The SOS Report. The Full Story

I think he is just waiting to hit 50 active viewers before he posts the next part....

 

Damn it. TW might be screwing with my formatting..just a second. Then it'll go live.

 

I dont' even ppnbwpiahnnpv-0uawr-t

 

Lookd fine to me.

 

I did. But it was also 5am..so..yea. Whatever haha Hopefully this one is good but I'm not making any promises..haha

I wanted to use your photos for this!!

I am glad people are enjoying it though.

 

Chapter 3:
The Longest Day


​

Its trail day. After one hell of a last few days we are all very anxious to hit some dirt and rocks. The trail on the agenda:

Morrison Jeep Trail.

I had done this last year with Ben and Mike but they both had skipped out on the switch backs and had decided they wanted to try them out. Last year only 3 of us where brave enough to try them and we did it very easy with little to no drama. Naturally I figured it would be the same ordeal again just with 5 trucks. Could not have been more wrong. But before we dive head first into this, there are a few things that needed explained to make the whole impact of this day truly understandable.

1) We all have family and friends that go. “Why the hell do you do this?” and roll their eyes at you You often try and explain to them the sheer fun of it and the gloriousness of the beauty around you. With great effort on rare occasions you get one of these people to finally come out with you and actually try it, even if its like pulling teeth from them. There are two people on this trip that fit this bill. My Mother and my Sister.

Now don't get my wrong, my Mom is a HUGE supporter of these trips for me. For the most part she gets why I do it and often helps host the meets at her own home. I love her for that. But ever since my Dad has gotten into it, we have not been able to get her to come along.
​

Until now! Granted she had a set plan. She was going to ride in with us to the base of the switchbacks and then hike the switchbacks with my brother as walking up them would be much faster and she could not bear to ride in a truck for that part. They would continue to hike until we caught up with them where they would jump in and ride out the rest of the trail. At the end of which my moms Sisters would pick her up and take her back to town as she had other business to attend to and could not stay the night.
​

The second was my Sister. She hadn't even set foot in Wyoming in over a year so she was up for some camping but didn't understand the whole wheeling part but was with us for the night.
​

2) Jess, my long time wheeling partner joined me in my truck for this part of the trip as well. She is an experienced outdoors women with backpacking and wheeling under her belt.
​

3) My brother is with us, a Search and Rescue guy, HUGE outdoors man. Could survive with nothing more then a tooth pick out in the wilderness I am pretty sure.
​

4) My Dad is coming with us...in the FRV..a LONG BED 4 DOOR TACOMA...yea..
​

So in a nut shell. My mom's first experience doing the offroad thing, plans on hiking the super tight switchbacks with my super outdoorsy brother while we drive up them with my dads long ass truck in the group up the incredibly tight and narrow switchbacks of Morrison where we have to meet my Aunts to take my mom back that night around 4 pm.

Don't forget that.

Anyways as per usual, we leave for the trail head about an hour late. Because leaving on time is for losers. After a short 30 minute drive through the Wyoming desert, we approach the mouth of the canyon.

The great Clarks Fork Canyon.
IMG_5300 by bspringli photography, on Flickr

We waste no time pulling into the canyon and airing down for the rough road ahead.

IMG_5301 by bspringli photography, on Flickr

And start off

IMG_7773 by digirat99, on Flickr

The lower section is just rough road. Nothing crazy. But being in the bottom of the canyon is unreal cool.

SOSMeet-5.jpg by Monte Nickles Photos, on Flickr
IMG_7782 by digirat99, on Flickr
IMG_5315 by bspringli photography, on Flickr

Then our first issue shows it face.

My Dad starts saying there is an odd noise coming from the front passenger wheel so we pull off and inspect it. Seeing nothing wrong we decided to swap on his spare tire just to see if the wheel is messed up.

IMG_5324 by bspringli photography, on Flickr

My mother takes this time to voice she doesn't like riding in the FRV. Saying “Every bang and groan or creek I hear I just think, there goes another 5000 miles off this truck”. Timmy offered her a seat in his rig and she took it graciously. Saying “Im okay with hearing it in yours, cause its not my truck thats breaking”. Thanks Mom...haha

While Dad and I swapped a tire everyone else too the moment to go and hang out by the river. Our Labs were big fans of this choice!

IMG_5336 by bspringli photography, on Flickr
IMG_7803 by digirat99, on Flickr

Then we hit the road again.

