Getting the excavator back?

The old town of Park City is cradled into a canyon, and not only is its Main Street quite steep, but many of its side streets have nothing to envy San Francisco's extreme grades.

Case in point is Ontario Avenue (we almost bought a house there). It overlooks the city, the slopes and faces south, but its street looks like the finish schuss in a ski downhill race and, over the years, it has spelled all kinds of trouble to a great many number of automobiles, even the ones outfitted with the best all-wheel-drive technology money could buy.

Today, a local excavating company is digging the foundations for a house that will hang on a downhill lot with no egress in its lower portion. Yesterday, as I was visiting a convalescing friend, I saw a big Hitachi excavator on top of the street and another fairly big one, apparently stuck 70 vertical feet below.

The normal question that came to my mind was “will they ever be able to bring that heavy machinery back up?” The excavator was on site and I voiced my concern to him. He answered “Don't know either... We'll have to pull it up somehow!” This show that no matter how stuck down ponderous earth-moving equipment can be, levity is a flowing currency in Park City