Snowmobilers save moose from freezing to death buried under avalanche after spotting its snout and digging the animal out

ALASKA -- A moose buried by an avalanche on an Alaska mountain had its luck changed by three men passing on snowmobiles.

The three Matanuska-Susitna Borough residents were about 55 miles northeast of Anchorage when they passed a small hillside that had both ski and moose tracks.

When they returned an hour later, an avalanche had covered the tracks.

Marty Mobley says he saw something move in the debris —and was surprised when he inspected it closer alongside friends Rob Uphus and Avery Vunichich.

'It looked like a guy's arm at first because we were expecting to see a skier,' Mobley told the Alaska Dispatch News.

'But it was moaning and groaning and moving and we realized it was a moose, even though only his ears and some of its snout was sticking out of the snow.

He added: 'There was just enough of its snout sticking above the snow that it could breathe.'

Two of the men began digging while third stood as an avalanche lookout.

'It didn't even fight us,' Mobley told the Alaska Dispatch News. 'It was like, 'Help me. Help me.' It was totally docile and let us touch it. It just (lay) there.'

Then, after 10 minutes of digging, the moose began to move.

'It stood right up and towered over us, because we were in kind of a hole from the digging,' Mobley told the Alaska Dispatch News.

'It looked like the abominable snowman because its fur was so packed with snow and it looked at us, shook the snow off it, and off it went.'

The moose was at 'full steam,' he says.

'I am an animal lover, and I couldn't leave it there,' Mobley told the Alaska Dispatch News.
'Besides, we deal with a lot of avalanches and a lot of snow. That kind of karma is something we don't pass up.'

(Daily Mail - Jan 2, 2015)