Stuck in Genetics

Stuck in Genetics

As I looked at my son, I was amazed about how much he reminded me of my Dad.  The way he stands, the facial expressions, the pick-up stuck in the snow bank.  I believe that certain things are passed on from generation to generation and getting vehicles stuck is one of them.  Probably in ancient Sweden some long lost relative was explaining to his wife as they stood there looking at an ox cart up to it’s axles in mud, “I could have made it through if I had a little bit more momentum.”

My dad was a great one for momentum.  To get through that soft spot in the half mile driveway to our cabin you just had to have the right momentum.  Too much and you slid off the road.  Not quite enough and you just got farther into the mud hole.  We spent a lot of hours working with shovels, boards, and pushing our 1959 Ford station wagon on those days when we just didn’t get that exact amount of momentum.  He would finally give up and he would send me down the road to get Lundeen and his tractor to pull us out.

Dad introduced me to getting stuck in snow, mud, sand, and high centered.  He taught me how to get unstuck too.  Jacking up the stuck vehicle and putting whatever is available under the wheels with no traction is the best way.  Branches, rocks, floor mats, boards (without nails, we learned that the hard way) all work pretty well until you give up and go get Lundeen and his tractor.

The most memorable stuck was when one evening he backed into a sand ditch trying to turn around on an isolated country road.  The sand was like sugar and there was no bottom to it.  We worked with some branches and floor mats, but we just kept sinking deeper.  We finally gave up and started walking to the nearest house.  The closest place was an isolated old farm house that was owned by a bachelor who lived alone and nobody knew much about.  As we walked up the quiet driveway, we couldn’t see any lights in the house and there wasn’t a yard light.  That had to be one of the scariest walks I have ever done.  We kept waiting for some dogs to attack us, or a shotgun toting hillbilly to appear, but everything was dead silent.  There weren’t any cars around.  We banged on the front and back doors with no response.  We dug around in his sheds until we found a shovel and some boards that we used to eventually free the old Ford from the sand.  While we were working a car came by (the first one we had seen in four hours).  It didn’t stop to see if we needed any help and we saw it turn into the driveway that led to the old farm about a quarter mile down the road.  We didn’t bother to return the borrowed tools until the next day.  Funny thing was no one was home then either and we put everything back where we found it and left.

Steve Jr. has carried on the tradition of finding just how far a vehicle can go.  Here in the Idaho desert, there are many opportunities to find ways to lose traction.  We bought Steve a 1966 International Scout and a 1969 Scout for extra parts, hoping he would learn some driving and mechanical skills.  Many times he and his friends would come walking back home.  The Scout was stuck, broke, or out of gas.  One time we were going back out to rescue it and we couldn’t find it!  They weren’t sure where they had left it.  We went to the highest hill around and after searching the horizon with binoculars we finally spotted the yellow of the hood in the sun.

One time his friends came back from a camping trip to the mountains to report that the Scout was mired in mud so bad that even with a jeep and lots of tow rope they couldn’t move it.  My GMC Jimmy with a winch was off to the rescue.  It took a couple of hours and there were a bunch of muddy teenagers before we were able to free it.  If you combine four wheel drive with momentum, you can get really stuck.

The Jimmy had a lift kit and 36” tires.  With a little bit of skill matched with the genetic tendencies towards getting stuck, and some momentum you could put it in places that defied nature.  Of course Mother Nature doesn’t like to be defied.  A certain teenage boy, while showing off to his friends, managed to stick the Jimmy in the Mountain Home Reservoir in mud and water that engulfed those 36” tires.  It took two full sized trucks, a winch, and some ingenuity to “unstick” it. 

I, of course, also have those genetic tendencies.  One day I was trying to get to the “greener pastures” of elk hunting.  There was a trail that maybe at one time had been a road.  It was pretty well washed out, narrow, and clinging to the edge of a cliff.  Going downhill it is fairly hard to get stuck.  I was stopping and getting out of the truck every hundred yards or so to scout out the next downhill.  I was more worried about falling off of the cliff than getting stuck.  After going through some bad spots while successfully fighting off the law of gravity, I started getting a little bit more confident.  The next bad spot didn’t look too bad so I didn’t get out and scout it.  It was only about a quarter of a mile down to the next flat area and even though the washout was right in the middle of the road, I easily straddled the two foot deep ruts down to the safety of the next corner.  Right in the middle of the steep hill the washout turned and ran off the cliff.  This made the rest of the hill nice and easy.  I was a little concerned about negotiating that washout on the way back up.  I thought I might have to do some winching to make it past the bad spot so I planned to quit hunting early enough to leave me some daylight to get back up the hill. 

I made it back to the truck around 4:00 which gave me about an hour and a half of daylight to get back up the hill.  Momentum is the key to everything.  Coming downhill I had the momentum of gravity to help me through the spot where the washout went over the cliff.  Going up hill was much more challenging.  I had to get through the bad spot and still straddle the washout in the middle of the road.  I hit it as fast as was reasonable.  I got through the bad spot thanks to momentum but I slipped into the washout.  I was going to back up and get a run at it again.  As I put the truck in reverse and let the clutch out, the back end gave a jump to the right.  It wanted to follow the washout over the cliff!  I bailed out of the truck.  Luckily it didn’t go over the cliff.  It was balancing on the right front wheel and the left rear wheel.  The other two wheels were off the ground.  The right rear wheel was actually hanging out over the cliff.  I gingerly reached into the cab and grabbed the winch control.  After letting out the winch cable and attaching it to a nearby tree I was able to secure the truck enough so it wouldn’t fall.  The next few hours were spent using a high lift jack, a variety of ropes and cables to jack, winch, find another anchor point, jack, winch, etc.  Remember I only had an hour and a half of daylight left so I ended up working in the dark.  After I got to the top of that hill I still had to negotiate the rest of the “road” in the dark.  When I was going around the sharp corners, my headlights were shining out into space and I could only judge where the road was by the glare on the side of the mountain out of the passenger’s window.

(To be continued)

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