My Question...

From a recent sports article...

Former Olympic hockey player
rescued after week alone in wilderness

posted February 19 @ 15:11, EST

MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. (AP) - A former Olympic hockey player who became lost
in the Sierra Nevada wilderness survived for a week by living in a makeshift
igloo and eating pine nuts and needles.

Searchers found Eric Lemarque sprawled in the snow, conscious but barely moving.
He was unable to find his way back to Mammoth Mountain ski resort after going
out of ski-run boundaries while snowboarding alone.

"It was amazing that he survived in that cold," rescuer Joe Rousek said. "We
knew he was a hockey player, in good shape. But I don't think he'd have lasted
another night."

The 34-year-old Lemarque, who was rescued last Friday, remained hospitalized for
dehydration, hypothermia and severe frostbite to his left foot.

He was snowboarding alone Feb. 6 when "he went off the track," said his mother,
Susan Lemarque.

"When it got dark, he couldn't tell quite where he was," she said. "He continued
on down the mountain, thinking he'd find his way out."

Lemarque, a hockey coach who played for the French national team in the 1994
Olympics, relied on pine nuts and needles for food and built a crude igloo as
shelter.

His parents alerted authorities at the resort after they were unable to reach
their son by phone.

Okay, here's my question... how can someone stranded while skiing suffer from
dehydration?  Can't find any water in that snow?  That's like someone
getting locked in a grocery store over a weekend and starving to death. Or like
the so-called "All-Stars" on Survivor complaining about not having anything to
drink --and being stuck in the rain, hence, WET.

It must really blow to get lost in the wilderness and not even be able to see
the forest for the trees...