Aftermarket rock / skid plate?

[Ogre]

This is an example of a place where super wide vehicles like the Hummer are not great.

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[FutureBoy]

This is an example of a place where super wide vehicles like the Hummer are not great.

In theory, though the Hummer could just drive up the hill as long as the dirt isn't too loose. I get that it's not good for the erosion stuff but in a pinch...

 

[HaulingAss]

However, that being said. Crabwalk/ 4 wheel steering would have been helpful. I just hope 4 wheel steering isn't so helpful that it will get us into predicaments that will be even harder, for recovery.

There is no downside to having more capability. It's true that the more capable the rig that's stuck, the more difficult it it is to extract. But the idea is to not get stuck and a more capable rig helps the operator achieve that goal. This is a game of skill, knowledge and judgement. Regardless of how capable your rig is, it is still necessary to have a good understanding of all of it's limits and to leave a good margin for error. That's where the judgement comes in. I've walked the trail for over a mile to ensure I wasn't getting into something I couldn't get out of. It's a constant decision-making process as you progress. I've also walked over a mile and decided to turn back even though I could traverse the entire mile (because I couldn't safely back down it and I didn't want to continue walking to verify a turn-around). Most people that get stuck end up there by putting themself in a situation that starts easy and gets progressively more difficult. Then, instead of getting out and reassessing the situation, they try to get unstuck by using wheel-spin. Sure, it might work but, if it doesn't, you are now in a more difficult situation.

I've watched over a hundred episodes of Matt's Off-Road Recovery and about 97% of their recoveries are the result of pure ignorance or extremely poor judgement. To Matt's credit, he doesn't treat his customers like they have done something wrong. Plus, that would be bad for future business, he wants them to drive away feeling good about themselves.

This is why it's a bad idea to go off on your own like this guy had to for his job. I've been stuck and had to walk out to get help. It's not fun!

No, he had a mistake in judgement. It's fine to off-road solo, you just have to leave proper margin for error. Travelling with others can allow you to do more difficult things. The technician's error was that he trusted Google Maps for his routing and didn't question it when the trail got steep, exposed and narrow with soft shoulders. I wouldn't lead an entire caravan of off-road vehicles up a narrow and steep atv trail like that even though I had plenty of 'help' along. When he saw it was nothing more than an ATV trail he should have realized that road is not how the radio equipment he was going to service got installed on top of the mountain in the first place. Presumably, his employer knows what kind of access their installations have for servicing. The big question is why they didn't supply him with maps to every site he was required to service. But the error in judgement was his. You don't have to be super intelligent to realize Google Maps was not routing him on the easiest route. It's well-known in the off-road community that Google Maps knows nothing about these backcountry roads (and in this case, trails).

Worrying that four-wheel steering is going to allow you to get stuck in more difficult situations is like being concerned that better brakes are going to cause more people to rear-end you. YOU and only YOU are in charge of how you operate your vehicle. More capability is always good. It's bad judgement that gets you in trouble. Yet people continue to put themselves in situations they know nothing about and rely on hope and good luck to make it. That's not heroic, that's stupid. Skill and knowledge empower you; bravery is what makes you get stuck.

Wheel smarter, not more bravely.

 

[HaulingAss]

In theory, though the Hummer could just drive up the hill as long as the dirt isn't too loose. I get that it's not good for the erosion stuff but in a pinch...

I think you have a misunderstanding of just how steep those slopes were. The camera never does justice to steepness. Yes, if they were made of poured concrete, I bet the Hummer could drive right up it. Not in unconsolidated soil like that. The soil is loose due to frost heave (and that area gets a LOT of frost heave). It gets cold enough in that area that the frost heave goes down two feet. Combined with the steepness and the weight of the Hummer it would be hopeless to climb straight up there without a road (on stock tire widths).

 

[HaulingAss]

The other way was gated. Also, looked like the sort of road where it kept getting worse and worse as you climbed.

With no turn-around a lot of people aren’t comfortable reversing down a hill.

Just a bad setup. Dude probably makes $15/ hr to do this. Hopefully his employer paid for the rescue and his time, if he’s a contractor he got screwed.

