Worst stuck recovery gear inspiration stories?!?!?

[RusherRacing]

My moms new Isuzu trooper stuck in a pond water right up to the doors, another 1/2" and I would have been done for.

Friends 3/4 truck wasn't enough, had to ask the farmer for help.. Never said a word to my folks but they found out about it years later when sitting around with them and some friends and the topic came up...

 

[MunkeyTX]

When I was a teen, I used to work at a car rental agency and we’d sometimes get off pretty late at night (12 AM – 2 AM) due to incoming flights being delayed, etc. I remember one night it was cold as balls, and I came home to an empty house with nothing available to eat (rephrase: nothing that would cure my munchies I ‘somehow’ developed on the drive home :ylsmoke: ). I had already undressed planning to sit on the couch and pig out…so when the idea of cruising on down to Taco Bell at 1 AM entered my cannabis fogged mind, it made excellent sense to leave immediately without getting dressed properly; I left the house wearing nothing but a t-shirt, socks, and boxers. :sombrero:

Somehow, the night’s top mission changed from Taco Bell to “LETS GO FOUR-WHEELING!!!” Winter, 2wd S-10, wearing my skivvies…not the best idea. :smilies27

I had my fun and come to a dead end trail, so I tried to turn around and ended up jamming the front tires into the tire ruts of the trail (trying to drive perpendicular across the two-track wasn’t the smartest idea). Rear tires just spinning on the dirt, no way to get out…in the winter…wearing my skivvies.

After what seemed like an eternity, and after passing through all seven of the stages of grief, I developed a plan to use the stock bottle jack to raise up one side of the truck, and ‘drive’ out with the jack underneath me. It worked like a friggin’ charm…until the jack kicked up underneath the truck, tore off a fuel line, and ended up getting jammed in the rear wheel well. Mission changed from Taco Bell, to “LETS GO FOUR-WHEELING”, to “Lets walk back 5 miles to the road…in the winter…in my skivvies.” :elkgrin:

 

[off-roader]

...nothing that would cure my munchies I ‘somehow’ developed on the drive home :ylsmoke: ).... Mission changed from Taco Bell, to “LETS GO FOUR-WHEELING”, to “Lets walk back 5 miles to the road…in the winter…in my skivvies.” :elkgrin:

I think your new mission more than ANY OTHER should be to avoid decisions while you have the 'munchies'.:elkgrin:

 

[Spikepretorius]

I think I might have posted my recovery wake-up call on this forum a while back already.
My motto has always been to carry a little as possible in the way of kit. I'm a lazy offroader. I also don't like the look of equipment bolted to the roof rack because so many posers go that route- jerry cans bolted on for the daily trip to the office etc- embarrassing.

When I started out I bought all hi-lift and the air jack and all the bells and whistles but never used any of it. So I ended up giving a lot of my stuff away to friends who were starting out.

So anyhoo, fast forward to my recovery wake up call. We were on a middle of the night SAR ops up a remote mountain in a blizzard. Being caught in blizzards are a once in a lifetime occurrence in my neck of the woods. I was in a three vehicle "hasty" convoy up the mountain to recce the situation and see how far vehicles could reach. We each had turns to nearly see our asses but my big one came when I hit some ice and my back wheels slid off the track and were dangling in air over the side of the mountain. A small bush had provided a smidgen of friction that was enough to stop me going over. My female paramedic passenger and I had to jump out and literally hold the truck from going over while we waited for the two drivers to finish with their own respective problems and get to me.

So I'm standing there on the side of the mountain with the back of my truck at my head height pushing against it to keep it in place, pitch dark with snow blowing horizontally past me, while my buddies figure out what to do. Where is my hi-lift? Nah I gave it away. Where is my recovery gear? In a steel crate in the far end of my truck, under a canopy filled chock-a-block with kit.

The result (short version): They scrambled back some distance to their vehicles and got kit and dug in the snow to find rocks to anchor to and got my truck winched sideways back onto the track.

The lesson: Always have your recovery gear in easy reach

The following week one of my "rescuers" gave me a hi-lift that he had spare and I now keep it, as well as a shovel, attached to my roofrack and I keep straps etc behind my drivers seat. I may never need them like that again but lesson learnt.

 

[TreeTopFlyer]

"Lesson Learned: When you've got a 2 week beard, an awesome hat and a cigar in your mouth, people expect you to be awesome. Do not disappoint. "

Hilarious!

 

[SChandler]

My girlfriend and I took my truck out to the Tillamook State Forest in late May/early June 2008. Just exploring and driving the logging roads, looking for "green" or "blue" trails that looked passable in my nearly stock Dodge W250 pickup. Winding our way up through the forest around 4 in the afternoon, we are starting to think about heading home, we've got an hour+ drive ahead of us to get her back to her place. We come around a corner on the road I was planning on taking out to Highway 6 and find it covered in snow. I stop, after making it through the first bit of snow, when we realize that the snow goes from patches on the road to continuous on the road and we're still climbing in elevation. Not wanting to get stuck, I start to back out to a spot I can turn around. I get a little too close to the shoulder and into the ditch and about 3' of snow the passenger side of the truck goes.

