When you get stuck

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Tom

Tom

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Echoing a caveat made elsewhere by Betty Brewer, it's probably smart not to wander too far offroad on unfamiliar trails without a buddy vehicle to help get you &/or your vehicle out in the event you get stuck.

When we were at the visitor center at Capitol Reef with Chris and Mimi Pennings a few years ago, a young couple had walked (staggered) in asking for help. They were on vacation from Europe, hired a Jeep, and took off to explore trails they were unfamiliar with. They'd got stuck, slept in the Jeep overnight, and hiked out in the morning. Chris offered to go in and tow them out, but the Ranger had already called a tow truck, which turned up shortly afterwards.
 
Another 'got stuck' story ....

Back the 80's we were in a friend's full size pickup roaming around NFS trails when we came across some young guys with their Toyota 4x4 buried in mud up to the axles. These kids had decided to drive around on a 'dry' lake bed, but it wasn't quite dry.

Our friend hooked up a tow strap to his pickup and attempted to pull them out, but soon found himself stuck.

We hiked back to the campground, loaded some long tow straps and a cumalong into our Bronco, and drove back to the lake. A couple of guys walking by with beers in hand stopped, laughed, and said "you'll never pull them out with that Bronco and city tires". I made sure the Bronco was on dry shore (not on the lake bed), hooked up the long tow straps, and proceeded to pull our friend's truck, then the Toyota out of trouble.

I suspect that the Toyota could have been any one of us in a moment of lacking thought before proceeding.
 
Ooh - great topic Tom!

There was a long thread on one of the 4x4 forums (I need to find that thread) about a handicapped guy (I don't remember what the impairment was) that ran a mountain trail in Colorado in the late fall with snow on the ground (at a high altitude), missed the trail and was a few feet from a very nasty life-ending event before he stopped. 

Somehow he (not the vehicle) got out - probably somebody else on the trail gave him a ride.  Not possible to recover the vehicle due to snow.  The vehicle sat their from November (?) through late April, maybe early May (?).  There was a recovery team put together that carted a new battery up to the vehicle, installed it, and started it right up.  Everybody was amazed since the vehicle had a) sat in the very cold temps for a few months, and b) nobody vandalized it.
 
Recently our IH Scout club was on a run and found a couple with a new Jeep Wrangler stuck.  They didn't know how to put it in 4 wheel drive.  ???
 
A favorite prank was to unlock one hub just before the vict I mean club member had to cross a stream then climb the bank. ;D
 
It was July 16, 2011.  We were on forest roads heading up to a look out tower in Northern Idaho. We had the usual  picnic lunch on board.  Friends who wheel with us in Yuma had driven up from Washington for a day trip.  Terry decided to master the snow in the road and Gus decided  he would follow.  Good thing for CB radios on board as we got a call he needed a tow.  Terry got a chance to use his new tow strap!  Never ever wheel alone in the snow.
 

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We got stuck in very, very loose sand in the wash at Quartzsite. An ATV tried to pull us out and was getting it done but very, very slowly. A Jeep pulled up, hooked up their tow strap and, voila, pulled us right out.

Wendy
 
While RVing in Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park just east of Crescent City, CA we were out doing a little Jeepin'.

We took the scenic, 10 mile, narrow, unpaved Howland Hill Road drive. It is not a difficult road and can be driven by passenger cars but it had been raining quite a bit and the road was muddy. As we are cruising along, we noticed a traffic jam ahead and we were quickly motioned to the front of the line. We instantly thought all these goofs had stopped to take pictures of a deer or other wildlife when we realized they were pointing at our Jeep?s Warn winch. As we got to the front of the jam we saw that a sightseer had pulled her truck over too far on the roadside (unknown reason) and the passenger rear wheel had slipped over the muddy side. The truck was leaning precariously over the embankment and the rear passenger drive wheel was spinning and smoking impotently. It seems with the dozen vehicles all stopping and watching to see if the truck would slip further over the side ? none of them had any means to help the driver. When they saw Blue Rubi coming they knew the rescuer had arrived. We quickly realized that using Blue Rubi?s tow strap from our bumper hitch to pull the truck out would be the better route than using the Warn winch (better designed to pull Blue Rubi out of a mess). With very little effort (and 4 wheel drive) we and the Blue Rubi pulled the truck to safety and everyone had a good story to tell for the evening?s campfire.

