GREENVILLE (AP) – Four snowmobilers stranded in whiteout conditions at the height of a major winter storm were rescued early Wednesday by a game warden who hitched a ride with the trail groomer for a local snowmobile club.

The four had left Greenville at 7 a.m. Tuesday on a loop to Brownville and back before getting stuck on the east side of Upper Wilson Pond. They managed to call Warden Adam Gormely on a cell phone at 12:30 a.m. Wednesday to report their plight.

The caller said the party couldn’t cross the pond in the near-blizzard conditions and the sleds were repeatedly getting stuck in the deep snow.

After trying unsuccessfully for an hour and a half to make it down his own road, Gormely called David Vaughn, the groomer for the Moosehead Riders. Vaughn picked up the warden and the two rode the grooming machine to the opposite shore of the pond, arriving around 4 a.m.

While maintaining cell phone contact, Vaughn and Gormely hoped that their lights would serve as a beacon to guide the stranded snowmobilers across the lake. But the lights could not be seen in the whiteout, forcing the rescuers to continue for another hour and a half until they reached the four men.

“They were hypothermic and shivering uncontrollably, but otherwise OK,” said Mark Latti, spokesman for the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

With the groomer creating a path for the snowmobilers, Gormely and Vaughn guided the four back to Greenville. They pulled in at 8:30 a.m., a full eight hours after the initial call for help. An emergency medical technician was there to meet them, but none of the four required hospital treatment.

The four were identified as Paul Johnson, 48, of Eliot; Michael Michaud, 47, of Winslow; Stephen Johnson, 52, of Rockland; and William Meader IV, 33, of Portsmouth, N.H.

Latti said the snowmobilers were lucky to have been able to call for help.

“This is one of the few areas up there that has cell phone coverage. Without that, things could have turned tragic,” he said.

Latti also said the men should have kept an eye on the weather forecasts, advised someone of their route and estimated time of return and taken along gear that would have enabled them to safely spend the night in the woods.

Gormely said two feet of snow had fallen in the area and the winds had produced drifts up to five feet high.