Done something really stupid?

[ski3pin]

Oops, I did it again. Last trip out was with some friends who were first time out with their FWC. I shared with them advice especially about maintaining a routine in closing up the camper.
I wowed them a few minutes later when the front end of the roof popped up in the wind on the road.
I just wanted to show them what not to do!

Thanks for the chuckle!

 

[rubberlegs]

We went on a backpack trip with a friend. We all had Lexan spoons. I went into mansplaining mode and said “These are unbreakable, so cool”. I don’t think I need to finish this story… Ok… Snap!

 

[Sagebrush Reconnoiterer]

An "oops!" I made on Coyote Ridge, in the Sierra Nevada southwest of Bishop, California. It doesn't look too bad from this angle, but it was quite a scary and frustrating experience.

Overall, this was my fault. My wife and I were descending the ridge heading back home after spending the day exploring the heights and dim trails around back and up near the summit of The Hunchback. We were about half way down the narrow, partial shelf road when this occurred. Let me explain how it happened.

In the meadows below I spied a group of two Jeeps and a pickup truck making their way to the base of the ridge and they were going pretty fast. My hopes that they would park at the base of the ridge where the road made an open turn onto its face and let me by were quickly dashed when they just kept coming with no reduction in their speed. I was in full sight of them, but that didn't deter them, they just kept charging. My mind was racing about what to do. There wasn't anyplace for me to go.

They had the right away, but they could have been courteous and let me finish my descent, which would have taken maybe a minute. Backing up would have been a laborious, slow and potentially dangerous quarter mile for me.

I stopped to determine what kind of game of chicken we were going to play. But they kept charging and the lead vehicle was close enough to see the driver's face, along with some very rude gestures of his frustration and anger that I was a member of the human race intruding on "his" space. I had no choice but to stuff my truck at an angle up the hill. We were seriously off camber, my wife terrified, our blonde cocker spaniel panicking. Fortunately I had my rear differential locked.

They never slowed down, but kept on going. No word of thanks, no offer to stick around a minute to see if I have any difficulty getting back onto the trail. It was as if I was invisible or they just didn't give a damn. I'm pretty certain it was the latter. In the Eastern Sierra, there is a name reserved for such people, an acronym "FFL." The last two letters stand for "Flat Lander." I'll leave the first to your imagination.

I attempted to back off the mountain and onto the trail. My truck started sliding laterally and it came to rest against a large, smooth block of a rock; approximately 3'W x 4'L x 2.5'H. Attempts to pull forward or backward were futile; the bottom of the truck's cab on the passenger side sat perfectly atop the stone, unloading the weight off the tires.

What to do? No vehicles were in sight. Who knows when the Three (F) Flatlanders would be coming back down. They probably wouldn't care anyway and go right on by. So I dismounted my Hi-Lift jack, mounted atop my driver side fender in the bed, and started working on a way to somehow turn into Superman and throw that rock off the mountain. I had the truck lifted enough to get the cab off the rock and used a shovel to undermine it. About fifteen minutes later, the stone was rolled across the road.

My wife and dog stood above the truck while I attempted to get it back on the trail. The truck continued to slide laterally as I gingerly backed, my wheels turned to the left so that I could hit the trail at the same angle that I left it. Then the passenger front dropped off steep, uphill road cut, my world felt like it was turning upside down. My wife screamed, I hit the brakes. Maybe I should have given it a bit of gas and hoped things would tilt back toward center as the passenger side front wheel hit the trail and the other front wheel dropped down the cut.

I was in a real panic and pickle now. With great difficulty I opened the door, stood up on the door sill and looked out. It was a long way to the ground. If you look at the photo from this angle, you can see that my feet - as well as the back tire - are well above terra firma.

I stood up on the door sill to see if I could get a better sense of my situation. I could see and feel the truck move. My wife confirmed it as she could see the driver front wheel lift and lower several inches as I moved between the seat and standing on the sill. My biggest fear was that if I hopped out of the truck, it would flop over on its side.

I had been standing on the sill some minutes contemplating my next move when I heard an engine. It was a young man from Bishop named Tony, driving his topless and bone stock early 1960s Willy's CJ-5 Jeep, complete with a side mounted spare tire. He was out for the day tooling around and enjoying the cool air. Tony had no choice but to stop. He was a friendly man, who worked for the AAA garage in town and often drove the tow truck. Tony didn't have any extraction tools with him, but I did.

I couldn't leave the cab, for fear of my truck laying over, but I directed Tony on where to get my snatch strap. However, in those days, I kept it stored in a plastic tote strapped to the front bulkhead of the bed. Tony attempted to crawl into the bed of the truck, which really seemed increase its imbalance. So he spent a few minutes using my shovel to work the heavy rubber strap off the tote and to slide it to the back of the bed for removing the strap. Then he secured my truck to his Jeep. But before hooking up, more important things must first take place. I asked Tony to take a few photos with my camera, much to my wife's dismay.

