BEIJING, March 23 (Xinhuanet) -- A U.S. family of six who disappeared while on holiday in a remote mountain area in Oregon were rescued Wednesday after spending 17 days stranded in a snow-bound camper van.

    Three generations of the Stivers family - including children Sabastyan, 9, and Gabrayell, 8 -- survived on dehydrated food and melted snow as they spent their days huddled under blankets in their 11-metre van and waited for help. The van had become stuck in more than a metre of snow after sliding off a road in south-western Oregon.

    As the area was too remote for mobile phones, they monitored news of rescuers' efforts on a small black-and-white television set and the children kept their spirits up by reading jokes from an old copy of Reader's Digest. On Monday they learned that emergency crews, fearing the worst, had called off the search.     

    Pete Stivers, the children's father, and his wife Marlo decided to set out for help and trekked through the wilderness for two days before being picked up.

    The unlucky family set off on March 4 for an overnight trip to the California coast. They disappeared after opting to take a scenic route through mountains. But the roads were buried in up to 1.2 meters of snow and they tried to turn back. When the van became trapped, they found that the area was too remote to have mobile phone reception.

    "We had fuel and food but we were running short. We were rationing," said Elbert Higginbotham, Stivers's stepfather, who lives in Arizona and relied on his desert survival skills.  Enditem

    (Agencies)