STOP! Turn back!
You've reached
HELLiport Gorge!
There's a saying that goes, "Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread"...
I guess nobody mentioned that to the group before they volunteered Dave to break trail through the gorge. If you squint, you can see the fool, I mean Dave at the bottom of the gorge...
So what did Dave find? Well, knee-deep snow and a really nice drop-off into a semi-frozen creek bed.
It took Dave several tries to get up the other side. Under the deep snow was some very nice loose sand. Once there, it was discovered that there was no where to go from there except for a narrow trail covered in 2 feet of snow and LOTS of broken trees...
Unfortunately, Dave couldn't relay that information before Khalid stormed down the hill and beached himself in the snow and Dave's ruts.
In an attempt to free himself, Khalid slid off into the creek bed... so Dave drove back down to save him and promptly got stuck himself...
It was about here that Dave discovered that the downside of a 3" lift is sinking an extra 3" through the snow into the mud.
This is what a 7 horsepower winch looks like...
Attempts a pull the Jeep back up the hill failed, so Dennis bravely(?) brought the Scout down to help and got stuck himself... silly H.O.R.E.'s.
These guys deserve mention so from L to R, the horses are: Mike Sharpe, Trevor Good (partially hidden), Jeremy Gibson, Sam Baby (again, partially hidden), Tanner Jones, David Twaddle and Khalid Arcand.
With the Scout, the Bronco and the Cherokee all stuck at the bottom of the hill, a plan was devised by Dennis for Dave to drive back up the opposite side and clear the tree-strewn path to see where it goes. Here's Dave yanking a really large log (22" diameter!) off of the trail. 45 minutes later, the trail was cleared and found to meet up to a snowmobile trail that connected with the trail that got us into this mess! All told, Dave spent 5 hours at the bottom of the gorge... of course, Khalid and Dennis were still in there. The Bronco was soon freed and made it up the hill to the cleared trail. So then there was one. Dennis, while attempting the hill climb, slid sideways into the creekbed where, using the justification of "Hey, Stuck IS Stuck, right?", he got himself hopelessly gummed up in the ice and mud.
This shot, taken 3 days later, shows where the Scout ended up...
Thanks to the mild weather during those 3 days, much of the snow had melted away.
Using two rented 5 ton block & tackles and with Khalid's truck as an anchor, Dennis was dragged to safety.
A quick drive up the hill and the Scout was free!
It was overheard at the Heliport earlier in the semester that someone scoffed at the idea that this group were Extremists... well, I hope the person who uttered these words back then enjoys the taste of crow because that's what they're eating now!