(Fremont County, WY) – “Never in my life I would of thought I’d be riding in a raft with a horse,” Dubois resident Preston Jorgenson commented on the video shared on his Facebook page on Sunday, January 25. The video shows Jorgenson, along with his quarterhorse, Mouse, riding in an inflatable river raft attached to a snowmobile, which was the final portion of rescue efforts to save the lonely animal who got lost in the backcountry this summer.
Jorgenson shared with County 10 that in late July last summer, he and fellow cowboys Buster Campbell and Eagle Bull Coulston were on a fishing trip in the Moon Lake area, southwest of Dubois, when Jorgenson’s quarterhorse Mouse got loose overnight while they were camping.
“We woke up the next morning, like, where’s the horse? You know, and he’s gone,” Jorgenson said.
The crew looked for Mouse before heading out from their trip, and the search efforts continued into the coming months when they didn’t find Mouse right away.
“We said, oh, maybe the snow will push him down, but he ended up staying back in there,” Jorgenson shared, adding that they were starting to lose hope after Mouse had been gone for a few months, and that the snow was starting to get too deep.
About two weeks ago, snowmobilers with Union Pass Rentals spotted Mouse and began bringing the horse hay while they worked out a rescue plan with Jorgenson and crew.
Jorgenson said Campbell snowmobiled to the location and tried walking Mouse out, but the snow was already too deep, so they teamed up with the snowmobile guides at Union Pass Rentals, and folks from Crooked Creek Guest Ranch and Troubles Line Shack Lodge to form a rescue crew.
Because of the deep snow and Mouse’s low energy levels, the rescue team decided to load Mouse up into an inflatable river raft supplied by River Runners out of Cody, and a snow cat pulled Mouse and the raft out of the deeper snow. Jorgenson then loaded up in the raft with Mouse, and a snowmobile pulled them the rest of the way.
Union Pass Rentals shared Jorgenson’s video of a part of the rescue, adding the comment, “Proof that a little teamwork—and a lot of heart—goes a long way out here.”
Mouse is already recovering well, has been eating and drinking, and seems pretty excited to be around other horses, Jorgenson shared.
“I’m sure he was pretty lonely out there for the past five months.”
