Yep, that sort of **** is far more than I'd attempt with anything.
Well, you kind of missed the warning in there, maybe I should explain further.
I wasn't looking to get stuck there. I was not on some gnarly 4x4 trail. It was a fairly smooth gravel and dirt 2-track forest road. It was a good day, I was having a ball and had been on several trails that presented little challenge other than some weed overgrowth and shallow mud.
It was the first questionable puddle I came to and I thought I could squeeze by it. I pushed forward some, then seeing more ahead made the decision that what lie beyond wasn't worth it, and started to back up. That is when I slipped off the high ground and into the muck.
Your will to press forward is powerful. You don't want to stop just because one slight obstacle lie in your path after miles of uneventful road. You want to believe that if you can just get by this one spot that miles more decent road lie ahead, and what a shame it would be to loose your progress because of one little thing.
The lesson I learned with my Escape is that while I wanted to believe it was capable, it was junk. I liked my Escape, I really did, and I thought I could take it lots of places. I did not really learn this and grasp the scale of it until
after I owned a more capable vehicle and realized that what I'd have to pucker up on in the Escape wasn't even enough to raise concern in a real 4x4.
With my Xterra I'm presented with the same situation, but now it usually comes down to the road becomes too scary for me as opposed to the vehicle not being able to handle it. When I'm getting into stuff the Xterra can't handle I'm already loosing my nerve and more than happy to retreat. That makes making the call easier. Plus, equipped with real recovery points and a winch to self extract, if I do misjudge a road, I'm in a much better situation to fix it.
I'm not knocking exploring in a 2wd or less capable vehicles off pavement. I'm all for it, I've done it, I enjoyed it, and it's a noble pursuit. Just don't forget that you might get more than you bargained for in a hurry, you have to be twice as sharp and 10x more careful than a properly set up rig, and you run a higher risk of getting into a mess you can't get out of. You also get disappointed more often because your adventure ends early if you are prudent enough to know when to call it.