IMG_7808 by digirat99, on Flickr

My sister and Ben are enjoying the morning
SOSMeet-4.jpg by Monte Nickles Photos, on Flickr

It wasn't before too long we came around the last bend and up to the switchbacks. There were some jeeps parked at the base, one of which was in our way and we had to go as them to move it. But other then that, no one appeared to be on the switchbacks. My Dad was still complaining about a clicking noise and we had to decide if it was same for him to continue.

It then dawned on us that it was the internal bump stops of the fancy ORI shocks. So he was good to go.

Before we left my Mother and Brother geared up to hike up the switchbacks. And by gear up I mean take only about 2 liters of water and a few granola bars and no jackets. Jess, who had no idea there were going to do this, decided at the last minute she would tag a long. I of course didn't see an issue with this and wished them a happy time hiking!

We gave them a bit of a head start before starting up the switchbacks. Little did we know, shit was going to hit the fan at a seemingly constant rate from here on.

IMG_5345 by bspringli photography, on Flickr

I took the lead as I had driven it before and was designated spotter. Ben followed me followed by FRV, Timmy and Mike tail gunned so that we had a winch in front middle and rear.

The first few corners where no big deal, even the long FRV didn't have issues.

SOSMeet-14.jpg by Monte Nickles Photos, on Flickr
SOSMeet-9.jpg by Monte Nickles Photos, on Flickr

But before long we were in the thick of it. I was in the middle of navigating a back to back switchback when Timmy came over the radio..

Timmy- “You, you okay there Mike?”

Mike- “No”

When Mike says he isn't okay. That is BAD. I stopped the truck immediately and jumped out of the truck to the edge of the cliff to look down on him.

Holy...Shit..

Both his driver side front and rear passenger tires where OFF the edge of the cliff.

IMG_5356 by bspringli photography, on Flickr

I sprinted down the mountain to him as did everyone else. Amazingly he was quite calm about it and was just sitting in the truck waiting. Not an ounce of panic in him. That was a good thing. In retrospect Mike said he just had no idea how bad it really was from inside the truck.

Turns out, there had been a rock on the passenger side of the path. Not much bigger then a cantelope that he had decided he didn't want to drive over and swung just a touch wide. This made the rear tire slide off and he had tried to self recover only to find it slid his front one off too.

I was a bit mad at Mike for such a childish mistake honestly at the time. But really, even the most experienced people make mistakes, shit happens. We put this aside very quickly as my Dad and I focused on getting Mike out and his truck alive.

Which posed a problem.

We had no trees anywhere to winch off of. Timmy's truck was in front of Mikes but much lighter. Not only that but pulling just forward wasn't going to work. We need to pull side ways but again. No trees.

We attached Mikes winch line to Timmy's truck just as a safety precaution and then attached the FRV to Timmy's rig.

IMG_5357 by bspringli photography, on Flickr

Then we stood and thought.


IMG_5352 by bspringli photography, on Flickr

In an instant a marvelous idea came to me. After going through all of our tools this morning to fix my Dads truck I remembered we had a snatch block. Once again I sprinted back up the mountain to Frankenstein to get it.

When I came back down I explained to everyone what we were going to do.

I had the idea of snatching off of Timmy's truck and attaching the end of the line to the side of Mike's truck. This would give us pulling power forward and on the side like we needed to keep the rear for pivoting off the edge fully.

At this point we had Mike get out of the truck through the passenger door and setup the winch line.

IMG_5360 by bspringli photography, on Flickr

Then more problems. Mike's winch solenoid had seen the wrath of the weather too much and wouldn't work. 1 in every 50 attempts to turn it on seemed to work. And when we would try and inch it forward the front tires didn't want to stay turned naturally.

My Dad's patience had run thin with the winch. He turned to me and said,

“Alright, when this thing turns on, we are going. The whole way. No stopping.”

No prob Dad.

We readied ourselves for the random chance of the winch working. I was by the front wheel to try and muscle it over to stay turned and my Dad by the door to be read to help balance the truck if it got too tippy.

The winch fired.

Instantly we knew the wheels weren't turned enough and I couldn't hold them alone. My Dad threw himself into the cab of the truck through the passenger window and grabbed the steering wheel to help muscle the wheels over all while pushing the winch button.

Some how it worked.

The Red Head, was alive. Mike was alive. All was well.

But the mood on the trail had changed drastically. The reality of how easy it is to screw up on this trail and plummet to your demise really sank in. Anxiety levels went through the roof. Everyone was a bit shaken up. My Dad and Timmy particularly grew more nervous about the turns and spotting was requested for each corner.

