I thought I'd share my past weekend with you all, as most everyone likes to hit the trails in the Ozarks. Some things to learn from in this...
EDIT: The armchair quarterbacks of some other forum decided to make it into a "lets insult the judgement of someone because we have definitely recovered vehicles and stuff from raging floods before" contest and the only way to shut them up is to delete the good images. Hopefully you caught them before hand...
Original thread can be found here;
http://www.centraloverland.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1329&p=16081#p16081
EDIT: The armchair quarterbacks of some other forum decided to make it into a "lets insult the judgement of someone because we have definitely recovered vehicles and stuff from raging floods before" contest and the only way to shut them up is to delete the good images. Hopefully you caught them before hand...
Original thread can be found here;
http://www.centraloverland.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1329&p=16081#p16081
Recap before pictures go up so people know what happened- We also decided to rename it "High Water Mark: Gone Wild"
Water levels had dropped to a level I was near comfortable with. Flow was still up but I felt it was manageable. The group started at the powerline hill and worked down, having one ding in a Tahoe's door. We continued down and regrouped at the first crossing. I can tell you it was hairy. In fact, had I seen a photo before hand... I would've stopped Scott from trying. You may notice, I typed "would've". That means Scott did. It was not good. Hindsight is 20/20. Needless to say, a picture is worth one thousand words.
So... As you may have grasped... Scott didn't make it all the way.
Scott is now pinned, taking on water. I yell for Violet to back up the Taco so we can begin recovery before the current takes him. Violet backs up and the stream bank gives way, sliding her into a small sapling. My truck is now precariously balanced between rapids and land by a small, yet supple, sapling.
Situation = Critical. Pull all passengers onto bank and start attempting to recover my vehicle to then recover Scott's. String winch line to tree at a 45* angle from passenger and start pull. Truck noses toward the driver side (water) and rear end lifts up more. Called it unsuccesful and sent a scout party to the next crossing to see if we could get them back. They report its 36" deep and swift. Not looking for a triage situation so we continued the recovery (never stopped it.)
Start sawing away at a dead tree to get a better crossing angle so Razorbacks 80 can cross the newly dub'd "Montero Creek".
While doing that, we attempt a redirected pull from the opposite bank to move Scott forward. The anchor (a dead, heavy, heavy, 30ft log with roots.) slides/bows toward the Monty. No go.
We get the 80 across and double line with block to the Monty. Its moving but barely. The current would put 'turbulance' on the block and it would twist under water so we had to give slack and rehook a few times (I think 3 to be exact.) The Monty was successfully recovered, though not without issue. More on that after my not-so-scary recovery.
The bank had continued to crumble and the water that started at hub depth was now covering the tire. It was slowly inching towards a horrific end. We took the 80 and double lined to the rear bumper at a near 90* angle on the passenger side. We pulled tension on my winch and drug the rear around 2 ft to the passenger side. Alternating a pull from my winch to the 80's we were able to walk the Taco back onto dry land. It had idled at that angle for the whole time. I had a wild hair that if it truly started to go and I could get in (in time, without injury) left hand down all the way and supermanish throttle application would pull me through the tip and to the other bank. Needless to say it was not needed and this extensive recovery process that occured over 1.5 hours (it doesn't feel that long...) was now complete.
The Monty had ingested water so we (mainly Scott) pulled the plugs and dry fired it. Water spewed like a geyser from the right side of the engine. I went and spoke with the group while Scott was reviving the Monty and they decided to go look at some trail and some other crossings. It took another couple of hours to get the Monty in rough but operable condition. We watched the 80 bounce back across and our nerves kicked in. We decided to do the less rocky but deeper crossing. Trailfrog has photos of it. It was uneventful, other than the Monty running rough.
Scott headed back to civilization with ElRob to R&R the Monty and I took the group on a condensed version of the route, very similar to "The Yacht Club".
I stayed up on the phone with Scott helping to figure out some idling issues with the Monty, ended up that unplugging the MAF solved most problems. I wonder why its bad?
Scott decided to meet us around lunch on Saturday. He is a freakin' trooper (in a monty, lol.). We headed out Saturday morning for the Piney crossing.
Start phase two of High Water Mark: Gone Wild.
Piney crossing doesn't look bad. I walk out halfway and decide its 1.) Cold. 2.) doable.
(I don't have any photos of this either so you'll have to wait until someone else posts them.)
For nerves, we strap my winch line extension to the front of the "Battleship" who, thanks to the drops, meets us on Friday night. (Saturday and Sunday weren't bad width wise). I start out and its deep but didn't think to much of it. Halfway across its pushing my front end downstream. I throw it hard right hand down and apply small amount of throttle. Front end still disappearing. Next thing I know the rear end catches current and I'm left hand down to compensate for the current. I'm 99.9% across and I feel my rear diff start act as an anchor on a boulder. Violet is saying something like (and I paraphrase) "Jayston dear, there is ...... water coming the truck ..... and ....." so I do what I preach not to do and put in reverse for ~1ft. Slap it in drive and :ympray: that my diff makes it out okay. I succeed.
The battleship makes try #2. He succeeds but we decide after seeing the current push him that its probably not the best option for everyone else. He is the heaviest rig by far, so after it floated him it made the whole thing a bit more serious. Everyone else made a good decision (and I respect that guys, you don't know how much!) and turned back. We met up at the rendezvous with Scott/ElRob and the group. We had a deep crossing and met up with Bub Pearson, the homestead owner.
Had a snack at Oark and some uneventful mileage to the next major obstacle. Scott has those photos. Fast forward to this morning... Game and Fish shows up at our campsite. I was under the impression, by every map and piece of information I had that we were camped on National Forest property, per regulation, with no issue. Game and Fish disagrees. According to the Warden, we were on a G&F food plot property and breaking the law. Scott and I received tickets. Will give more on that later, when information presents itself.
After our G&F encounter we headed out to start the technical bit. Again, Scott has the photos. I will say that we had a very good time. After that technical bit we bounced around and headed back to civilization.
I'm sure more people will have some to chime in. Overall, I haven't had a weekend this stressful in my life. I am mentally exhausted so please ignore the grammatical errors.
- Jayston
Last edited:
