LouLou has been rescued from deep Alaska snow more than two days after an avalanche tore her away from her owner during a hike.
The 4-year-old huskydoodle was with her owner Brian and his friend in Chugach State Park near Eklutna Lake, Anchorage, when the avalanche struck last week. The two men were injured in the slide and evacuated to hospital without the dog, leaving LouLou alone in the backcountry.
Lauren Padawer, Brian’s partner and LouLou’s other owner, was out of town when the disaster happened. She immediately began pulling together a search operation to track down the missing dog.
Early ground teams failed to locate the huskydoodle, but volunteers refused to give up. After roughly 50 hours in the elements, searchers Amanda Barker and Dave Beckett got a critical break: an AirTag ping revealing LouLou’s position.
Barker and Beckett flew back out by helicopter, touching down as close to the signal as terrain allowed. From the aircraft they spotted a small white figure standing in the snow at a distance.
The pair climbed through the drifts on their hands and knees for 20 minutes to reach her. LouLou barked as they drew near.
“Come on, sweetheart,” Barker called out. “Let’s go for a ride, LouLou.”
The dog hesitated at first, wary of the strangers in the vast white landscape. Barker and Beckett eventually managed to leash her, then began the painstaking descent down the mountainside with the exhausted animal, sliding through the snow to reach the waiting helicopter.
Footage from the rescue shows LouLou finally safe inside the aircraft, receiving what Padawer later described as well-deserved affection and pets after her ordeal.
Padawer took to Facebook to thank the network of people who made the reunion possible. “To Dave, Amanda, Kathy, Barney, James, the ground search parties, the military pararescue personnel, and everyone who offered a hand: thank you,” she wrote.
“I will never forget what you did for LouLou, for Brian, his hiking partner, and for me. Sometimes it takes a mountain to remind you how extraordinary people can be.”
Brian and his hiking partner both survived the avalanche with injuries and were hospitalized following their rescue. The incident began when the group was caught in a slide near Eklutna Lake, a popular recreation area in the park roughly 30 miles northeast of downtown Anchorage.