Gates are meant to go through, that's why it's not a fence. I'm a little shocked the technician didn't have better information or didn't bother to look at it.

 

[HaulingAss]

This poor dude was just the victim of bad mapping or bad directions. He’d never intended to hit a super-sketch 4WD route!

Blaming others is not a good idea when off-roading. Only YOU are responsible. You cannot blame your rig, your tires or your map. It's up to you to understand all the limitations of the equipment and information you rely upon.

 

[Crissa]

Lots of roads are gated that shouldn't be.

I always check out the plat maps before going up trails like that. Know who owns the land and what gates you can pop open.

-Crissa

 

[Ogre]

Blaming others is not a good idea when off-roading. Only YOU are responsible. You cannot blame your rig, your tires or your map. It's up to you to understand all the limitations of the equipment and information you rely upon.

He didn’t know the route up. That is a failure of his employer. Yes, he should have realized sooner he was going the wrong way, but this isn’t a guy who chose to ignore a valid route, it was a guy who didn’t know the route existed.

This guy wasn’t intending to do *any* off-roading. He was prepared for and expecting a gravel road. The route looked navigable at the bottom and got progressively worse. By the time he realized he was truly F*ed, he was likely more afraid of reversing down the hill then continuing up.

My impression is this guy is an electrical technician with zero experience (or expectation of) off-roading.

 

[Sirfun]

There is no downside to having more capability. It's true that the more capable the rig that's stuck, the more difficult it it is to extract. But the idea is to not get stuck and a more capable rig helps the operator achieve that goal. This is a game of skill, knowledge and judgement. Regardless of how capable your rig is, it is still necessary to have a good understanding of all of it's limits and to leave a good margin for error. That's where the judgement comes in. I've walked the trail for over a mile to ensure I wasn't getting into something I couldn't get out of. It's a constant decision-making process as you progress. I've also walked over a mile and decided to turn back even though I could traverse the entire mile (because I couldn't safely back down it and I didn't want to continue walking to verify a turn-around). Most people that get stuck end up there by putting themself in a situation that starts easy and gets progressively more difficult. Then, instead of getting out and reassessing the situation, they try to get unstuck by using wheel-spin. Sure, it might work but, if it doesn't, you are now in a more difficult situation.

I've watched over a hundred episodes of Matt's Off-Road Recovery and about 97% of their recoveries are the result of pure ignorance or extremely poor judgement. To Matt's credit, he doesn't treat his customers like they have done something wrong. Plus, that would be bad for future business, he wants them to drive away feeling good about themselves.



No, he had a mistake in judgement. It's fine to off-road solo, you just have to leave proper margin for error. Travelling with others can allow you to do more difficult things. The technician's error was that he trusted Google Maps for his routing and didn't question it when the trail got steep, exposed and narrow with soft shoulders. I wouldn't lead an entire caravan of off-road vehicles up a narrow and steep atv trail like that even though I had plenty of 'help' along. When he saw it was nothing more than an ATV trail he should have realized that road is not how the radio equipment he was going to service got installed on top of the mountain in the first place. Presumably, his employer knows what kind of access their installations have for servicing. The big question is why they didn't supply him with maps to every site he was required to service. But the error in judgement was his. You don't have to be super intelligent to realize Google Maps was not routing him on the easiest route. It's well-known in the off-road community that Google Maps knows nothing about these backcountry roads (and in this case, trails).

Worrying that four-wheel steering is going to allow you to get stuck in more difficult situations is like being concerned that better brakes are going to cause more people to rear-end you. YOU and only YOU are in charge of how you operate your vehicle. More capability is always good. It's bad judgement that gets you in trouble. Yet people continue to put themselves in situations they know nothing about and rely on hope and good luck to make it. That's not heroic, that's stupid. Skill and knowledge empower you; bravery is what makes you get stuck.

Wheel smarter, not more bravely.

