My wife and I were on a 3 day snowmobile trip to western WY.  We started out in the southern Wind River Mountains near Lander WY.  We left our vehicle around 3 pm on a sunny but cold (10 degrees) day.  We ride 2 up so we stay on groomed trails.  After riding for about 16 miles the grooming of the trail became very poor.  We determined we could not continue on our trail and must turn around.  I attempted to back up and got stuck.  We worked on getting out for about 2 hours but managed to become even more stuck.  We took inventory of our resources, we had two rescue blankets, one rescue tent, 4 power bars, 4 bottles of frozen water, and a ResQLink+.  We set the tent up and thought we would walk out the next day.  But the temperature was dropping, the tent was very hard to use for 2 people, we were exhausted from trying to dig and pull the snowmobile out, and the wind was picking up.  We knew the wind was expect to be over 35 mph after midnight.  We also thought it would take us 2 days to walk back to our vehicle unless we came across another snowmobiler.  We realized that with the falling temperature we would have some frost bite on our feet and hands which would make walking out very difficult.  At that point we decided to activate the ResQLink+ it was 7:15 pm.

We knew given our location that it would take 2 hours or so for someone to come to our aid.  But after 4 hours we had given up hope.  I thought perhaps I had done something wrong when I activated the beacon, or the batteries were to old, or since I had carried it in my pack, and snowmobile, and side by side for a couple of thousand miles something had broken.  We began discussing how to get a fire started by using some fuel from the snow machine and creating a spark with the battery but about that time two members of the rescue team on snow machines came riding in.  I can not describe the joy, relief and gratitude we felt when those two gentlemen pulled up.  The ResQLink+ HAD WORKED!!  Within an hour we were headed back to our truck and safety.  Once we were at the parking lot one of the rescuers said — Happy Valentines Day.  My wife and I could not have had a better gift than those 4 guys coming out on a cold night to rescue us!!