Okay, I grab the shovel and dig out the come-a-long and start shoveling snow. I get some of the snow from behind the tires, toss some fir branches in the holes, and try driving out. No go, the truck is going down, not backwards. Rocking the truck forward and back is packing the snow in front of and behind the tires. Driving out isn't happening. Stretch out the cable on the come-a-long and find out I'm about 20' short of reaching the closest tree. Hmm, that's not good. Did I mention we hadn't seen anyone all day long and we were outside cell service? Envisioning a long walk out, I decide to use the 30' snatch strap as a winch extension. I know you're not supposed to, but that's what I had available. So, after 3 hours of shoveling and winching my 6500lb truck 30' feet at a time with a come-a-long, I'm dreaming of an electric winch and a winch extension cable, because I sucked up about 5' or 10' of cable onto the come-a-long before the truck started moving, due to stretch in the snatch strap.

Lessons learned: Winch cable extensions are a good idea, even in the Pacific NW (I bought myself a 50' Amsteel Blue version not too long after this stuck), a second shovel would have been nice (so my girlfriend could have helped digging, she offered, I carry two shovels now), a come-a-long works, but takes lots of sweat and time to use, and half worn out AT's don't deal well with heavy, wet snow. Without the gear I had on me, we'd have been walking. Oh yeah, traveling partners need to have a sense of adventure, things went much better than they might have because my girlfriend had a good time about the stuck and looked at it as part of the fun. Yes, I did marry her.:elkgrin:

 

[NYCO]

not really "inspiring"

Description
Recovery of abandoned Subaru.

The driver of the Subaru was racing his car on Forest Service Roads outside of Blackhawk/Alice. He turned down a steep section of road and the trail became much more difficult. The first picture in the video shows what he went down. A few hundred feet up the trail he had hit a rock with his oil pan and punctured it. He then went around a rocky section via bypass and nose dived into a rock (visible in the fourth picture, middle left). At that point he abandoned his vehicle. Over the next 2-3 weeks his stereo and racing seats were stolen.

Members of Colorado4x4.org and CTP (Colorado Trail Patrol) caught wind of this idiots actions and captured evidence of his actions, reported it to the local ranger district & sheriff, and recovered the vehicle.

It was recovered downward instead of upward because the exit (going down) was only 1-2 miles long, as opposed to the ~12 miles on the drive in.

The spilled oil was cleaned up, trash/car debris removed, and the illegal bypasses blocked off.

http://www.staythetrail.org

 

[Nonimouse]

Many years ago me and a group of friends in two Auverland A3's and a 90 drove down to Southwestern France to compete in the Limousin 4x4 Trial (top 4x4 driving competion back in the dark ages), The 90 went down as a spectator but ended up as a marshal, burning out his 8274 motor in the process. After the Trial finished we were all due to make our way to a friends wedding in the Soule area of the Pyrenees. Said friend had given us a route that included a hundred miles or so of the more interesting routes in the mountains. We had five days...

Attempting a short cut (that wasn't on the route) we discovered that even the Pyrenees have bogs... No winch, three stuck vehicles, 30 miles from help (if you speak Basque). One Hi-lift, a PRT gorund anchor, some rope, a chain, three shovels, two waffle boards, 7 people, 4 days - less than one mile.

When we arrived at the friend's village they fair wet themselves laughing.

I got interested in fixing winches after that

 

[Antichrist]

The driver of the Subaru was racing his car on Forest Service Roads outside of Blackhawk/Alice. He turned down a steep section of road and the trail became much more difficult.

Well duh! He obviously needed a larger spoiler.

 

[Token]

Nuff said...

Oh yeah.. It was a rental I had after smacking a deer in my H3 one month into it's life..

 

[4x4x4doors]

Nuff said...


Oh yeah.. It was a rental I had after smacking a deer in my H3 one month into it's life..

You did buy the CDW insurance, right? I always heard the best off road vehicles were Wranglers and any kind of rental...:smiley_drive:

 

[esh]

This one was fun, though pretty managable with the help of a fellow club member. That is a really heavy trailer and ended up hanging out over a 20' drop. I anchored the trailer, moved the 4x4 tow rig out of the way, removed the foot, and pulled the trailer up with the Warn 8274 on the FJ45.

