Missing Castlegar teen Jessie Wright has been found alive.
Castlegar RCMP said he was found in a small cabin.
"Castlegar Search and Rescue had sledders out trying to locate foot prints that had been spotted yesterday, and the RCMP helicopter was also out. The pilot was able to see where the foot prints left the trail and follow them to a small cabin. RCMP members were then flown to the cabin, and Jessie was located there," Sgt. Laurel Mathew of Castlegar RCMP said in a release.
"He is exhausted, cold, hungry, and very stiff from walking through very deep snow for over 3 days, but it appears he will be fine. Jessie was walking on the rail trail that runs between Castlegar and Grand Forks when he took a wrong trail and ended in the mountainous area north of Highway 3, west of Nancy Greene," said Mathew.
The search for Wright had continued earlier today, near the top of the Blueberry-Paulson Summit at the Trans-Canada Trail between Castlegar and Christina Lake.
An RCMP helicopter was brought in from Kamloops to aid in the search.
"We were up here around 7 to 7:30 a.m. We have a chopper in the air and we're following some tracks that we found," said Cassandra Stott from Castlegar Search in Rescue, who helped greatly with the search. "We have some fresh tracks that we're trying to get to. Somebody had spotted some tracks going through a tunnel and they're pretty fresh. So we're trying to see who they belong to. We have about 15 or 16 people out searching."
Wright had been missing since Feb. 16.
In addition to the helicopter, searchers were using quad vehicles and snowmobiles (sleds) to search the trails.
Castlegar RCMP was very grateful to Castlegar Search and Rescue members.
– With files from Craig Lindsay, Castlegar News