Yesterday, I get The Call, a flying buddy is stuck on a narrow ridge top, it seems he thought he could land it on his Airstreaks, he couldn't. Many feet deep snow, but somewhat compacted by snowmachines, he landed it OK but couldn't move it around to take off. He was wearing tennis shoes, (wet, and no heavy spare socks, I carry 2 pair always) no water, no shovel, no nothing. 8,000' and about 2 hours before sundown, so I saddled up and flew the 7 miles to find that this years record snow levels made this heretofore unlandable ridge, landable. Been seeing a lot of that this year, NEW sites, thanks to all the snow.
The landing was a bit tricky as his plane was in the way, and there was a swale, a downslope, and an upslope that complicated things. I landed it on the third pass, after getting a feel for things, ending up on the upper narrow end of the ridge, with super steep drop offs on each side. No problem but not enough width to get it turned around downhill without getting scary close to the cornice. So I stopped sideways, and an hour later after getting him tied down for the night, using my tie down ropes and buried snowshoes, we went back up to my plane and found the skis froze down. Due to the limited room I didn't do my usual, stop start stop before shutting down. A simple kick on the skis broke them loose, and then we incrementally and carefully turned it downhill (after explaining to him, it's not like ground ops, we didn't want to bend the gear/torque much on it) we walked it down to the swale, got in and fired up, and then blasted up the swale and hit the slight down slope section. I had about 4' from my right wingtip to his spinner, and 2' from some protruding rocks I needed to miss, having carefully walked the takeoff before so no surprise. Going about 30 by the time we went thru the gauntlet, then the ridge dropped away at a 60 degree angle so no problem getting off.
He's getting a ride up this morning on a snow machine, and the slightly freezing overnight temps plus our tramping and packing we did should firm things up. He has about 50' or so before he gets to the 60 degree falloff, which I assured him would not be an issue as long as he kept the nose down as he goes over it, didn't stall off it. He's done steep off airport before, but nothing quite so steep. I told him the steeper the better, since I'm an old hang glider pilot. The tendency can be to pull back on the stick as you near the drop off, that is the wrong move! I can't help today, or watch, have to work, but this will all of course be on video, my rescue plus his takeoff.