It finally arrived after bad weather in the area improved, allowing search and rescue crews to make their way to the stranded group.

The four students, all Norwegian and Swedish men in their 20s, had set out Monday to climb the 1,717-meter-high Mount Newton, northeast of the town of Longyearbyen.

They ended up driving too far to the east and wound up in a glacial area spotted with cracks in the ice. When they accidentally drove over a cliff in heavy fog, one of the three snowmobiles they were using was damaged and one of the Norwegian students dislocated his shoulder.

They then opted to stay where they were and wait for help, after sending out the distress signal that launched the search and rescue team.

None of the students was identified and they refused to talk to reporters when they arrived back in Longyearbyen early Thursday morning.

Rescue workers, however, said the students were in good shape and had kept warm. "They were, of course, glad to see us," Brynjulv Eide of the rescue crew told news bureau NTB.

Fellow students in Longyearbyen were also relieved. "Now we're just happy," Wojciech Miloch of Poland told newspaper Aftenposten. "It will be good to see our missing friends again. We had feared the worst."