Meant to write earlier to share my Memorial Day weekend tale,
but been too busy. Anyway, I went camping up in Utah to a
series of small man-made lakes in the Fishlake National Forest.
We set up camp at one of the middle ones at about 9000 feet
elevation. Fishing there wasn't so good, so my buddy who had
been to this area before, suggested we go to the furthest lake
up the road which also happened to be at over 10,000 feet. At
about the midway point we started seeing patches of leftover
snow drifts. It wasn't long before we came around a corner to
find three different vehicles parked in the way. Up ahead a
full-size Chevy 4x4 was getting pulled from a two foot deep snow
drift in the road. As I was waiting for my turn at the drift a
lady came up to me and said that the only vehicle to make it so
far was some "huge, jacked up Ford" and said something to the
effect that I better go fast to make it. I got out and looked
at the drift and it didn't look too bad to me. I backed up,
stuck the transfer case in 4lo, started out in second, shifted
to third 10 feet before the snow patch and gunned her. Flew
through with no problemo at all! It was pretty cool seeing snow
flying up off my tires and I even got some cheers from the small
audience.
My buddy thought that was the worst of all the drifts (as he had
ridden his mountain bike up the road the day before) and as we
continued on it looked like we was right. Soon we saw a small
sign indicating our destination was just up ahead. One problem,
though . . . there was one last drift and this one was
bigger/deeper than all of them. Still, I was feeling confident
in my Dak since it had sliced through all the rest of the snow
drifts like a proverbial hot knife through butter. So I made my
first mistake by not stopping and looking at the drift. I then
made my second mistake by not carrying enough speed before
hitting the drift. The only set of tracks in the drift was
certainly made by a fullsize and they we're "dog-legged"
indicating whoever it was had gotten sideways a bit halfway
through. Well, the combination of not traveling fast enough and
hitting the crooked tracks brought my Dak to a stop smack dab in
the middle of the twenty foot long drift.
I felt ridiculuous because the lake was only about a quarter
mile away--I could have stopped right there and we could have
walked. Well, you know what they say about hindsight. Anyway,
I tried to get out of the truck to survey the situation and I
couldn't get my door open. The drift was above the lower edge
my door preventing me from opening it! So I had to pull my self
out "Dukes of Hazard" style through the window. I dumbly
stepped onto the top of the drift and immediately sunk up to mid
thigh, filling my hiking boots with snow. Meanwhile, my buddy
had gotten out with no problem and let my wife out of the
extended cab. She promptly made the same mistake I did
wandering too far away from the truck and stepping into about
three feet worth of snow; she got it worse though, as the
unexpected drop sent her cartwheeling headlong into the snow.
I'm sure it would have been quite comical to any bystanders. As
it was, though, we were all alone and unfortunately, unprepared.
I usually always carry a shovel with me. This time, however, I
had neglected to pack it and only had one of those small camp
type shovels. We also had a frisbee, two pots, and a shower rod
I use to keep small loads from shifting in the back of the
truck. We used all of these "tools" to slowly dig the truck out
of the snow. I had done a bang-up job of getting her stuck, as
the entire underside of the truck was resting on snow . . . both
axles and skid plates--couldn't see a lick of daylight from one
side to the other. After probably more than an hour and a
couple failed attempts, we finally had the entire underside
clear of snow. We dug down in front of each tire, threw some
good size rocks in and some soil on top of those for good
measure, and I climbed in the truck for what I hoped would be
the final try. I put her in 4lo again, started slowly in
second, and felt what I was hoping for . . . she crept forward
on top of the rocks and soil we put down and I gunned her, as I
knew we hadn't dug down far enough underneath to keep the rear
diff from dragging. Fortunately, the rocks/soil provided me
just enough traction to blast out of there to cheers from my
buddy and wife. Boy were we totally elated!
Of course, no sooner had I backed the truck up to the lake (a
tailgate makes a great place to bait up) than two other vehicles
came down the road to the lake. Typical . . . made me want to
exact a "fish tax" on everyone who made it to the lake because
of our labor. Thankfully it was all worth it, as the fishing
was excellent--we limited out and we're tossing them back by the
end of the day--and we had a cooler full of beer so we we're
tossing those back too. ;) All in all it was a good day, but
its certainly the last time I do any off-roading at all without
my shovel.
As an aside, I have to give big props to my wife as she handled
the whole thing like a trooper. She didn't complain and wasn't
even upset in the least. In fact she dug as much or more than
my buddy and I, never stopping to warm up. For all her hard
work, she was rewarded with a nice sunburn on the face from the
reflection off the snow. She was definitely more pissed at me
come Monday about that than digging the truck out. I told her
that if I had a winch we wouldn't have had any troubles, but I
bet you know how she responded to that. ;)
Wheel on!
Jason
Las Vegas, NV
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