Missouri here. Just cornfields and cows, no mountain canyons.

But wifey and I road trip vacation quite a bit… and far.

What do they do with cars that run off road, and bottom out in VERY deep canyons.

I’m thinking that very scenic two lane roadway on each side of Silverton, Colorado… just as an example.

I’m thinking the VERY far down canyons.

Do authorities just leave them be?

Hoist them out somehow?

Helicopter?

I’ve often wondered about that when traveling the Rockies.

There are quite a few in the canyons in SoCal.
Not sure what the criteria would be for extracting them, but likely it would be suspicious deaths or celebrity status ?
I know of an old Mini that went over a cliff in Topanga Canyon in the '90s; it was extracted & sent to a salvage yard, but it wasn't more than a couple hundred feet down.
No celebrities or death in that one; just stolen. So likely insurance wanted it to determine method of entry or something.

it probably depends on the local authorities and their budgets for retreiving wrecks like that

There is a couple of people that have told me about a Rolls Royce in a ravine in the Flint Hills near a town called Matfield Green, KS.

Supposedly the guy was a businessman from Wichita drove up to a really pretty area up there and committed suicide.

Was told the car is picked over and, since they burn off that grassland every year, it's a rusted hulk.

California probably requires the vehicles to be recovered ASAP because of environmental concerns. I remember when I lived in Virginia and Tennessee that there were plenty of vehicles left where they laid after accidents, and some on purpose...

Though CA probably doesn't do anything with any kind of logic, I suspect the rest of the country it probably depends on how far down there it it is, and who is paying for the recovery. Can't imagine it would be cheap to drag something back up on the road surface if its 300' or more down the canyon. I'm guessing that unless there is a very good reason to drag it back p, if its more the 100' down there, it will probably become part of the landscape. With that said, its not beyond the thought of local scavengers picking it clean of anything worth selling in pretty short order. .

This spring a 90’s Jeep POS got stuck on a glacier up here …... A tow company was called in but the water was too deep to get it. So they called another recovery that had a helicopter at their disposal, I guess it’s a minimum $8000+ callout for the helicopter. So that’s one way

I'm pretty sure in the area of the "Million Dollar Highway" near Ouray, Colorado it wouldn't matter how far down the vehicle was it would be retrieved within a matter of days or a week at most. For a few reasons, one they would have to get down their for the victims, two because it's a big tourist area and who wants to look at trashed vehicles in a beautiful natural state or national park area. And three, $$$$$ and livelihood for the area towing and salvage businesses. I've ridden off-road motorcycles on charity rides over fifteen years in that area and we made it a point to NEVER leave so much as a cigarette butt out there so they are not going to leave a vehicle with gas, diesel, oil and scrap metal anywhere. I've ridden this trail dozens of times going to and from Lake City to Ouray and it will make even the bravest of people pucker their butts. These people made a deadly mistake and went down 110 feet to the bottom of the cliff and then rolled another 150 feet back in 2022 and yes they pulled it out of the canyon within days.


https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/ne...liff-killed-tour-driver-2-arizona-women/

Crossing the mountains between South Dakota and Wyoming on our way to Yellowstone I told the wife if we miss on some of these corners they won't even bother looking for us...lol! We were in a good car for that drive though...'18 Mustang GT convert. Big sticky tires and big brakes......handled it like a charm!

From "chicken" races like such....

If it's on Forest Service land, they have to be removed. One of the utilities I worked for was using a D4 Cat as a deadman and pulled it off the edge of an embankment and into a ravine. Ended up cutting it up with torches into pieces light enough to be hoisted out.

At the bottom of Kane Creek Trail in Moab, UT, there are some 1930s trucks at the bottom of the cliff that are pretty cool looking art pieces now.

If your Jeep goes over the cliff, your descendants or Insurance company must get it out.

You'd think with all the environmental issues these days theyd expect the owner and their insurance company to recover pretty much everything.

I've paid some pretty large tow bills to get vehicles out of some pretty tough spots.

We have left them, craned them and airlifted them out.

40-50 years ago a steep drop off in my town claimed a concrete truck. The barrel was cut loose and left when salvaged.

When I was a kid, we drove up Pikes Peak, CO. Back then most of the road was gravel and there would be 2-3 brake check stops on the way down. But, heading up I remember seeing all these crosses dedicated to folks that went over the edge and yes, I wondered what they did with the cars because most those drops were steep slopes that just kept going and going. That was back in the mid-70s. Never recalled seeing a car though.

years back we took a friends suggestion leaving Phoenix and took Hiway 60 out of Globe Az for a "scenic" shortcut. YEEHA!!!! mountain roads don't normally bother me but this was quite an experience. Seems the truckers like it as it saves them X amount of time. They also like to haul azz and use ALL of their one narrow lane and a bit of yours. Lot's of switchbacks and most areas have NO guardrails. But I'm sure it's a thrilling ride to the wherever the bottom is as in many areas there did not seem to be one. there were many areas that just flat went straight down to somewhere? let's not forget grandpa in his 80ft Airstream. At the bottom is the only rest stop. The toilets at that time had no bottoms and dumped straight down into the river 😲
My wife said at the rest area I am really glad that's over, I commented Uhh don't look but we have to repeat the process climbing back out 🤪. Finally got to a small town called Snowflake which was like an unspoiled Lake Tahoe. Smooth cruising from thereon. Did I mention My wife does not like heights or mountain roads WITH GUARDRAILS

Several years ago, either History or Discovery channel, filmed a documentary about a dangerous highway in California infamous for killing people. I remember the host would rappel to some of the wrecks to find out how long down there. Interesting.

After Hurricane Fran dropped down short lived tornados which knocked down huge circular areas of pine trees,
the Duke Forestry Department decided to use “sky crane” helicopters to remove logs
even though there were extensive one lane “fire roads” that could have been used the conventional way,
although those roads could have been “rutted out”
and/or daily forest trail walkers and their dogs would been excluded for awhile.

It made me think about pulling junk vehicles or trash out of mountain areas on other wilderness hikes far away.

Will we ever see cheap Li battery quad copter drones that maybe 2 / 4 or 6 a time can lift 200-400 lbs up and out short distances?
Booster helium or hydrogen balloons ?

I have a big back yard and am only 1.9 miles from two very large Amazon warehouses,
and only 0.3 mile from a new 16 door Amazon semi truck to van distribution building,
but no package has yet been RC drone landed here.

Russia claims they now have a nuclear powered cruise missile with unlimited range.
I guess that also means unlimited range nuclear quad copter drone.

USA had a nuclear airplane project long ago, and has nuclear heat thermocouple electrically powered space craft.

Duke Thermodynamics prof Dr Charles Harman had a framed blueprint drawing on his office wall of a 50 year life nuclear battery to be buried in a house back yard to power citizen houses. If you buried it under your driveway it would melt snow in winter.
Dr Harman would also tell the story about how as a grad student at the University of Chicago they would store uranium reactor fuel bricks in his office - as each brick “was only mildly radioactive.”