Saturday Parker and Jim joined me for a trip into the Uinta's to fish the high mountain lakes. This is something we have wanted to do for sometime now and with the new ride we thought it would be a great trial to see how it would do. Long story short the fishing was great and the return home was not so good, more will be said in "the rest of the story" segment.
We loaded up and were at the unload area by 7:30 am. We were excited about the prospects of things to come. We headed out, the miles went by slow since the new ride would only go 6 - 8 MPH all the way up so almost two hours later we arrived at Lilly Lake and turned down the snow covered slope and onto the lake. Parker cut the holes only to find out the auger was almost to short to cut through hard deck. He buried it and we shoveled crust and slush out of the hole and he finished the hole and then cut two more. We were in 5 feet of water heavily stained and smelling bad. We fished here for about a half hour and left. As we made our way up the slope we almost didn't make it out due to the lack of power in the all-terrain, but we made it and turned west toward Trial lake. We turned up the road to Trial Lake and made our way to the banks of the lake again barely making it, this should have been a sign for us not to attempt what we did. We dropped off the bank and down into the lake basin we drove, leaving a shallow foot print. We got to the middle of the dam and Parker quickly hopped out and started cutting a hole. This time to find the crust about 6 inches thick and then a layer 10-12 inches of slush, another sign, and then the hard ice. This time he buried the auger and sunk it into the water along with him partially, another sign. He was going to cut another hole and I said no, fish that one if we get fish then we can look to cut two more.
He started fishing and I started the video camera. He had a hit in a couple minutes but missed it then another and another. He reeled in and baited his hook and sent back down with only the ice fly on it this time. Seconds later he had the first fish on line and reeling it in. A couple pics and release and baited the hook and sent it back down, this time Jimmy took the pole, it took a few minutes for them to return but Jimmy got one online and topped it out, again a couple pics and return. This kept going for the remainder of the time we stayed. We caught 12 fish in a matter of 40 minutes. The Trifecta was made on the forth fish landed, we had decked a rainbow, arctic grayling, and a tiger trout in a matter of minutes we caught another 3 graylings and tiger trout and few more rainbow.
By this time I knew we had to get off the lake to get Parker home in time for work. We loaded up and took off. It was a great morning of fishing and we had a blast!!
"The Rest of The Story"
As we left the fishing hole I started to turn the all-terrain and felt it dig in and start to sink to one side. I quickly corrected and drove a little farther across the lake and tried again only to feel it start to dig in, so I went for the opposite side of the lake and hard land. Starting up the small incline we lost power but we didn't sink and made the turn to get back across the lake. We made it across the lake without incident. We started back up the bank we came in on to return to the trail and that's when disaster struck. As I turned the rig to go up the trail it dug in and sunk before I could make any corrections. It sunk up to the door frame of the rig and high centered in the lake slush. Parker jumps out and immediately sinks up to his waist in lake slush. I try to reverse out of the mess only to get hung up on the sled with our gear in it, and dig in deeper to the driver side. The tracks on the driver side were completely submerged we tried desperately to free the sled and to try twist and turn the rig to free it only to dig in deeper and break the sled. Jimmy decided he better go look for help and started crawling up the bank, because when he stood up he sunk up to his waist in the crusty snow. So he crawled to the top, saying a prayer along the way for help. Parker continued to try and free the sled but by now his legs were numb from the freezing water and he was soaked through. As Jimmy neared the top of the hill we heard snowmobiles crest the top.
Yes! We had some help or at least a ride out to the truck if nothing else. They were great Samaritans and helped us with everything. We used one of the snowmobiles as an anchor and tied off to it with the winch cable. We started to pull it out and made about three feet of head room and then the cable cut the rear bumper in half on the snowmobile. Luckily it didn't hit anyone or go through the windshield of the rig. However we made enough head room that the tracks were free of the icy tomb they were buried in. Parker was frozen by now and Jimmy was very close to the same point, but he came in and continued to dig out the front of the rig. When we felt we had enough of it dug out we put the lightest person there in the driver seat, one of the wives that were with the snowmobiles, and I told her to start inching forward not to spin a track and keep it going and don't stop. She did just that and it worked, we freed the rig from it's tomb of slush.
She drove it up on to the flat and now we had to figure out how to get the sled with our gear back together and hooked up. We got that done and headed up the bank only to get stuck again due to not having enough power to go up the last 5 feet of pitch. We unloaded everything and Parker got in and "punched it" it barely crawled up the last five feet. We hooked the winch to the sled and drug it up the slope and tied it back together the best we could and hooked it up. We THANKED our savers and headed for the truck. Parker and Jimmy were both showing signs of hypothermia and couldn't feel their legs or feet. Luckily the one thing the rig did do was heat up the cab quickly. We headed down Mirror Lake Highway only to have our sled completely disintegrate on the way down. We took the pieces and strapped them to the rig and loaded everything in the back and Jimmy held on to them the rest of the way out. Thankfully it was only a couple miles. We made it back to the truck at 4:00 pm. It took us three hours to dig out and get back to the truck, it was little faster going down hill. Our savers arrived just a couple minutes after us and we thanked them again. We paid for the damages on the snowmobile and offered to pay them, but they refused and said the service was great for them. Had not the one driver wanted to return to Trial Lake to see his grandparents cabin they would not have been there to help us and felt that they were guided there to help us out, We believe the same thing.
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