a little lesson for out brethren up b=near the Rubicon, DON"T get stuck in December.
2 guys got their rigs stuck around new years and were forced to leave them in place. Long story short, they've made multiple attempts to recover them since January but the snow up there kept them at bay.
Finally, TODAY they got to the first one...
OGG Update: We made it to the first rig yesterday and got it uncovered, a 14 1/2 hour EPIC day on the trail with a fantastic group of guys. We far exceeded my expectations as I had hoped to just make tracks to the 1st rig, if that was even possible. Five rigs went over the berm at 8am, same group as we had in January with the addition of Tim's son Matt, plus me and Nick on our tracked quads. Two more local rigs caught up with us at McKinney Lake so in all we had 9 guys plus the two youngest brought their wives, nice to have the ladies on the trail, they were great sports (funny the older wives didn't want to go? Hmmm). It took us 6 hrs to get 5 miles in and 3 hrs to get out though on the way out we did meet a group of rigs taking a crack at the first tank trap. I had located my son's Cherokee (1st rig) late Friday afternoon, digging down 8' on a hunch and landing on the spare tire on the roof rack(!). We made it there around 2pm yesterday and almost immediately and without asking 9 guys had shovels in hand throwing snow like dogs digging up a bone. 4 hrs later we had the entire XJ uncovered, the hood open and Nick had Kenny's winch battery and a jump box wired up. Kenny put a shovel through the already broken windshield and crawled in over broken glass to unlatch the hood and turn the key. We were able to get the motor to turn over but it wasn't breathing, we suspect the tail pipe is crushed or clogged with snow (maybe a critter?). Scott, Tim and Matt rolled up and winched the Jeep forward a couple six inches and that seemed to help. But by that time it was getting late and we were all pretty sore and tired so we packed up and headed for home. As far as damage the XJ seems to be in pretty good shape considering the weight it was under. The roof is crushed down to the roll cage (glad we put that in!), the windshield was busted, the mirrors are gone and the hood was resting on the valve cover (4.0 I6). The side window behind the drivers door gave way while digging out but there wasn't any snow inside the vehicle. We're regrouping now to determine next steps, possibly a recovery effort next weekend, but we'll see. Stay tuned. HUGE thank you to Nick, Jim, Scott, Tim, Matt, Kenny(!), Mike and JJ. You guys absolutely rock.
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