Bob went to the Ranch yesterday to make sure the snow was cleared enough for us to drive in next week. It wasn’t!  Though there were spots of bare dirt on the Blue Jay Spring road, there were also snow drifts up to three feet deep. However, it was so frozen he was able to drive in part way without too much effort because the 4-Runner stayed on top of the snow. The final 2-mile stretch down our “driveway” was even snowier with deeper drifts but since it was mostly downhill and he was still on top of the hard-pack he thought he could make it. The weird thing was that he got stuck about 200 yards from the entrance to the Ranch proper, near the bottom of the hill where the snow had gotten much less deep. Turns out the warming day caught up with him and the heavy vehicle finally broke through the snow and the truck was stuck bad; high centered in the last 3-foot drift. Bob spent several hours digging it out, making some progress, then breaking through again but each time. In the end he dug it out one last time, got it turned around and left it for the night hoping to drive out in the early morning when it was frozen hard again.

 

Apparently, even the hardening of the snow over night wasn’t enough to keep the 4-Runner from breaking through when the going was tougher on the uphill. Bob spent 10 hours today trying to get the 4-Runner up the hill back and back to the red-rock, Blue Jay Springs road, where he felt sure he could get out from then on. The process was tedious and took nearly super-human strength. For the entire day Bob placed 20-foot sections of thin Lodgepole pine trees that he’d cut in front of the tires so the truck would ride on them instead of the snow. When he’d get to the end of his mini-bridge he had to get out, drag 8 trees up the road through knee-deep snow, and get them in position again. He used 2 trees for each track. He never took a break other than to fill his one water bottle with snow to melt so he wouldn’t get dehydrated. He did have a few peanuts to eat but our friendly Gray Jays that live near the cabin found him and kept pestering him for snacks, which he shared. 

 

I hadn’t talked to Bob since the previous day and the plan was for him to get out early and be home well before noon. Bob had started the extraction process at 7 in the morning and I didn’t hear from him until just after 6 that night when he called from the cabin to tell me about his adventure. The car was a bit more than half way up the driveway but past the steepest part of the road so Bob went back to the cabin to spend another night with hopes of driving out tomorrow.  However, I was not sympathetic when he did call and tell me of his dramatic, exhausting day. In fact, I was on the phone with my Mom when he called, all in a panic about what I should do. I was pissed and overwrought because I’d been frantic with worry for the past several hours; and mildly concerned since noon.  I had finally concluded that there was no way he would be 6 to 8 hours late getting home without realizing he had to call.  Of course the only logical explanation for not calling was that he was dead; or worse, badly injured. If he’d been killed there was nothing I could have done about it anyway but at 6 PM the sun was resting on the horizon with dark just around the corner. I knew it would take me two hours to get to the snowed-in road where Bob would surely be. He had our four-wheel drive vehicle so I’d have to ski in with the deepening night and then what would I do if I found him injured.

 

Years ago I’d had a similar getting-stuck incident where my Honda car was making it in to the ranch riding on top of six inches of frozen snow. It broke through on the incline up Wild Horse Ridge and I spent 3-days digging it out. I’d had to ski back to the cabin each evening after a grueling 6-8 hours of work. On the final day, just as I got most of the snow out from the high-centered car, it suddenly settled hard to the ground. Unfortunately my arm was pinned from fingers to shoulder between the car’s undercarriage and the road.  It was a bitterly cold day and I knew I would freeze to death before midnight so I did calisthenics as best I could in a prone position to keep warm. After ten minutes my aerobic wiggling melted the last bit of snow enough for me to tug my arm out. To this day I am terrified by the experience and I know that I don’t want to freeze to death. I was lucky to get out of the situation alive and the pain of thawing numbness by the time I got back to the cabin was almost unbearable. Of course I envisioned Bob in the same circumstance so I figured I had to get to him before he died of hypothermia. 

 

Wouldn’t you know it, just as my Mom was agreeing with me that I should call Bob’s dad (a retired police officer and the one I figured would be the most calm and knowledgeable about making decisions: do we call hospitals, police, search and rescue, borrow a 4-wheel drive truck and attempt to find him ourselves?) Bob called to say he was fine, just tired. Why he didn’t bother to walk 30 minutes back to the cabin around noon when he knew I’d be starting to get worried, I can’t imagine. He said the round trip would have taken and hour and he knew he needed every minute of daylight to get out and he was hoping to get all the way to the paved road before dark where his cell phone would start working and then he could call. Of course I nearly cried with relief when I heard his voice, though I’ve never heard him sound so tired, then I got angry and just couldn’t talk any more. I told him he could just stay down there indefinitely for all I cared. But of course all of me does care.