HELENA, Mont. - A man buried by an avalanche for about eight hours emerged with little more than scratches after a relative using a probe found him in a northwestern Montana area posted off-limits to motorized travel.

Ryan Roberts, 34, of Kalispell, said Friday he was astonished that he survived the avalanche, which swept over him late Thursday afternoon during a snowmobile trip in the Flathead National Forest's Jewel Basin near Kalispell. He was found shortly before midnight.

"I guess I was just allowed to live another day," Roberts, a cement polisher by trade, said Friday in a telephone interview after his release from Kalispell Regional Medical Center earlier in the day.

Roberts was snowmobiling with his uncle and a friend, neither of them caught in the avalanche.

Roberts said he tried to outrun the sliding snow by driving his snowmobile at about 80 mph, but leaped off the machine as it sped toward trees.

He said he tumbled downhill and was buried face-up by about 4 feet of snow. After it became apparent that he could not move, Roberts said, he tried to remain calm and accept what he thought was his fate.

He said he remembered thinking, "Well, I'm going to die."

Roberts believes he passed out about five minutes later.

His companions had begun searching for him immediately. After two hours, they used a cell phone to call for help.

About 18 family members and friends traveled to the scene by snowmobile and searched for Roberts. A party that included members of the Flathead County Sheriff's Department also set out to look for Roberts, but officials said they searched in the wrong place after receiving incorrect information about the location.

Dan Root, a distant cousin of Roberts, said that when he reached the scene of the avalanche Friday at about 11 p.m. MST he did not expect to find the snowmobiler alive. Several other people had already been combing the area for hours.

"I parked my sled, got my probe out and walked up the hill about 5 or 6 feet and hit" Roberts with the probe, Root said. "I probed him the first time."

Root and several other snowmobilers in the search immediately dug through the snow, removed Roberts and put him near a fire. Root said Roberts regained consciousness, but still appeared disoriented.

When it became clear a helicopter rescue was impossible because of fog and weather, Roberts was taken out of the area on his uncle's snowmobile. The 20-mile trip over a road in rugged country took about an hour.

Robert's wife, Billie, said his temperature at the hospital Friday morning was 90 degrees.

Ranger Jimmy DeHerrera of the U.S. Forest Service said the agency plans to cite Roberts and his companions for snowmobiling in the prohibited area. The maximum penalty is six months in jail, a $5,000 fine and snowmobile confiscation.

The Forest Service said 787,000 acres of the Flathead forest are open to snowmobiling and signs state the 13,000-acre Jewel Basin is off-limits to snowmobiles.

Roberts said he and his companions had tried to stay outside of the prohibited area.