Success!

Operation Truck Retrieval was a success! Abe and Tim left at 4:20 am and did not get home until 3:30pm. But they made it home with the truck! The truck was intact and all forgotten items left in the truck were still there. Abe said the only tracks near the truck were that of deer and mountain lions. They were able to drive out with no problem! Getting in was a different story: (click on the picture to enlarge)

1. Tim's truck when they first arrived at "the Rim Road". Rim Road is an anxiety inducing, white knuckle causing mule mining trail from the 1800's that is barely wide enough for a vehicle. The forest service has it blocked except for a cattle guard that also is barely wide enough for a vehicle, but is a handy back way when the Verde River is too high to cross to get to the ranch (like now). However with this much snow, a very scary endeavor and caused much more work (like digging out Tim's truck 8 times and tree removal in picture #3)

2. There was so much snow on said scary Rim Road that they literally floated on the snow once they deflated their tires.

3. Aforementioned tree removal.

4. The surly truck retrieval duo.

5. See the fingers? That is literally the edge of the cliff! What you can't really see is the slide tracks from last week from every time Abe would hit the gas.

6. That is the drop that my dear husband and his truck opted to not go over last weekend. If you look closely you can make out to Tim just to the right of the truck to really grasp the scale of the drop!

That being said, we are glad the truck is back, and Abe is already in the works of upgrading the truck to prevent this kind of thing from happening again! And, we owe Tim big time!!!