Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Guess who's back...

...SUBIE'S BACK!! That's right, we brought the little snow warrior home yesterday .

So, how exactly do you get a car out of a mile long stretch of 2-3 feet of snow? An expensive tow bill? No. Some heavy duty offroad equipment? No, doesn't work either. A few select individuals expressing their negative attitude about the situation? Nope..., no..., definitely didn't do it!

All it took was a few determined people, a few snow shovels and some (albeit little) help from Mother Nature. Our first attempt came the last two days of the year. Temps were frigid (about 14-17F) but we had to give it a shot. Day one went relatively well and the sun exposed upper section of the road was in our favor; we managed to get the car down about 0.35-0.4mi.
Day two was tough; we were now in the more shaded areas and had to deal with deep unconsolidated powder and some hard icy snow in the middle; a bad combo for clearance on the car. In the early afternoon, we had made little progress and the morale was down a bit when we realized we couldn't get it down that day. We warmed up in the car, re-energized and moved the car a bit further down so it was in a safe spot away from rockfall and decided to come back. We probably only moved it 0.15mi orso that day. Time to head home and ring in the New Year.
Yesterday, we came back determined to get it home. The snow still wasn't very consolidated but less deep, so it was looking good. Then, we ran into Dave, Doug and John (members on the forum here) who were hiking up the road and were rather excited to offer their help . With this extra manpower, we had the car down the rest of the way in roughly 2 hours!

All in all, a little determination and team work got the job done. We actually had a few good laughs along the way and met a bunch of great people offering their help through a push, some shoveling or just some moral support (thank you so much everyone!!!). A few pics and vids can be found below.

Moral of the story: when sh*t hits the fan, go clean it up!!

Yours truly,
The Master Shoveler team - where snow meets its match

The Master Shovelers being enthusiastic on the first day (one member being behind the camera)


Breaking it loose (vid)


The final and by far longest run! (vid)


Furious victory pose


Great success!

well done, nice victory pose.

so was the sign up when they went past???????????????????????????

Awesome work! A lot of determination and a story for years!

Your Videos are hilarious!! Congrats on beating the odds. A week or so before your Subie got stuck, I tried to get to the portal and failed. The ice was to much for my nerves at 2 in the morning.

I see a big hollywood feature being made about this. "Saving Stuck Subie".

The exhilirating story of several brave souls who were challenged by mother nature's fury while trying to save their trusty four wheeled friend "Subie".

Subie should be played by Herbie the Love Bug.

Luciano will be played by Vin Diesel

And it will have a happy ending.

I honestly don't think it would've made it down without the encouraging yelling :-) ! Even Doug's amazing Jeep with 40s on it, couldn't make it up the road; apparently icy terrain isn't easy to overcome going uphill.

And Tom, that plot is awesome!!! LOL

Awesome!! Congrats on freeing the Subie!

Been watching this saga unfold. More interesting than reality TV. Nice to have a happy ending!

Thanks for the beer guys, it was quite refreshing after our snow-shoe up to Portal after the dig out.
Dave

Just epic, luciano! Congrats on a really determined rescue effort!

"The difficult we do right away - the impossible just takes a little longer" . . .

Congrats on getting the Subie out. Your hard work paid off.

Nice work. Great pictures. That is a story that you will be telling for the ages.

As a fellow Subie owner (white '06 Outback nicknamed "Snowflake"), congrats on getting the Forester out before it got buried until the spring thaw.

You really ought to write this up and send it to the Subaru "Drive" magazine. It's the sort of story they like to publish.

Yay! Nice work on the Roo rescue! I love my little 'Roo. Sure would miss it if it were left on the portal road for any length of time!!! Love the photos!!

Man, my back hurts just thinking about having to do that. Great job. Pics are HI-Larious..

Hey
It was good to meet you guys and we were glad to help out.
I kept looking at the jeep's front tire as I was coming down and was wondering what's sitting on the tire? BEER!
The beer was great too!! Thank you.
See you in the mountains.
Take care.

Great success story. You guys did an awesome job and are true friends to little Subie. Is Subie now hiding in the garage, and does she get an up or down vote before the next trip? What's her next adventure?

I was one of the ones who thought the Subbie might be there all winter. Well, maybe not, but a lot longer than it did.

Glad you proved me wrong.

That's one amazing effort your team put in. Sorry I missed out on the fun of throwing a little snow out of the way. (Last week you headed up after I did and finished before I got down. This weekend, I spent a bit of time doubled over losing my breakfast and most of the weekend in bed.)