The worst one was out in the middle of nowhere in SE Oregon. I had accidentally wandered into a hidden creek and had no anchor points. I ended up cutting a few old fence posts and after about 20 jacks with a hilift, stacking the truck onto posts, Each post was progressively farther away, and the last one used was about 1/2 mile from the truck. It was about a 5 hour ordeal. I crawled (crawling was what ultimately got me traction) up out of the creek. I was certain it would be a walk to the ranger station many miles away. Probably 2 days walk to a paved road and 8 hours to a gravel road where I might have found help (out of season, not many travellers). I was prepared for it, but was a little worried about my dog making it if I had to ration water.

Toward the end of that one, from getting weary, I caught my upper lip with the hilift handle while letting the truck down.. just leaning over it stupidly. Luckily, it was just a good cut, and I immediately sterilized with alcohol wipes and iodine and applied a butterfly bandage (now I know about the miracle of steri-strips). I was worried about infection and monitored myself through the night thinking it was better to rest than try for a hospital a very long drive away in the middle of the night. Everything worked out well with just a scar remaining.

 

[Karma]

HI All,
My stuck was not dangerous. It was not remote. The weather was great. But I was definitely stuck. I was driving a canyon not far from home, about 10 miles away. It is very pretty, wooded with a small stream running through it. Not technical at all. There are picnic sites with a few people out enjoying a warm Sunday afternoon. I drive this route occasionally and know it well. I knew there was a gate that prevented travel to the upper reaches of the canyon. Well, this Sunday the gate was open. I had never been past the gate.

Curious, I headed up the canyon. About a half mile in, the sandy track I was on was closed in by trees but the other side of the stream was an open sandy beach and was the obvious way to continue. I had to cross the shallow stream. I scouted the best way across. It did not look difficult. On the other side was a sandy bank at about a 20 degree angle that was about 8 feet high then it flattened out to the beach beyond. There were no problems that I could see.

I shifted my Jeep Wrangler into four wheel high and took a run at the stream, gained a little speed so I could get up the bank, and crossed the stream. As I started up the bank, my Jeep came to a shuttering, rapid halt. Boom!! Stopped; about half way up the bank, wheels spinning.

What the hell!! I had no idea what had happened. I got out and looked under the Jeep and found a large river boulder tucked between the frame rails with the Jeep's drive shaft resting on the rock. The rock had been completely invisible covered with sand. It was not clear how to get out. The tree line was more than my 150 foot winch line would reach. I was considering burying my spare in the sand and using it to anchor my winch but I was not at all sure it would work. Digging the Jeep out directly was not a job I was ready for. About this time a pretty new pickup came down the beach and stopped. Could I connect my winch cable to your tow hook, I asked? No problem was the reply. So I did and my 8274 winch did its job and I was out.

Is there a lesson here? I don't know. If I had walked up the bank I probably would have felt the bolder under the sand. But, do we walk every inch of the way on our trips to find hidden traps? I don't, not usually unless I have a reason to do so. I honestly don't see a good solution that would have prevented my stuck. A longer winch line would have been nice and I now carry an extender.

Sparky

 

[ldivinag]

anyone familiar with hollister hills SVRA, there is this trail called FREMONTIA road that takes you up to the top.

well a friend and i decided to take it while it was raining. ok. it stopped raining when we started it and it was pouring before.

we are both prepped (lockers, recovery gear, plus years). so me in the lead. we get to the halfway point where it is GOO. clay goo. all i'm doing now is sliding sideways. sideways left. and to the left is well... down the side of a mountain in a bad way.

finally, when left rear tire is inches away dropping off, i decided it was done. out came the winch gear. buy now it is pouring. i cant winch forward as there aint no good tree within reach. plus the right side is like a wall of dirt, if you could imagine it. plus to the left is... well... a cliff.

about to the right of my 4runner up on that hill of dirt is a nice big tree. i never tried a right side pull before. but at this point, ruining a $900 winch is cheaper that rolling off the cliff and whole vehicle is toast.

i have a custom built front hitch, which i told my then family friend master welder, made bullet proof.

i spooled out the rope. then to the right side to the tree to a winch tree saver strap. that held the clevis. then the rope is attached to my rear bumper's hitch mount. so if you could imagine a triangular winch rope path.

slowly, i hit the winch control. it creeked. stopped. hit it again. slowly but surely i am moving sideways! i did the stop and pause for over a couple minutes.

after that, i peeked out my window to see the rear left tire is now a good 2 feet away and on real solid ground.

put my dual transfer case is super low-low and i proceed to reverse down, while still connected to the tree. i proceed to even pull right and lower myself to a point on the trail where i can turn around safely.

my friend and i never made it up to the top that day. we just went home and myself counting myself a very lucky guy.

all i have to prove this is on the winch's roller fairlead, the right vertical roller is very scratched up...

 

[BigSwede]

Nuff said...

Oh yeah.. It was a rental I had after smacking a deer in my H3 one month into it's life..

Wow! that puddle looks like it would be a foot deep at most...