I was unable to make the rescue party due to work. Michael had lots of help and they were ready to leave at about 3:00 pm. I was planning on leaving about 4-5:00 like stated before. I have talked to Michael and he wants to express his thanks for everyone who helped and coordinated.
Here is a post from his personal blog.
“un-Stuck
I guess the title says it all. The details are rather uneventful.
I was *not* going to go out there and not drive the truck home, so I enlisted about twice as much help as I probably should have, but just as much help as I felt I needed to take out there.
I had a bunch of neighbors in their big trucks come, I took out my Range Rover and the '53 Land-Rover, both have winches for recovery, and met two new friends from the Utah 4-wheel Drive Association out there near the vehicle.
There was a little digging to be done, some shuffling of gear from one side of the mucky riverbed to the other, and some vehicle manouvering (sp?).
We hooked up the Range Rover's winch to the rear of the CrewCab and started to pull the big truck out backwards. I drove it idling in reverse to help out. We got it out of the ruts and half-way pointed up the bank, then hooked another truck up with a strap to help turn it perpendicular to the slope (no roll-overs here...), and he started to tug gently. The towing truck just slowly spun his wheels, I slowly spun mine and the winch on the Range Rover pulled in slowly.
My transfer-case popped into neutral with a loud 'bang' which startled everyone and the truck halted. I guess the big pig was actually helping more than I thought. I popped it back in and we climbed right out.
A three-hour drive out to the truck, an hour of winching time and truck tidying-up, and then another four hours of getting home (we had a flat tire on one of the support trucks coming out), and we were all in bed by 1am.
Very un-dramatic, and I'm afraid somewhat anticlimactic for those who came out to help.
BUT, after 15 years of hell-raising rescues, flipped trucks, endless muck, broken parts, stuck recovery vehicles and all kinds of mayhem pulling trucks out of stuck places, I was not in the mood for this recovery to go poorly. Everything that could have gone wrong didn't, and everything that could have gone right did.
So, I'm grateful for an undramatic finish to the week's events, and thankful for all of the help, prayers, thoughts, well-wishes by everyone involved.
No pictures from me...the camera operator just focused and didn't actually make any exposures. I'll have to see if I can't get some other images from those who also took pictures.”