I agree with everything you said, except I wouldn't say that 97% of Matt's recoveries were ignorance or poor judgement. There are times when things break and like Forest Gump says Shit happens. Definitely it is a majority of the times though, and you're right, Matt is unbelievably patient.
I went back and reread my comment, and you're right. It is not a bad idea to go off on your own. IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING. And are properly prepared. I once spent over a month in Baja driving to Cabo, and lots of travels with just me, and my dog Breeze. Going solo is hard though. Given a choice, I would prefer not to go solo.

 

[Sirfun]

He didn’t know the route up. That is a failure of his employer. Yes, he should have realized sooner he was going the wrong way, but this isn’t a guy who chose to ignore a valid route, it was a guy who didn’t know the route existed.

This guy wasn’t intending to do *any* off-roading. He was prepared for and expecting a gravel road. The route looked navigable at the bottom and got progressively worse. By the time he realized he was truly F*ed, he was likely more afraid of reversing down the hill then continuing up.

My impression is this guy is an electrical technician with zero experience (or expectation of) off-roading.

I agree, I felt for that guy. I don't think he had a lot of experience and just like you said, he was trying to do his job and started up that without thinking it was going to get worse, with no way to turn around. We all make mistakes. That's how we learn. He definitely learned something from that. And he recovered well from his mistake, too.

 

[HaulingAss]

He didn’t know the route up. That is a failure of his employer. Yes, he should have realized sooner he was going the wrong way, but this isn’t a guy who chose to ignore a valid route, it was a guy who didn’t know the route existed.

We don't know the employer failed to give him a map. According to the man by the gate, that gate is the legal access to the towers. For all we know the guy looked at Google Maps, clicked on the tower location, told it to route him there, looked at the satellite photo of the route, and said, easy, peasy, I'll save some time over the route on the far side. His mistake was not turning back the minute the area in front of him started looking sketchy.

This guy wasn’t intending to do *any* off-roading. He was prepared for and expecting a gravel road. The route looked navigable at the bottom and got progressively worse. By the time he realized he was truly F*ed, he was likely more afraid of reversing down the hill then continuing up.

That happens a lot. But it's not an excuse to drive on trails you are not qualified or equipped to drive on. People need to use some common sense. It seems common sense is becoming less common!

My impression is this guy is an electrical technician with zero experience (or expectation of) off-roading.

I bet you're right. His mistake was continuing past the point he would be comfortable backing out. You don't have to be an experienced off-roader to know that - it's common sense.

 

[John K]

Hindsight is a well plotted map to service the tower with the required vehicle rating to reach the destination.

 

[Ogre]

I bet you're right. His mistake was continuing past the point he would be comfortable backing out. You don't have to be an experienced off-roader to know that - it's common sense.

My definition of an adventure is when you do something of consequence and unknown outcome.

If you are an adventurer by nature, you end up in the sort of situation you talk about frequently enough to have a certain amount of caution.

This dude is not an adventurer.

It’s easy to look down on someone like this, but his basic approach to life likely never prepared him for what was happening when he got out of bed that morning. I suspect a large number of people would have ended up in that exact bind.

 

[HaulingAss]

My definition of an adventure is when you do something of consequence and unknown outcome.

If you are an adventurer by nature, you end up in the sort of situation you talk about frequently enough to have a certain amount of caution.

This dude is not an adventurer.

It’s easy to look down on someone like this, but his basic approach to life likely never prepared him for what was happening when he got out of bed that morning. I suspect a large number of people would have ended up in that exact bind.

I know you're correct about that. You can see it almost every time Matt's off-road recovery releases a new video. All I'm saying is it doesn't need to be that way if people would just stop and think before they act.

I've been an adventurer my entire life. But I had limited funds and learned to adventure without blowing all my limited resources relying on others to fix my screw-ups. That meant I had to think about what I was doing to have a certain level of confidence it would work out.

 

[Crissa]

Not double-checking the route and not backing out is how people get killed, though.

This can happen instead:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Kim#Death

I grew up in Gold Beach and we took that route only once after leaving White City with directions given by truck drivers who had just taken that route.

Always try to get info from someone who's taken the route recently. Never trust a single map. With computer maps making it so easy to duplicate mistakes... I usually try to get three to four.

-Crissa

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