We could not turn around at this point. There was no room to do so and we had people at the top of the mountain waiting and relying on us to come get them.

Speaking of our hikers, lets do an update on them. They hauled ass. In the middle of Mike's cliff hanger experience. They had made it to the top of the switchbacks and had waved down at us, totally oblivious to the event that had just happened. They were trudging on with great confidence.

But we had just barely started. Of the 27 switchbacks, we had only done 4. We knew we had to pick it up in order to catch up with the walkers.

IMG_7836 by digirat99, on Flickr

The going was slow, and did not get faster. Only slower.

IMG_5419 by bspringli photography, on Flickr

The FRV's long wheel base was beginning to rear it's nasty head. Some of the corners would take 15 minutes to nagivate.

SOSMeet-20.jpg by Monte Nickles Photos, on Flickr

This corner seemed to be our doom.

IMG_5389 by bspringli photography, on Flickr

It was just so much steeper and tight we could not get him around it. It took us 30 minutes to get the FRV around it and we even tried winching.

IMG_5387 by bspringli photography, on Flickr

Every corner the FRV got around was a victory

SOSMeet-22.jpg by Monte Nickles Photos, on Flickr

The rocks were just so much more brutal this year. Each corner was completely different from last year. Water erosion and high use had really taken its tole. The trail wasn't even recognizable to me.

Then my Dad realize maybe he could back up the real tight corners.

IMG_5412 by bspringli photography, on Flickr

This tactic worked awesome for a lot of the corners. But some did not have the room for the pull out for it.

Like this one.

It had a rather large rock right at the apex of the corner. This is what sliders are for. Every single one of us used our sliders on this rock to pivot around it. Save for me cause I had 35s and my sliders went up on top of it...which was a pain. But it was off camber a bit and my dad did not have kick out sliders.

IMG_5395 by bspringli photography, on Flickr

As I spotted him around it I stopped him and told him, I don't think you are going to get around this without some paint coming off..

Well..

IMG_5396 by bspringli photography, on Flickr

As soon as my Dad saw that he pulled his head back into the cab and said..FUCK IT! And let the wrath of his supercharged 4.0L Tacoma belt out the sound track of horsepower and peeled out around the corner the tenor note of his dual exhaust echoing off the canyon walls

We we at the 0 fucks were given stage.

It seemed we were finally getting a good rhythm going and actually making progress when two more bad things happened.

The first was bad weather seemed to be blowing in, and we were only half way up. Water on granite is NEVER good. So the pressure was really on now.

But the worse was when we heard a lady yelling...

“Whoa whoa whoa! You guys can't come up! We have ATVs coming down!”

Soon as I hear this, I'm thinking, “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

She trots down to the next corner as I pull up and has a very worried look on her face. She goes on to explain that one ATV and two UTVs are right behind her. She just can't stand to ride in them going down this and had opted to hike it.

My first response was, well. Sorry, we literally can not turn around. There are 5 trucks on this trail.

She barely believes that until they all pull up behind me.

My next response to her was, “Didn't you see 3 people hiking and didn't they tell you we were coming up?”

She said yes they had met the 3 people and had told us but when the bad weather started blowing in they had panicked and set off down the switchbacks.



Great.

By some miracle we had a stroke of luck and the corner I was parked at had a ton of room on it. Probably the most of any corner. I cooly explained that I was pretty sure there was room for the vehicles to park in the corner while we passed them.

Turns out it worked our great. Not only that but while we had our audience watch in disbelief that trucks could make it up this road, the sun came back out and no rain fell. Disaster averted!

IMG_5379 by bspringli photography, on Flickr

But by now, it was late. Like really late. We were about 3 hours behind schedule at this point. We trudged on, not even stopping for food knowing that 3 people up on the mountain were depending on us showing up at some point. We ran up and down the mountain side helping each other out.

IMG_5377 by bspringli photography, on Flickr

At long last we made our way around the last switchback and up on top of the cliffs edge.

Last corner!
IMG_5408 by bspringli photography, on Flickr

It had been a long tiring grueling 6 hours up the switchbacks. And now we faced a real big issue.

It was now 4pm. The time that we were supposed to be done with the trail and dropping off my Mother so she could head home.

We had no form of communication with the 3 hikers, and it was 18 miles to the end of the trail. They had been walking all day and there was no way they were going to make without us.

The Race was on to find our hikers.

