Lesson 1- Make sure you know your route! Exspecially if you are the only vehicle. I did the typical "I'm just gonna drive over the next hill and call it a day" thing where I kid myself into thinking I can actually correctly assess the route from inside the cab, and learn, the hard way, that I can't.
It was a fairly warm winter day, the snow on the ground was melting, but the dirt underneath was plenty solid. Many open puddles with some ice floating on some. Two friends and I were exploring the pipeline in my Jeep, just checking out the trails and looking at some of the tough spots, bypassing anything that looked difficult.
Towards the end of the day we made it up to where we had come down just a few months before with some very well equipped wheelers. The bottom end there was pretty mild, from what I remember, so I was going to check out some of the trail till the sun started to go, and then call it a day.
Went north off the county road where this leg of the line starts, crossed a paved road 1/4 mile up, and made it up the first obstacle another 1/4 mile in. Looked like main trail went over a 2' deep or so puddle that had ice on the bottom. there was only a few inched of water on top and I thought the ice went down to the ground. There was a really bumpy/swampy looking path around it to the right of the hole, but I was just looking for the easiest way accross. I soon found out that swampy looking part -would've- been the easy way.
I started rolling accross the ice slowly, pushing the slush out of the
way -ASSumming- I was on solid ice frozen down to the ground surface(I
have no explaination of WHY I actually thought this). Well, about half-way
accross CRUNCH-CRUNCH--SPLOOOSH!!! and the Jeep tipped to the right and
started taking on water. Cotton Rock Sucker...
I killed the motor and we all got out to assess the situation, the drivers side was still on top of the ice, but I had water half-way up the passenger side door. For reference, my cj-7 rocker panels sit 24" off the ground(normally). I thought I had hit bottom and that it was a little deeper than I had thought. I made a feeble attempt to winch out with my 48" hi-lift, but I was to far from an achor point to put much force on the jeep, and I realized I was hung up on the ice with my frame and skid plate. I also noticed that when I tried to move the Jeep, the wheels on top didn't turn, the ones under water did! No terra firma yet. Well, how the h*ll deep is this hole? Two tests help clue me in, one was my right foot breaking though and my right leg hip deep before I pulled myself up(and I still hadn't felt bottom), the kicker was when I -carefully- walked around the front of my jeep with the 5' shovel and could put handle six inches from top before hitting bottom, and could push in in like there was spring muck under the ice! Apparently, that hole is deep enough that it never freezes(although it was a mild winter).
Well who's walking for help, and who stays with the vehicle? Well, I figured I'd better stay, and my friends took off for the nearest bar or anyplace with a phone so we could call for some backup. We got a hold of a friend with a Z71 GMC full size, who never takes it off-roading, but, fortunately, he's easy going and we weren't actually off the pavement by much. With all the snow and ice near the hole, a vehicle with a winch or aobout 300 feet of strap(to the nearest exposed dirt) would have been ideal, but we were going to have to settle for a 6000 # slide hammer instead.
well, 30 min or so later, my friends made it back and our pull out chevy came down the trail. Unfortunately, they pickup some excess bagage on the way. Some 8 or so vehicles pick followed him back there, but they weren't the kind of "wheelers" you'd want on your team though. the 10 inch spring-block lifts and stock axles turing 35"+ tires kinda gave them away. That, and, although one had an air compressor, none(of 8?) had a winch. Yah, I know, I should talk, but I don't have $1000 in tires on my Jeep yet either, Its all coming, one piece at a time.
The other wheeler offered to help out, and I didn't have a good reason to
refuse, so let them try and pull me back to dry land. we hooked up a strap to my hitch
hole with a shackle and they took turns trying to yank me back. They did manage to
move my vehicle back far enough that I was pretty confident the vehicle couldn't fall
through any more than it had. Unfortunately, they didn't know when to stop yanking.
Most of the guys were pretty nice, but one guy that tried to move me was a jacked up, big tired,
and locked Ford Ranger. His philosophy on getting unstuck was "get as big a run as
you can and floor it", pretty typical mentallity around here 
Well on his first run, one
of his buddies hooked the strap to the safety chain eye on his reciever hitch???????
Unfortunately, I didn't see this, till it was too late. All I heard was SSNAP!....BANG!! and
I minus a spare tire rim(tire survived) and got a tweaked tire carrier out of it.
Well, at least I didn't get -killed- anyway. He can afford lift kits, 35" tires, and lockers, but
just can't seem to spring for those tow hooks yet.
 I don't have any pix of the actual event, although I know somebody does. |
Well, not wanting to second guess his good intentions, we got a better mount position, and he tried to yank me out some more. While he couldn't move me, as by now the rear axle and tire were cutting into the ice, not climbing up on it, he did manage to bend my Tomken Machine bumper, rear leaf, and invert my rear shackle. After realizing he couldn't pull me out backwards, he decides hes gonna pull me out forwards. yeah, though that 5 foot deep hole that I fell though, he's gonna pull me out forward??? After moving his vehicle in front of me, trying to put a strap to my front bumper(boy, I was -glad- I didn't have tow hooks on yet), and me telling him ten times that he is NOT going to try pulling me out forward, he(and his apparent followers) got ticked off and left. Well, it was definitely for the best, I hate to have people mad, but they just did enough damage for one day.
Well, now what? Sideways usually isn't an option, backward didn't work, forwards seems worse,
we certainly didn't want to go down!! That sure narrowed down the options, we have to go up! 
Into play comes the trusty Hi-Lift. We tied the jack to the rear bumper to hold it in place,
and jacked the whole back end out of the water. The plan was then to fire up the Jeep and yank
the back tires up on top of the ice using the truck. Unfortunately, this did mean running the
jack over and possibly ruinning it, but our options were limited.
After some time and a couple tries, we yanked the jeep back out of the hole. Once both back
wheels were on top of the ice, pulling the Jeep the rest of the way out wasn't hard. The
only casualties were the bent lifting rail on the jack, and we lost my plywood base,
as it was dark by then.
Last Modified 08/08/04
However, here is the rim that got wrecked. If the damage doesn't look that bad, think about the impact that it took to do it. 