asutherland
VA7 HDT
A guy I know was stuck (badly) in the snow out Jordan River on one of the mains. It was bad... ~3 feet wet crusty snow. He had made 3 attempts with friends (lifted dodges, ford excursion etc) to get him out, but they couldn't even make it close to where he was. He wasn't in a ditch or anything, just off the side of the road and in a drift.
He was worried about it getting torched or vandalized etc... or it getting snowed in more. He wasn't up there far, but the snow conditions were terrible. Not your fluffy white stuff... really heavy, really solid and full of rain.
Cam and I met at Sooke McDonalds at about 8:30. Then I got a call from my buddy Chris, he wanted to lend a hand. So we ate breakfast and waited for him to show.
About 9:30 we picked up Adam from his house in Sooke. He was the owner of the 97??? something Jeep. He was waiting on the side of the street in his hi-vis jacket and pants with 2 shovels in hand.
We made it out to JR and took the mainline up. About 5 or 10 minutes in, I asked Adam... "So how far up here are you?" He answered with "A few KMs... not far". To which my response was... "Where is the snow???"
Sure enough we climbed elevation suddenly and came across snow. Since he had said it was bad, the 4 of us in the 3 vehicles stopped, aired down and I chained up the Fat Lady.
The snow got much worse as we got further up the road. After only a few hundred meters we came across Adams work buddies' empty truck, who were to meet us out there that morning. Lifted Ford Excursion: no luck.
About another KM later we came across their quad, abandoned. Foot prints left the scene, going further down the road.
If we kept idle speed, and didn't look at the snow crust the wrong way, we could float along the top 6-8 inches without problem. But, look at it the wrong way and you'd sink the remainder of the way down and literally high center yourself on the belly of the vehicle. This happened a few times. Adam got used to his position as "winch wench"
After nearly 3 hours we came across Adam's Jeep and his work friends attempting to dig it out.
We thought, no problem right? Nice light Grand Cherokee, 8,000lbs winch... some snow... ok let's do this. Well, no. The winch didn't move his truck. So we doubled it up using my snatch block. That only proceeded in dragging the chained 6,700lbs Cruiser forward with the brakes down.
He was worried about it getting torched or vandalized etc... or it getting snowed in more. He wasn't up there far, but the snow conditions were terrible. Not your fluffy white stuff... really heavy, really solid and full of rain.
Cam and I met at Sooke McDonalds at about 8:30. Then I got a call from my buddy Chris, he wanted to lend a hand. So we ate breakfast and waited for him to show.
About 9:30 we picked up Adam from his house in Sooke. He was the owner of the 97??? something Jeep. He was waiting on the side of the street in his hi-vis jacket and pants with 2 shovels in hand.
We made it out to JR and took the mainline up. About 5 or 10 minutes in, I asked Adam... "So how far up here are you?" He answered with "A few KMs... not far". To which my response was... "Where is the snow???"
Sure enough we climbed elevation suddenly and came across snow. Since he had said it was bad, the 4 of us in the 3 vehicles stopped, aired down and I chained up the Fat Lady.
The snow got much worse as we got further up the road. After only a few hundred meters we came across Adams work buddies' empty truck, who were to meet us out there that morning. Lifted Ford Excursion: no luck.
About another KM later we came across their quad, abandoned. Foot prints left the scene, going further down the road.
If we kept idle speed, and didn't look at the snow crust the wrong way, we could float along the top 6-8 inches without problem. But, look at it the wrong way and you'd sink the remainder of the way down and literally high center yourself on the belly of the vehicle. This happened a few times. Adam got used to his position as "winch wench"
After nearly 3 hours we came across Adam's Jeep and his work friends attempting to dig it out.
We thought, no problem right? Nice light Grand Cherokee, 8,000lbs winch... some snow... ok let's do this. Well, no. The winch didn't move his truck. So we doubled it up using my snatch block. That only proceeded in dragging the chained 6,700lbs Cruiser forward with the brakes down.
This finally worked, with 3 vehicles for weight we winched the Jeep out and up the small hill to where we were. Now for lunch break and the trip back... 
