COEUR d'ALENE - A North Idaho man rescued Tuesday morning in a steep Montana drainage near the state line said he used heat from his snowmobile engine to stay alive.

Barry Sadler, 54, went missing Sunday. Tuesday night, from his home 6 miles northwest of Mullan, said he had given up all hope of surviving when he was finally found.

"It's so painful to freeze to death," Sadler said. "It's one of the most brutal ways to die. ... I was dying a little bit every day, getting colder and weaker."

He was dehydrated, and left with frostbite on his face, hands and feet.

Sadler said he lost his way in a snowstorm around 3 p.m. Sunday and hurtled into an unknown drainage, eventually landing in a shallow creek.

He estimated the drainage had snow depths of 8 or 9 feet in places, and was choked with thick brush at the bottom.

He said he was trapped for about a minute in the creek, between his snowmobile and a log.

Soaking wet, the 240-pound body-builder fought his way free and managed to get his snowmobile started again but it couldn't climb from the steep drainage. He was so cold his muscles shut down and his legs wouldn't work, so hiking out wasn't an option.

"I never dreamed someone would ever pack up and come down there," Sadler said. "They got some big-ass balls, hiking in there in the middle of the night."

Shoshone County Sheriff Mitch Alexander said five searchers followed Sadler's snowmobile track and found him in the Brimstone Creek area.

"He's pretty lucky," Alexander said Tuesday. "We probably had the worst weather of all time - a blizzard and then a lot of rain."

Sadler, an extreme snowmobiler experienced in challenging terrain, was last seen Sunday afternoon just east of the Lookout Pass ski area. He had been snowmobiling with a friend until the friend left after his snowmobile ran low on fuel.

Searchers from Shoshone County and others from Mineral County in Montana took part starting late Sunday and again Monday, but without success.

"By 11 o'clock last night he had given up," said Mineral County Sheriff Tom Bauer, who spoke with Sadler after the rescue. "He wasn't aware anyone was looking for him."

Sadler said he was found late Monday night, near midnight. But it was 9 a.m. Tuesday before he got home.

The searchers gave him dry clothes, blankets, and food to warm him.

Soon they began a roughly five-hour hike just to leave the deep drainage.

There was another roughly 2 miles of hiking downhill to reach a snowmobile. Then it was approximately 6 miles on the snowmobile before he was home.

"It was everything I could do to hold on," Sadler said. He originally left home about 10 a.m. Sunday.

Bauer said searchers discovered a critical clue by spotting a single snowmobile track.

"(Sadler) more than once said he'd be dead today if it weren't for my guys" finding that track, said Bauer.

Alexander said the five searchers, aware of Sadler's tendency to tackle tough terrain, followed the single track until it disappeared into an area where none of the five thought it wise to ride a snowmobile.

They concluded it had to be Sadler. So they hiked in and found him.

"He just got into an area where he couldn't get out," Bauer said.

Down at the bottom of the drainage, Sadler was turning his snowmobile on about every six minutes, getting down next to the engine and holding a space blanket over himself to trap the heat.

Between starts he would shake violently, until he would give in again and start the machine.

He estimated that it started for the last time only about 10 minutes before he felt a tap on his shoulder, while he was soaking up the last of the engine's heat.

He looked up and saw the lights of his rescuers.

He said he had fully expected to die before being suddenly found. He only wanted to go with some dignity, he said.

He scribbled out some goodbye notes to his kids, age 20, 18 and 16.

"I built me a little cross," he said.

He found a tree to sit next to when he lost the strength to keep holding on.

"It was really important that they find my body," he recalled himself thinking.

He planned to make sure his helmet and goggles would be on when he finally died.

"There were wolves out there yipping, and crows waiting to eat my eyeballs," he said.

It didn't come to that, as the machine kept starting and providing heat, and rescuers hiked into the drainage and found him.

Now he is resting at home, sick from both the cold and the fumes of the machine. He also has some broken bones in his hands, he said.

The two sheriffs, while pleased with the rescue, said Sadler made a number of critical mistakes.

"I chewed him out because he's riding by himself," said Alexander. "He didn't have his survival gear. He didn't have his avalanche beacon on. I also talked him into buying one of those spot satellite locators."

The satellite locators can summon help while also providing potential rescuers a location.

"There's always a buddy, and you always stay with them," said Bauer.

- The Associated Press contributed to this report.