Well, we were really slacking in the
picture department for this event. We didn't even take
these pictures ourselves. One of the other guys at the run
(the one in the Jeep in the picuture to the left) was nice
enough to make duplicates of these two for us.
This run was the driest that I have ever seen at this site,
and we were able to go further out into the bog than ever
before. Unfortunately, that also became our
downfall. These pictures here show about 1/2 of what
happened. Jason and I went for 'one last run' on Monday
morning. Jason was driving Highlander, and I was driving
Bits-n-Pieces. Jason had just finished pulling me through
a relatively deep section when he decided to aim us for a
hole. The hole was quite a bit deeper than Jason expected,
and I was stuck in a rut and not quite able to keep my truck
moving. The result was that we were still strapped
together, and both of us were stuck.
Our campground neighbor in the Jeep was nice enough to come
out to try to get us out, but he just didn't have enough mass or
speed to free us. He also had been having problems with
his steering, which broke again before he was through. We
then called on a couple of others, who got stuck just trying to
get to us, leaving 5 trucks stuck. We eventually got
things cleared away, and even got Bits-n-Pieces out and back to
the campground, leaving only Highlander. After being stuck
in the hole for about 5 hours, we were able to convince one of
the Land Limo's buddies to come out to give us a pull.
These guys had the biggest trucks at the event, and were finally
able to pull us out, but only after trying and failing from the
rear, then pulling about 4 times from the front.
The first pull from the front broke the output shaft of our
steering gearbox. Luckily, the steering gear in my truck
was exactly the same, and I was able to pull it out of my truck,
and throw it into Highlander. This allowed me to get
Highlander out of the pit and onto the trailer. Then I had
to put the steering gearbox back into my truck so that I could
drive it home.
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