Years ago, first time I ever went wheelin'.
Had my brand new 4x4, and I mean, literally about 3 weeks off the dealers lot, and I just HAD to go do some serious off road fun. Except I was too much of a noob to know that you shouldn't go alone. But I really really wanted to drive up this really cool-looking dirt incline I found which was about 500 yards long, looked like a 45-50 degree angle, and very bumpy. Also had some patches of loose gravel. I climbed it on foot first to get an idea of what I was about to attempt. Took me a good 10 or 15 minutes to hike up that sucker, and when I looked back down at my truck from the top, the truck looked so very tiny.
I climbed/slid back down that monstrous hill and got back in my truck, acknowlegding that the nearest town was probably half an hour away and not likely to have a good hospital so I'd better be damn cautious. The first half of the ascent was easy, but the hill got steeper as I went along, and rougher too. But I'd chosen my line well, and my only real concern was how fast the fuel gauge was going down while in 4 Low as I crept up that hill. Little did I know what was going to happen about 30 feet from the top of that hill.
So, at the huge incline of this hill, all I could see through the windshield at times was sky and the hood of my truck. Not even tree tops. I had to stick my head out the window most of the time to see where I was going. But it was all good, like I said, I'd chosen my line well, and I was doing fine. I was having a blast climbing up it, easing it through the technical parts, keeping its tires from spinning through the gravel, and generally just having the time of my life! As I got near the very large tree near the top of the hill, I could almost smell victory since I knew I only had a few feet to go. I started to (prematurely) celebrate.
That's when I saw a large tree root across my path maybe 5-10 feet in front of the truck. I could have sworn it wasn't there half a second ago. There wasn't enough reaction time to steer around it, and I didn't dare stop on this steep of an incline. The root looked small enough to drive over it, so I feathered the gas pedal downward and went for it. And then the truck STOPPED. Dead stop up against this root which now appeared quite large, and in fact stuck up off the ground about 2/3 the height of my tires. It hit hard enough that it lurched to a stop and I was surprised the bags didn't blow. A quick test of the Reverse gear proved to me that truck wasn't moving anywhere without help.
Well, when I set the brake and got out of the truck to investigate, I saw that the left front tire was kind of wedged under this root because the root was washed out underneath it, so there was a large gap between the root and any part of the hill. It looked like this root was holding the tire in both directions somehow. I have no idea how the physics of that played out, but there it was, tire stuck under root. I went to check the other side, and the right two tires were in some loose gravel in a washout rut, so the truck was sitting at a very weird angle. Then...
I heard it before I saw the slow movement. No, it couldn't be, could it? The sound of a tire just barely beginning to slide ever so slowly across gravel. The moment I heard it, I bolted over to the driver's side, jumped inside the truck and shut the door. Somehow, the truck had started to slide, very slowly at first, even with the brake set. My brand-new-3-week-old truck. I started to panic, because it was pivoting around towards the side a little faster now, and I knew if that front tire popped loose from the root it might body-roll it all the way down that hill. The sliding continued. It seemed like all three of the un-stuck wheels were sliding, because the truck was definitely pivoting around to the right as the steering wheel turned on its own in response. Did I mention how frighteningly tall that hill was? Now the truck was at such an angle that I could see the bottom of it through the passenger side window. Definitely needed clean underwear at that point!
Thinking quickly, I buckled in, gave it a little gas and released the brake. I got the sliding stopped with only limited tire-spinning. The truck was standing still once again, for the moment anyway. I breathed a sigh of relief! So I realized that I wasn't going to be able to move it forward, and trying to do a U-turn on a hill that steep would be guaranteed suicide, so driving it backwards down this hill was looking like it might be my only option. Unless I could figure out a way to drive it around that root somehow. Oh, but first I'd have to get the tire freed. But that would very likely cause it to start sliding again, and probably at a speed that I'd be unable to jump inside it this time. WHY had I not opted for a winch at the very least! I had to figure this out quickly, I told myself, and I tried to calm down.
I was still thinking it through when I heard another unwanted sound. The tire had popped out from the tree root! I was starting to roll backwards at a high rate of acceleration!
Somehow, I got that truck aimed backwards straight down the hill while it was accelerating backwards. I actually felt it at one point during that split second, felt as if it was very close to the tipping point, you know like how you can tell you're about to slip while you walk across ice? Yeah, well I saw the angle of the sky get to a very bad angle, so I just FLOORED the gas in Reverse and the rear wheels spun as the front wheels slammed down. I could see the trail over the hood again, so I just pushed aside my panic and tried to use the engine to help control my speed of descent. I didn't dare use too much braking power since that might flip the truck too. All I could do at this point was look backwards, steer, feather the brakes, and hope I wouldn't crash at the bottom. Every single bump on the way down, I was afraid of losing control or the bump having enough energy to flip the truck.
It seemed like it was hours getting out of that jam, but in reality the whole ordeal was about 10 minutes end-to-end. As I neared the bottom of the hill, I put the truck in Neutral, shifted the transfer case back to 2WD, and revved it to around 4000 RPM, waiting for the sweet spot to slam it into Drive to slow my descent at the bottom of the hill. I hit that spot and pulled a very dusty burnout at full throttle, pulling a reverse 270 powerslide on the (relatively) flat approach to the hill, and I finally felt the truck regain some forward motion as the rear wheels kept spitting dirt. I was safe again. I figured it might be OK now, even advisable, to take my right foot off the floor and let the gas pedal return to its normal resting position.
I'd made it to the bottom, alive and unharmed. As the megatons of dust made their way into the cabin and began to coat the dashboard and console, I slowly contemplated this and took it all in. When I stopped shaking after 5 or 10 minutes, I got out of the truck and literally kissed the FLAT ground.
I got home later that day and washed the truck. Not a scratch on it, as if I'd never been offroading at all... except for a rather large tear on the urethane part of the front bumper... and stuck in that tear, what did I find? A piece of that damn root!
I vowed to never be that mean to a vehicle again. And to never do something that stupid again. I sold that truck a year later. Well, at least I've never been that mean again to another vehicle! As for doing stupid things? No comment.