Zou Ming (Right) poses for a photo with his father after he emerged from Heizhugou Nature Reserve in southwest China's Sichuan Province on Monday, May 23, 2016. [Photo: Chinanews.com]

A male hiker who had been missing for 17 days emerged alive from remote forest in southwest China's Sichuan Province on Monday, Chinese news portal Chinanews.com reports.

The hiker, Zou Ming was still in good health but had lost over ten kilograms in weight. Zou said he relied on the sun for orientation, which helped him successfully navigate out of the forest.

The 27-year-old from south China's Jiangsu Province traveled to the Heizhugou Nature Reserve in Sichuan Province with five other hikers on May 3 before he lost contact with them on May 6. Zou's family had spent about 200,000 yuan (30,520 US dollars) for the wages of hundreds of local villagers they had hired to help search for Zou, but they had found no trace. At 10 pm on May 23, Zou walked out of the forest and appeared in front of his family.

The Heizhugou Nature Reserve, which literally means "death valley" in the local ethnic Yi dialect, is uninhabited because of its adverse natural conditions. This place is known as 'China's Bermuda Triangle,' as several people have been reported dead and missing here in recent years.