The 72-year-old American has spent almost five weeks in Dunedin Hospital after severely breaking his legs and spending 17 hours stuck in snow near Treble Cone last month.
''I am a very lucky man.''
Mr Kravet, who lives in Hawaii, has been a regular visitor to New Zealand for 17 of the past 20 years, to ski in Queenstown and Wanaka during winter.
''I fell in love with this place. I love the people. I love the atmosphere,'' he said from Dunedin Hospital yesterday.
That feeling remains despite his ordeal on the night of Monday, August 19.
About 2.30pm, Mr Kravet set off on his last run of the day, but extremely poor visibility caused him to turn right instead of going straight down the mountain. He soon realised ''this was a major screw-up'' when he could not find any fence line or hear the chairlifts.
''All of a sudden, I go over the lip of a gully, go down and BANG, my ski tips jam into the embankment and I jerk out of my bindings ... I immediately knew my left leg was broken because the tip of my boot is looking back at me.''
Trying to get his legs in a comfortable position, he looked around and assessed his predicament.
''I have two broken legs and this still amazes me when I think about it now,'' he said yesterday afternoon, before wiping away tears.
''I was totally focused, no panic, no emotion. I just said they are going to have to find me and get me out of here.''
He grabbed his skis and placed them vertically and put his poles in a cross position to attract any searchers.
''In the meantime, I was looking at my ski tracks coming down the other side and I am thinking 'usually my skis are closer together than that. That is embarrassing. I hope some snow covers those tracks'.''
''The crazy ... that goes through your mind'' included a thought that if he died, at least he died doing what he loved, on his favourite mountain.
A keen reader of survival stories, the former Bostonian knew the importance of staying warm and so began a series of four exercises, including clapping his hands, and moving his arms in a circular motion in sets of 100.
At 5pm, the cloud lifted and he saw a helicopter searching an area near the skifield, but had no idea how out of bounds he was.
''This is when I knew it was all over for the day.''
He said the only illogical thing he did was to continue to yell for help, and would ''eat snow to keep his vocal cords limber''.
With no food and with no service on his cellphone, he put a balaclava over his head and prepared to wait out the night.
''I didn't look at my watch the whole night because if I saw how slow the time was going, I would have got frustrated.''
While the temperatures were reportedly near zero, his sheltered position meant he did not feel cold and he spent the night repeating his exercises and watching the stars.
''I hallucinated a couple of times. I thought I saw a beach at one point, but I just tried to fight off sleep ... just stay awake and keep moving. My whole thing was to just get through the night.''
Not long after daybreak, he saw a helicopter and began waving his poles in the hope of attracting attention. At one point, it disappeared over the ridge line and ''I am thinking, did he see me, did he see me?''But then the helicopter and his rescuers reappeared. One asked him to rate his pain out of 10.
''I said 'three but I don't know if I will say that when I take my boots off.'
''In the chopper, all I could think about was what I would give to look out at the scenery but I am on my back and I can't see [anything].''
He was later transferred to Dunedin Hospital, following fears he was going to lose his leg. Instead, Mr Kravet, who used to work as a vocational rehabilitation counsellor, received treatment for a clean fracture near his right ankle. A titanium rod was inserted from his knee to his ankle, which is fixed with two screws.
His left leg, which had bone coming out from his skin, was stitched up and enclosed in a cage to stabilise it. Several plates were inserted to fix bones in place.
The medical team was pleased with the operations, but the keen long-distance runner has been told he is unlikely to run again.
Skiing and hiking, his two other passions, may also prove difficult but Mr Kravet is determined to stay healthy and keep active.
''If I wasn't fit and healthy I would't have done what I did out there,'' he said.
In the short term, he was resigned to spending the next six weeks in a wheelchair and hopefully make his annual trip to his sister's home in Florida for Thanksgiving.
He hoped to return to New Zealand when fully recuperated. He thanked his rescuers, police, helicopter personnel, his friend, Paula Squire-Thomas, for keeping his family informed, and medical staff at Dunedin Hospital.
Mr Kravet said he was overwhelmed by the care packages and messages sent to him and particularly touched by one Dunedin police officer, who helped arrange for his belongings to be returned to him.
''You guys down here are tremendous,'' he said with tears streaming down his face, as he recalled his experience.
He was now preparing to return to Hawaii on Monday, where he plans to recover and update his will.
''When I die, my nephew is getting a free trip to New Zealand, because one of the places I want my ashes scattered is Treble Cone.''
