Lost Horse Mouse Rescued from Wyoming Mountains by Raft

When Mouse the horse vanished during a fishing trip in Wyoming's backcountry last July, his owners prepared for heartbreak. Six months later, snowmobilers riding through the Wind River mountains spotted something impossible: Mouse was alive, nearly 10 miles from the nearest access point.

"I was pretty worried because it's a horse that me and my friends are partners on, and I didn't want to lose that," co-owner Preston Jorgenson told MTN News. Despite the long silence and brutal winter conditions, he never completely gave up hope.

Finding Mouse was only half the battle. Getting a horse out of deep mountain snow posed a challenge that would require some serious creative thinking.

"The problem with horses is that they don't walk well in snow," one rescuer explained. "They have no ground pressure, and the horse was probably four miles off any groomed trail in backcountry terrain."

Volunteers quickly assembled an impressive fleet: snow machines, a groomer, and even a massive Snow Cat. But they still needed to solve one puzzle: how do you actually move a horse through miles of powder?

That's when volunteer Buster Campbell came up with an idea that sounded crazy enough to work. He approached a local rafting company with an unusual winter request.

"'If you don't mind me asking, what do you need this for?' And I said, 'You wouldn't believe me if I told you,'" Campbell recalled with a laugh.

With the raft secured, the team put their plan into motion. Mouse walked right into the inflatable boat and, after a few moments to adjust, settled in for the ride of his life.

"He walked right up in there, so we let him stand there for a little bit and let him know everything's okay," Jorgenson said. "I was pretty excited to see all that. Just him riding in a raft."

The exhausted horse eventually lay down inside the raft as snowmobiles carefully pulled him across miles of snowy terrain. By Sunday afternoon, Mouse was home, trotting around his field like nothing happened.

Sunny's Take

This rescue shows what's possible when people refuse to give up and get creative together. A dozen volunteers from different walks of life dropped everything to save one horse using whatever tools they could find. Campbell said it best: "People on different fronts of life and everybody just able to sit down and come down together on a situation, with one thing in mind."

Mouse is now eating, drinking, and enjoying being back where he belongs.