Ben and I took the lead and went out front
IMG_5431 by bspringli photography, on Flickr

We hammered down to find our family and friends but couldn't help but stop and enjoy the amazing sunlight and glorious view. Once you get all the way on top. Its breathtaking.

SOSMeet-14.jpg by Monte Nickles Photos, on Flickr
IMG_5442 by bspringli photography, on Flickr
SOSMeet-25.jpg by Monte Nickles Photos, on Flickr

But the views could not help with the fact that even though we were covering miles now in minutes. There was absolutely no sign of our three companions. The adrenaline that had been flowing all day, started to flow stronger and the stress was mounting.

Then we got another kick in the balls.

Ben had to be about half a mile in front of me and I was a good ¾ of a mile in front of my dad at this point. When I got a lovely message from Ben over the CB.

“Uh...guys...there is a tree across the road.”

Perfect. A road block.

Lucky for us all I had remembered to grab the chain saw. But. No gas of course We instead took some mobil 1 motor oil, poured some in the chainsaws tank, added some gas. And let her rip.

IMG_5440 by bspringli photography, on Flickr
IMG_7866 by digirat99, on Flickr
IMG_7870 by digirat99, on Flickr
IMG_7871 by digirat99, on Flickr

This was a very recent tree that had fallen over. There was no signs of people going around it like the atvs that passed us on the switchbacks and fresh sticks had been broken off. We were happy to help clear the trail. Right up until not even 200 yards later, another tree was across the road. A huge one.



Which is a good place to update you on our hikers. Grant, Mom and Jess had been walking. And walking. And...walking. For hours. With absolutely no sign of us. There were out of food and almost out of water. It was getting late and they had no way to setup camp or jackets to help fight of the ever approaching cold mountain night. They had hiked there way all the way to the big tree across the trail. Not the one we cut up. But the real big one.

When my Mom saw this she though. Oh my god the guys are screwed. How the hell do we get out of here now? Amazingly, two old men drove up on the 4 wheelers and stopped to chat. My mom asked them how far it was to the end of the trail.

“Oh lets see, I'd say about 6-8”

My mom's heart sunk. She knew she didn't have 6 miles left in her. Only about 3. Then the old man corrected himself,

“Actually, its 6 back to where we camped and about 3 from there to the trail head, so id actually say about 9-11”

She thanked them and they puttered off south towards the switchbacks. Now it was panic time. The 3 hikes were not prepared for this and didn't know what to do. They couldn't make it to the end where my Aunts where waiting to pick up Mom and if they walked back to us they figured we couldn't get around the tree. But a small yet very large act of kindness happened.

The old men came back.

“You guys will never make it” They said, “You want a ride?”

At this point, it was the only logical thing to do. So my Mom and Jess sat behind the old guys on the seats and my Brother took up the rear rack of one and held on for dear life and they set off for the trail head.

Back to the us guys in the trucks..

We have no idea about the nice guys on the 4wheelers or anything. We just know that now there is a second big ass tree in our way and either our hikers are super humans or something very very bad has happened to them.

There is a path already started that goes around this tree but it is very tight and the FRV barely makes it through. As much as we would have liked to have cut it up. Our chainsaw would have struggled and it would have taken an hour or more.

We hit the road hard again.

SOSMeet-26.jpg by Monte Nickles Photos, on Flickr

Then we came to the very rocky section and as Ben is leaving the rough down hill section a jeep is at the base and he decides to ask him if he has seen our friends.

Sadly, the driver is drunk. Not something anyone likes to see. He also has no recollection of seeing anyone hiking by him. Not that we can take his word for anything as he is rather hammered, but it doesn't make us feel better about not knowing where our friends are. I just hope he didn't cause any major damage to himself. Don't drink and drive people...

By now it is getting quiet late and we are finally near the end of the trail.

Golden Skys and Land by Monte Nickles Photos, on Flickr

But we have no freaking clue on what has happened to our hikers. Ben is the first one on the scene to the trail head and is report is not a good one.

“Guys, no one is here. Not even a car.”

My Dad is in disbelief. “Where could they have gone then??”

I show up next and start looking for clues thinking that maybe Grant has left us a sign on if they left or something. Anything.

IMG_5455 by bspringli photography, on Flickr

Nothing.

Everyone else begins showing up and we start thinking of a plan of action. I send Ben down the highway to hopefully see if they are at the other road where we are supposed to be camping off of. Dad and I start coming up with a plan to get in range of a local repeater to call Search and Rescue.We just can't believe that a group of such experienced out doors people could have gotten lost. Or that Grant would not have let us know somehow where they went.

