Buried My 4×4 To The Axles/Frame
This was quite a number of years ago fishing at Coogler’s Hole. If you know where Coogler’s Hole is, “Shhhh… keep it to yourself.” If you don’t well, you gotta be invited. It don’t look like much on the map or even on aerial photography.
I grew up in the desert, so getting stuck was just something that happened. You got yourself out or you had a long walk home, and the more off-road capable your vehicle the further you had to walk to find a tractor.
I had a fishing buddy some years ago that I’d taken to a few pretty good spots that were hard to get to, and one day he decided to share one of his with me. On the way in it was no big deal, but on the way out, we had to go uphill back over a fairly large sand hill. I was running my big Silverado with thirty seven – eleven seven tires. I figured if we drove in we could drive out and I just got up a little bit of speed before we hit that sandhill and buried it to the axles front and rear instantaneously.
First time I’d ever been stuck going anywhere with him. He bailed out of the truck quick. I’ve had less experienced passengers laugh, mock, and express fear or sometimes anger. Others want to look like an expert and give me all kinds of stupid advice. He did none of those things. He walked all the way around the truck looking at it by the time I got out of the truck. Then he walked right up to me, looked me in the eye and asked, “Okay. What’s the plan?”
That was a huge relief. Worst part about getting stuck. Is usually dealing with whatever drama your passenger wants to dream up. We did what I always do in situations like that. Jack the truck up and filled in the holes all the way around. Drop the tire pressure down to between 10 and 12PSI and drove right out. When we got to the hard road I stopped and aired up all the tires.
FYI: Here is a story telling how capable was that big Silverado: Bob’s Off Road Recovery – Sorry, No T-Shirt
Today I run a big Ford Super Duty 4 x 4, and its still new enough that I haven’t done anything yet to make it more offroad capable. Not even tires. I had a Jeep for a while, but I haven’t found what I want to replace it with since I sold it. Just the big Ford. It’s not going to be a rescue vehicle any time soon.