The Horse That Survived a Wyoming Winter Alone

When a pack horse named Mouse slipped away in Wyoming's Wind River Range, his owners figured they'd find him within a day or two. Seven months later, he was still out there, and still alive.

A Horse Vanishes Above Dubois

In July 2025, a group of riders that included Preston Jorgenson took a string of pack horses into the mountains above Dubois, Wyoming, for a backcountry fishing trip near Moon Lake in the Wind River Range. At some point during the trip, a quarter horse named Mouse got loose and disappeared into the timber. Riders searched the area, but found no sign of him. As the weeks passed with no trace of the horse, most people who knew the story assumed he hadn't made it.

Seven Months Alone in the Snow

The Wind River Range is remote, high-elevation wilderness, and by midwinter the backcountry above Dubois was buried under six to seven feet of snow. Somehow, Mouse made it through. On January 18, 2026, Tighe Krutel, a snowmobile mechanic with Union Pass Rentals, was riding through the backcountry, miles from the nearest groomed trail, when he spotted hoofprints, then the horse himself. Mouse was alive but exhausted. Rescuers later estimated he had only a couple of weeks of strength left.

A Raft, a Snowmobile, and a Lot of Deep Snow

Getting a worn-out horse out of six feet of snow, miles from any road, was its own problem. Walking him out wasn't realistic, so a group that included Buster Campbell, Preston Jorgenson, Eagle Bull Colston, and Tim Koldenhoven improvised. They borrowed a whitewater river raft from a rafting company in Cody, loaded Mouse into it, and towed the raft behind a snowmobile, escorted by a Snow Cat and additional riders, across the snowpack. "He was a true survivor, by all means," Koldenhoven said. By Sunday afternoon, January 26, Mouse was home.

He Made It

Owners said Mouse was in surprisingly good shape for a horse that had just spent seven months alone in a Wyoming winter: worn down, but eating, drinking, and standing on his own. "The moral of the story is all these people coming together," Campbell said afterward. A community of near-strangers, using a snow groomer, a Snow Cat, snowmobiles, and a river raft, had gotten a lost horse home.