Then Ben calls over the CB,

“I found them! They are headed your way!”

Never have I been more happy in my life to see a minivan drive down a highway and turn off onto the dirt road towards us. In tow are two atvs and Ben.

Turns out there had just barely beat us to the trail head and had gone to the lodge down the road to buy the ATVers more gas. Everyone was extremely relieved.

IMG_5456 by bspringli photography, on Flickr


After some hugs and a LOT of story telling and explaining, we finally head off to get to our camp site and said good bye to my Mom and Aunts. No matter how much Mike's bones were aching, we ended up doing this in the dark.


IMG_5460 by bspringli photography, on Flickr

Our camp spot was Sawtooth lake and when we finally show up, we find there is a small group already there. They were happy to inform us of another spot just down the lake side and we thanked them and moved on over.

Once we all found a spot we liked and the fire was roaring. We only have one more issue. We where expecting two more friends to show up, Marc and Josh but they hadn't yet. But before long we picked them up on the CB and they made it to the party.

And I mean party. My Dad had brought steak for all and corn to try out his new portable wood pellet grill. No one went hungry that night. My Sister throughly was enjoying the whole arguing around the campfire part and seemed to enjoy butting heads with Timmy. They kept coming to the to conclusion that they had to google it when they got home. Which brought out the best quote I have ever heard my Dad say,

“Oh whatever, the best part about being out here is you can't google shit so all you do is sit around the fire and fucking argue about it and drink booze”



Well said Dad. Well said.

Needless to say we were all very wore out and all felt quiet relieve after this day. Which was by far one of the longest days of wheeling any of us had experienced on so many levels.

Frank and FRV Under Stars by Monte Nickles Photos, on Flickr

We learned a lot of things that day. People make mistakes, its never as easy as you think it'll be, there are still good hearted people out there and shit always buffs out . Luckily none of our mistakes merited any real drastic consequences to which we were all extremely grateful for. We all took it in as a great learning experience for all future adventures. Now, it was time to just relax and enjoy the stars and the fire. And more importantly. Each others company



SOS extras.jpg by Monte Nickles Photos, on Flickr


To be continued...

Chapter 4:
This mountain top! No, This one!

Jump to Chapter 4
Jump to Chapter 5
​

 

Chapter 3 is up. And i out for a bit haha enjoy!

 

Awesome stuff

 

So once the book is finished can we expect there will be a short film?

All seriousness though, it's been a great read and i'm glad this wheeling adventure has had happy endings...so far...

 

Holy crap. Its so suspenseful! I like it!

 

I am ordering new lower ball joints because of this thread as I type. Thanks for the reminder

 

Oh Mike. I was in a simialr situaiton but with a sand bank outside my door, not outer space...

Well at least you didn't have to resort to cannibalism. Ben doesn't have much meat on him anyway.

Funny about "I dont' rememeber it being this bad"...

When I was just out at Arches, I wanted to do the Tower Arch trail, and there were several conficting accounts in various guides about difficulty and conditions. Some said easy peasy, others said part was closed at time of press, a Jeep guide said Moderate, and the Heugel guide said one little part near the beginning needs 4 low (in a stock SUV). I decided to talk to a ranger, and she said it was pretty beat up and rutted and rocks eroded/dug out and was pretty cautionary and started asking about my truck/experience/prep. She said they have a Raptor to go out there and resue people but the Raptor is too big and gets stuck .

Anyway I go for it, and end up walking several pitches to pick lines in some areas, but never had a touch (well OK one in a sandy ditch). Another guy in a stock 4 Runner said "yeah, I don't remember it being nearly that hard before."

I guess bottom line...nothing like current info before heading out. Or checking the gas in the chainsaw. Or feeding Ben a lot of pasta for a few weeks before the trip...just in case.

 

Nice write up.

 

I wish you would have had this whole story typed out so I don't have to wait for the next part! What a great story so far!

 

I sent this to my wife to read if she got bored. This is her response.


FRV is BEAUTIFUL!!!!!

And she hates red vehicles. lol.

 

Awesome , awesome story ... With Pics too !!
Iam so jelly of you having a family like that . You my man a truly blessed !
Pretty much 1 in a million. : )

 

I hate you...and by hate I mean jealous. Those are the stories you'll remember your whole life (holy crap that statement makes me sound old).

 

Stole your dad's quote. Because badass.