So, I made a mess.
If you don't care for story, skip this post.
Went on an overnight trip to Ruby Falls, if you're from Alberta you probably know the place. Only one truck, two adults (one with no offroad experience) and two young kids. Took the normal route up there, truck did it with fully open diffs, nobody else around, clear night sky, good times.
The next day on the way down we came across the branch to the alternate route past Ruby Lakes, and decide (against all better judgement) to go have a look and see how it goes. Get to the lake, looks awesome, nice views, trail still seems ok so we stay on it.
Then we hit some muskeg, get through some of it, had to winch twice, but keep going and seem strong.
Then the trail gets narrower, with tighter corners and deeper mudholes, but we keep getting through and moving forward so keep going.
Maybe we should turn around? GPS says there's only like 1km left to the road as the crow flies, keep going. I mean turning around now is like 4 hrs of backtracking, so that sucks, right? The truck is doing awesome, lockers are doing their job, winch is working quick when needed, confidence is growing.
Then it's too tight and I rip a flare off on a tree, slide downhill into another tree with the front bumper, dunk the back of the truck under the mud and need to winch again. Break the winch remote cable off at the plug after driving on it (**** dammit). This is obviously an ATV trail, not truck friendly. Pretty ****ing gnarly really.
Then another hole we can't bypass looks daunting. Still have the wireless function on the winch remote, but it cuts out annoyingly when there's a big strain that drops voltage in the system, but better than nothing. Tree straps waiting on tree, plan discussed with my inexperienced helper before hand, and I'm stuck 2/3 the way through a hole that's got water over the bumper. Helper gets me strapped up good n quick, Warn winch keeps working while underwater, truck gets out, and we find out that's the last big obstacle (which should have been the squirrel catcher had we not been on it backwards).
Then, we're on the side of the road, adding some air to tires, before driving 3hrs home at 120kph with not even a shimmy.
Made it, felt good about it, feel badass, but it so easily could have been worse. I mean, I had tools, supplies, full set of fluids for the truck, spares, jack, shackles, straps, tow ropes, air compressor, other stuff so not fully unprepared. We scoped out and discussed recovery plans for each obstacle before getting into them.
But, the big mistakes were driving down a trail I've never done before, a trail that sees much less traffic, with people that are really next to no help, in a situation where being heplessly stuck would have meant hours to walk to a point where we could eventually find someone driving by that could pick one of us up and bring us 30-45 minutes down the road to where a cell phone would work, so wives could come pick up kids while I'm left to figure out how to get help getting the truck out of there. Not a good risk/reward ratio to work with.
I've had a vehicle stuck alone before, and it sucks. So much time, money and energy wasted. I should have known better, and will not be doing something like this in the future.
Next post, the aftermath.
