I got my truck stuck more than I ever have before…

As soon as we talked about checking and updating the gear in your vehicle I go out and get my truck more stuck than it has ever been. I was going out camping with my dad and we were about an hour outside of any city or town in the middle of Utah. I was towing my offroad camping trailer and we were driving down a small dirt road. After driving for a few minutes we decided to turn around but with the trailer and the single track dirt road there wasn't much room. A short ways up the road there was a little flat spot off the side of the road. It was covered in snow but looked like I could get turned around and headed back the other direction.

Short story: I could not.

Longer story: I should have stopped and gotten out to inspect the ground before I did this but we were looking for a place to camp and the sun was headed down so I made a poor decision. I turned off of the road and was doing fine until I tried to drive back up the edge of the road the snow got a little deeper and my tires started spinning. I backup up a bit and made another attempt but the snow was compacting and getting more slick. I decided to go back down to the flat spot below and push a little more speed to get up down the road about 15 feet.

As I did that my back tire dropped into a deep spot and got compeltely stuck. I couldn't go forward or backward. I now decided to get out and look at what I had gotten myself into. The two front tires were sitting mostly on top of the ground. One rear tire was completely sunk. The other wasn't much better. I looked around to see what we had to work with. 

The BAD: We were about a mile off of the paved road (which didn't see much traffic at all). We were about an hour's drive away from any town. We had no cell reception. The sun was getting ready to set. And we were sitting at 8500 feet in elevation and it was cold and getting colder. 

The GOOD: We had a lot of tools and gear to work with to get the truck unstuck. We also had a camping trailer that we could sleep in with plenty of warm sleeping gear and warm clothes, a heater, and food. I had my iphone that could send and receive messages via satellite and a Zoleo satellite communication device if we needed to call for help. 

We first tried the winch. The problem was that there weren't ant trees in the area. There was only Water Birch which bunch together into groups and don't provide much stability for winching. We put a tree saver around a few different groups, and tried to winch but it wouldn't catch and just kept slipping off. We also tried a rock but the bushes and trees around it kept us from getting a good hold. The only tree we could find was about 200 feet away. And with an 80 foot winch line that seems like it wasn't a good option. 

Next we tried traction boards. We got out the boards and shovels and started working on getting them in place. The problem here is that the ground was frozen and we barely made a dent on the two back tires.W We couldn't dig out enough to get the boards in the proper place. With the front two in place we tried to drive out but it wasn't enough traction to pull the back tires out of the holes. 

After that failed multiple times we pulled out tire chains. I have never used these specific tire chains or used chains at all in this type of situation. Looking at them it was determined pretty quickly that they were not the right solution for this problem. Between my inexperience with using them and the buried tires we decided to skip this solution. 

I aired down my tires at this point to see if that would give us the needed traction to get out. While it helped, it wasn't enough. 

We went back and forth on the traction boards and winch for a couple of hours until we re-visited the that was about 200 feet away.  I had a few tow straps and a tree savers and a 30 foot kinetic rope. I started getting everything out and connecting with shackles to see how close we could get. When we had everything connected I walked it up across the street and up the opposite hillside where the tree was. We were about 10 feet short. We are now 2.5 hours into this ordeal and with pure determination we both pulled on the line as hard as we could to get all of the slack out and got just enough distance to connect to the tree saver around the tree. Needless to say we were quite surprised and thrilled that we were able to make the distance. Not only were we connected to something sturdy, but it was also a great angle pulling up and in the proper direction to get my truck back on the road. Once connected we had the truck out and back on the dirt road in less than 10 minutes. 

A couple of lessons: 

Check the terrain before you drive on it. I shouldn't have driven down off the trail in the first place. With a trailer on a small road it can get tricky trying to turn around so I saw something that appeared to be a good option and took it without checking it out first. 

Slow down and assess the situation. Breathe. A couple of times I had to tell myself to slow down, think about how the truck was stuck, what tools I had to use, and what would work given the situation. Not only did that help me come up with the proper solution, but it also helped reduce the frustration. We thought through how we wanted to approach the situation. We still failed several times, but we were able to stay calm as we worked through the problem. 

Have the right gear and know how to use your gear. Practice with it beforehand. I was very familiar with most of my gear. I had all of the right things. I've used it before and am comfortable with the use and safety of most of it. However, I wasn't as comfortable or knowledgeable with these specific tire chains. And in the snow with cold hands, no reception, and a stuck truck, that wasn't the time to learn how to use them. 

Look at potential recovery solutions before you go into questionable terrain. Had I slowed down before I would have seen that there wasn't really any good winching anchors. Again, I could have explored options to turn around and perhaps found a better location that would have been easier to recover from. Look at angles and distance to potential winching points.  *If I get stuck, how will I get out?* This is a great question to ask yourself BEFORE you do anything or go anywhere questionable. 

If you have multiple vehicles that makes recovery much easier. That wasn't the case here and often won't be, but if you do have another vehicle you can push the limits a bit further. It's also a great way to gain experience. 

Lastly, I fully understand many people don't choose to drive offroad. Many of you won't have a truck full of gear for a situation like this. But what SHOULD you have? First, going off of pavement isn't always a choice. Road conditions such as ice or rain or mud have sent many cars off the side of the road unintentionally. I like to have the gear that will allow me to self-rescue in most situations. But having gear that will allow you to get help and be safe and mostly comfortable until help arrives is the minimum. If you were stuck would with no cell reception could you call for help? If you had to sleep in your car in a situation like this how would you fare? Would you be safe from the elements and able to stay warm? Take a look at what you have in your car that would help you in these types of situations.