Three men caught up in a life and death struggle on Canada's highest mountain remained in hospital Sunday, a day after their rescue.

An Alaska Air National Guard helicopter plucked the three from the side of Mount Logan in the Yukon early Saturday morning and carried them to safety in Anchorage, Alaska.

Erik Bjarnason, 41, Alex Snigurowicz, 45, and Don Jardine, 51, were reported in fair condition, suffering from frostbite and hypothermia.

The Vancouver-area men survived three days trapped in a powerful storm not far from the summit.

Bjarnason and Jardine, who suffered some of the worst injuries, say they wrote notes to their families, believing they wouldn't survive.

"I thought I was going to die," Bjarnason said. "We have radios that we can use to contact different team members. So I contacted one of my team members and gave him instructions for my children. But luckily, he didn't have to pass those on."

Team loses tent on ridge

They were part of a group of eight climbers who had been on the mountain for three weeks. When the group split up, high winds trapped the trio on an icy ridge at 5,500 metres.

"It got so bad you couldn't move forwards or backwards," Snigurowicz said.

"It was actually picking me up," Jardine said, describing the gusts that battered their tent. "That was constant for about 16 hours."

"I did leave a little note to my wife and kids ... glad not to have someone else reading it to her."

"I have frostbite on six of my fingers and 10 of my toes," Jardine said.

Bjarnason suffered the worst case of frostbite on his hands.

Some help arrived late Friday, when two other climbers in their group made it down to them with a tent and heaters.

The climbers are used to being on the other side of a rescue. They belong to North Shore Rescue, a volunteer mountain search and rescue team based in North Vancouver.

Spokesman Gerry Brewer says the team felt "extreme relief" after hearing that a high-altitude helicopter had rescued the men.

"We live in a business where we see the bad side of climbing trips, so you can see the potential of people dying quite easily. We deal with it all the time, unfortunately. But when it's our own, it's very difficult."