Here are a couple of stills from some camera footage.
The meadow didn't look that bad at 4am, but I came up the road and then just had my rear end slide down hill until my driver's rear wheel sunk to the axle.
Again, it doesn't look that bad, but for some reason, I couldn't get my other tires to pull me up and out.
The rock at the left was right up against my trailer hitch, and the rock on the right was underneath my drivers side door. The wood is what we tried to fill it in with for traction, but as you can see, the hole is deep and just water. Incidentally water doesn't give very good traction.
This was after the rock crawler tore up the rest of the meadow trying to get into a position to winch me out. This was after I got winched.
The tow crawler from afar. It's an old Chevy Suburban. He had to winch himself up that hill because he almost slid down into the creek below. After he winched me out of my stuck spot, I made it up that hill without assistance. Go figure.
A few of the things I did wrong. First, I underestimated mud. Never underestimate mud. Second, when I went for it, I didn't think it was going to be anything more difficult than what I'd done previously on the road, so I didn't switch into 4-lo or lock my rear diff. Once I got stuck, I started panicking and didn't lock my rear diff and put it into 4-lo. Third, my tires were inflated for pavement. Fourth, I wasn't planning on wheeling this hard, so I didn't bring much in the way of recovery gear.
Enjoy the tragedy tourism!
