Utah brothers survive avalanche after one pulls other out of snow burial

Two brothers are lucky to be alive this holiday season after being caught up in an avalanche that buried one brother under snow. 

The local TV station said the men were riding snowmobiles when one of them triggered the avalanche.

"He was recovered by his brother, who used a transceiver to get close enough to see a couple of fingers of a gloved hand sticking out of the snow," the report said.  

The elevation of the avalanche was about 9,000 feet. The area where it happened had a "persistent weak layer," the incident report said. 

"I could see his hand, his gloves, kind of poking out, waving," Braeden Hansen told NBC News about his brother Hunter. "But, by the time I got to him, he was about 2 feet, his head was about 2 feet under the snow."

"I just cleared the snow away from his head and got his helmet off so that he could start breathing again and then just started digging his body out from there," he said.

The brother who was buried sustained minor injuries, according to FOX 13.

Avalanche dangers in the mountains of northern Utah and southeast Idaho are "widespread" heading into the weekend, according to the avalanche center.