Wednesday, April 1, 1998

Hank and I had installed my Warn XD9000 winch last week (thanks, Hank!), and yesterday (this was written on the morning of April 2) I bought two clevises, a tree-saver strap, and a HD snatch block at NSOR. Then I went to the yard (where Ed and I work), and Ed helped me spool out and nicely wrap the cable on the drum. Then we went to the Burger Heaven in Ladner for dinner (yum!).

Afterwards, Ed wanted to take his new (purchased last week) '88 4Runner 'wheeling. The night before, Hank mentioned taking his '98 Explorer (bodyshop courtesy vehicle!) out to Stave Lake. Now, I don't usually consider the easy dirt roads around Stave Lake to be a "real" 4wd experience (and most of them do not even require 4wd); however, read on... I remembered that there were no scratches or deep-liquid marks on the Explorer, and that it had been wearing factory street tires... so I figured that Ed's Dunlop all-terrain 50% tread 31" tires would do just fine. Stave Lake was nearby, and would provide an interesting diversion for a couple of hours.

So, at around 11:00 pm, Ed and I left my house in search of Stave Lake. We arrived at the west-side road after about 30 mins, and proceeded out along the nice, hard-packed, graded surface. After driving for a while, we came to a turn-off on the right hand side. It turned out to be a series of narrow roads wandering through bushes and trees, which we played in for a while, and put the first scratches in Ed's paint.

After exiting that area, we drove further, and found another turn-off. This led to a flat, muddy area (which we later realized was sometimes under water when Stave Lake was higher... hey, it was dark! Who knew!). We played around in this area for a bit, then decided to head back to the main road. Ed was leading. Then I heard "Uh-oh!" on the VHF. Sure enough, he had sunk his truck in about 2' of soft mud, and muddy water was rapidly filling the hole and his tire tracks. Hmm. We tried the forward-reverse trick. No go. I got out the Warn recovery chain, and tried to give him a tug back (NSOR was out of tug-ems yesterday!). No practical movement, and my tires were just packing up with mud and spinning.

Okay, no problem. I have a winch! Rather than pull him backwards through the muck, only to have him have to drive through it again, Ed wanted me to pull him out from the front. Sure. I started to drive around him... and suddenly had this sinking feeling! I stopped (bad move) and tried to back up. Yep, it was a mite deeper than it looked, and my passenger-side tires were buried, the truck listing at a strange angle to the right. I was immobilized. I stepped out of the truck, onto... mud... and continued going down. The mud promptly tried to suck off my boots as I lifted my feet out of the two holes. I looked at the front of the truck, and saw that the mud was up to the bottom of the ARB bumper on the passenger side. I had just enough room to get my hand underneath to access the winch clutch lever.

We spooled the cable out to the nearest tree (150' away; good thing I didn't have the factory 125' cable!), and used the tree saver and the chain to anchor it. When I got back to my truck, I saw it had noticeably sunk a bit further down. After putting some beach line over the cable to act as a damper in case the cable broke, and raising our hoods to protect our windshields (we were stuck side-by-side; would have made a great picture, but alas, no camera), I slowly winched myself out to hard-pack. Whew! The winch just paid for itself (bought used for $350!). I then turned around, and hooked up Ed's 4Runner. After winching for a few seconds, I had Rob stand on my brakes, as my truck was getting pulled in towards Ed's 4Runner, even though the tires were "blocked" with dunnage; the tires were pushing the dunnage along the ground. Finally pulled the 4Runner out. Reminded Ed to never go 'wheeling alone!

We drove back to the main road, and continued along. We checked out a few turn-offs along the way, finding a lot of campsites, and a work site of some sort. After many km's, we checked out Rocky Point Road, but turned around when we got the (open) gate with the "Access by permit only" sign. Back to the main road, which continued along and finally ended at a BC Hydro gate. However, just before the gate was a rougher road leading up... so off we went!

The hill was rocky and full of dips, but wasn't anything we couldn't easily handle. After a short climb, it ended at a campsite up a mountain. On the way back down, I observed that Ed's driver's-side front tire looked a bit low... so I told him to stop. Inspection of the tire proved my suspicion right; he had a flat!

Ed spent a couple of minutes looking around for the necessary tools to lower his undercarriage-mounted spare tire, and realized that he did not have the long rod and crank to manipulate the tire winch. Good thing I had mine! We lowered the spare, used my hammer to free it from the support (rusted a bit), and used my hydraulic floor jack and tire wrench to change the tire.

Up until that time, I was debating whether or not to carry two spare tires on the Easter trip... My mind is now made up! After that little escapade, it was an easy drive back to pavement, and I arrived home at 5:30 am. It was a fun intro to 'wheeling preparedness for Ed and Rob. Ed is now looking into buying mud tires.

Addendum: April 2 evening - Ed bought new tires today.

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