor him over the next several months.

Most likely, Dr. David Heimbach said, a few of his fingertips and toes will have to be amputated, but doctors want to see how much tissue recovers before they begin cutting. Nevertheless, Heimbach said, Witkowski should be back on the slopes next season.

"The fact that he lived is pretty remarkable," Heimbach said. "It's a testament to how well you can do when you're young and healthy."

Witkowski began skiing by himself at Alpental, off Interstate 90 about 40 miles east of Seattle, the morning of New Year's Eve. He soon decided to begin skiing out-of-bounds, as he often did.

He skied north along a ridge and then sailed down a chute. When he reached the valley below, he knew he was lost, but figured that if he kept heading downhill, he'd be OK.

For a while he did, then decided to hike up to another ridge to see if he could figure out where he was.

Meanwhile, his friends were expecting to see him at 5 p.m. When he didn't show, they called his family's home, where he lives. His father, Robert, drove out to Alpental that night to see if he could find his son's car.

Robert Witkowski didn't find the car and figured Dan must be out celebrating the holiday in Ellensburg. But Robert didn't know there was a fourth parking lot at Alpental, and that's where Dan's car was. When the Witkowskis hadn't heard from their son by the middle of the night, they started calling Alpental's ski patrol, which launched the search the next morning.

Dan had no food, not so much as an energy bar. He tried to keep moving to maintain his temperature, resting on beds of stripped tree branches before dark so he'd have enough energy to continue through the night. He never stopped for long, he said, because whenever he did he began shaking. Eventually, he covered about 10 miles, though he was found only 5 miles from the ski area.

About 20 inches of snow fell during the time he was missing, so the scores of rescuers who looked for him without believing he was still alive had trouble finding tracks. It was only when the weather cleared Sunday and helicopters were able to fly over the area that they began to see specks of gear in the snow - his jettisoned skis, snow-filled gloves, even the linings of his ski boots, which he ditched because they were frozen solid.

During the final two days he covered little ground, staying near Pratt Creek, which he drank from. Sometimes he prayed. He doesn't recall whether he ever realized how close he was to death.

"I never thought I was that bad," he said. "When I was weak, I wasn't thinking straight, and when I was strong, I was surprised at how strong I was."

Witkowski has been working as a dishwasher, but won't be able to do that for a while. He hopes instead to return to Central Washington University and earn a degree - in what, he's not sure.

One thing he is sure of is that he will be back on the slopes.

"I'm definitely going to go back. I'm going to be safer," he said. "At the time, it didn't seem that stupid. ... If I go out of bounds, I'll have my gear, and I'll have my friends with me."