(The preceding paragraph was taken from the DW travel blog, http://www.mytripjournal.com/RVnChick2010)
 
I've only had to use our winch one time to free us (we were doing some hard-core rock crawling at Clayton, OK) - we got high-centered on a boulder and couldn't move, and then on the same run I used our winch, a snatch block, and a two tow strap to move a huge boulder to free up a TJ that broke a front drive shaft.  There was no way he could move up the rocks in 2wd or even back up.

He had a nice rig - I think he was on 40s.  The front drive shaft was brand new and built by a local (to him) drive shaft shop who proudly told him "there's no way you will break this..."
 
SargeW said:
While RVing in Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park just east of Crescent City, CA we were out doing a little Jeepin'.

We took the scenic, 10 mile, narrow, unpaved Howland Hill Road drive. It is not a difficult road and can be driven by passenger cars but it had been raining quite a bit and the road was muddy. As we are cruising along, we noticed a traffic jam ahead and we were quickly motioned to the front of the line. We instantly thought all these goofs had stopped to take pictures of a deer or other wildlife when we realized they were pointing at our Jeep?s Warn winch. As we got to the front of the jam we saw that a sightseer had pulled her truck over too far on the roadside (unknown reason) and the passenger rear wheel had slipped over the muddy side. The truck was leaning precariously over the embankment and the rear passenger drive wheel was spinning and smoking impotently. It seems with the dozen vehicles all stopping and watching to see if the truck would slip further over the side ? none of them had any means to help the driver. When they saw Blue Rubi coming they knew the rescuer had arrived. We quickly realized that using Blue Rubi?s tow strap from our bumper hitch to pull the truck out would be the better route than using the Warn winch (better designed to pull Blue Rubi out of a mess). With very little effort (and 4 wheel drive) we and the Blue Rubi pulled the truck to safety and everyone had a good story to tell for the evening?s campfire.

(The preceding paragraph was taken from the DW travel blog, http://www.mytripjournal.com/RVnChick2010)
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Be careful doin that Sarge.  Never forget the laws of physics.  Just recently on network news a "Big Rig Tow Truck" hooked up to another big rig that was sliding off the road and down the mountain.  When the tow trk started pulling him , guess what?  He slid farther down the mountain, rolling several times taking the tow truck with him. The tow truck driver was able to jump off but the other driver was seriously injured.
  This is not what I saw on the news but certainly shows how it can happen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEzABU5LnjE
 
zzyzx said:
I thought the entire reason to go four wheeling was to get stuck ;D
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much better to almost get stuck, then at the last moment, with exquisite skill and equipment, find a way to make it through... then get an undeserved "boobie" award from Betty.  If you actually get stuck, you have to buy all the beer at HH as a reward for the people who were kind enough to rescue you.    8)
 
max49 said:
Be careful doin that Sarge.  Never forget the laws of physics.
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Absolutely. If there was a chance of being pulled over I would have anchored myself to a tree or at least another vehicle first.  Always prepare for the unexpected.
 
zzyzx said:
I thought the entire reason to go four wheeling was to get stuck ;D
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I think that may be the case for younger people just playing in the mud.        For me out here in the west, I 4 wheel to see so much more than u will ever see from a paved road. If I have to to go through challenging stuff to get there,  that's good and the reason why where we are going is not packed with tourists.
 
2 stories from the late 80's - my college days.

Was out wheeling in my S10 Blazer and my buddy's S10 pickup in the winter on another friend's farm land. Came across a small frozen stream that we crossed several times. Last time I crossed my front tires broke through. I had unwittingly crossed in the exact spot a tractor crossed a few days before. He had broken through when he crossed but fresh snow and a very thin film of ice covered the evidence! The skid plate stopped on top of the ice so my front tires are now hanging in the water and useless. The S10 pickup could not pull me out since I was at about a 30 degree down slope. Had to get the farmer and his tractor.

Same 2 vehicles out one spring and came across 2 stuck trucks and 4 guys up to their knees in mud. One got stuck in the mud and the 2nd one pulled in too far and got stuck trying to pull him out. We stayed on dry land, tossed in a tow rope and pulled both trucks out. Best part was they were a rival fraternity and we were all "wearing our letters" so they knew exactly who saved them. Too bad there was no such thing as YouTube back then!
 
good to throw an old  jack all in your vehicle if you jack around in the wild- you can topple a vehicle out of a lot of fixes by jacking up and kicking the whole shebang sideways lol
but be carefull!
j
 
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