Tony didn't pull me, but just kept tension on the strap to keep my truck upright. My truck did the rest of the work. With the rear differential locked, I had enough traction to continue backward about four feet to some large rocks, allowing me enough space to return to the road. With 20/20 hindsight, I never should have given into fear and just kept rolling backward, never getting into my predicament in the first place. But things look and feel far different from the driver seat.

Eighteen years later, my Tacoma now my belongs to my grandson. It still wears its beauty marks from that big rock, which put a healthy dent under the cab and is visible inside the cab with the floor behind the passenger seat raised. The bottom of the cab between the edge and the truck's frame took the brunt, so the damage isn't very visible standing beside the truck. No impairment in door alignment or operation occurred, nor has time revealed any other issues with the incident. If I learned anything from that experience, it is from then on that I kept that tote back by the tailgate with my snatch strap for easy retrieval in an emergency. And to this date I still have a healthy dislike for FFL's.

Oh, notice that dent in the bumper by the AAA sticker? That was done a couple years previous about two miles from this same spot when I was backing from a mushy spot and drove into and over a sapling lodgepole pine; the tree bending and picking up the back of my truck a foot or so, and then dropping off to one side.

 

[Casa Escarlata Robles Too]

Oops that doesn't look good.
Frank

 

[Sagebrush Reconnoiterer]

This story is about me being a victim of the "oops!" of a friend.

It was December, 1989. I was living in Trona, California, west of Death Valley, and working in the borax refinery there. I was spending a few days with a friend and his wife, living in Mammoth Lakes. We decided to go explore along the old Bodie & Benton Railroad grade in the Mono Lake basin.

Near sundown, my friend got this notion jump his truck over the grade, then to recreate a popular Toyota commercial series of the era, where in slow motion one jumped in the air with one or both arms raised; even though he had a Nissan 4WD pickup. The photo above was the only photo that I got. Because he didn't have enough speed to jump the grade, getting air only with the front wheels, so that his truck promptly belly flopped and got high centered with a loud thunk. The truck was centered across the grade, all four wheels off the ground.

My friend didn't have a shovel. He had washed his truck earlier that day. He had no tools. We had only our bare hands and a flashlight with nearly dead batteries. Neither of us had brought any gloves. And the sun was setting. Then it got quite cold.

The lights of Lee Vining, on the opposite side of the lake and miles away by road, taunted us. All we could do was start digging with our hands. And digging we did. It took a while, but we started noticing that the wheels were slowly dropping lower to the ground. However, we often got our hands caught as the truck's frame would settle upon them. We made numerous attempts to drive the truck away after they touched ground, but resulted only in scooping out the sandy soil underneath.

Success finally came close to 2300 hours and we drove out under the truck's power. We were frigid, with our hands frostbitten and bloodied. We drove into Lee Vining and found Bodie Mike's Saloon open with a small group of bored customers. Our plight grabbed everyone's attention and soon the mood turned to celebration; drinks were on the house in return for our story. We closed the house down and somehow my friend managed to get us back to his house 45 minutes later without another adventure and jail time for being well over the legal limit for alcohol consumption.

 

[Sagebrush Reconnoiterer]

On my big trip in 2001, I took over six hours of video. In those days, editing was done with the VCR's remote control when dubbing the tape from the video camera to the VHS tape. I still ended up with three hours of video, which I made copies of for my friends who accompanied me. That and I shared the tapes with other friends to view at their homes over the years.

Around 2013 I was editing that long video once again for uploading to share on the web, which is now in ten parts and can be found in the trip reports section of this forum.

One scene, that between 2001 and 2013 I was quite proud of, is a selfie video of several minutes of my face and head, walking a distance back to my truck from the ghost town of Spring City, Nevada. I was narrating our experience and what I could recall of the town's history, plus our plans for the rest of the day and evening.

Editing the video in 2013 using Adobe Photoshop video editing software was the first time I noticed the long booger hanging out of my nose ...

 

[Sagebrush Reconnoiterer]

About 2006. I was living in Big Pine, California. I was working a merchandising route for Core-Mark with stores in Big Pine, Bishop and Mammoth Lakes. I drove a 2002 Toyota Tacoma TRD Off Road 4WD pickup (same as shown above). Instead of Toyota’s standard “J-Gate” transfer case shift lever, there was an electronic 4WD activation button in the side of the knob, the lever was moved fore and aft to select low and high range.

So, one morning I left home on a fine July day. I worked a couple stores then drove to Mammoth to work my stores there. left Mammoth about 1600 hours for home. The speed limit on US395 was 65 mph. I lived on the west edge of Big Pine alongside the road up to Glacier Lodge, so turned right off of US395 in the middle of town. Immediately upon turning, I began to feel the “crow hop” from drivetrain windup. My truck was in 4WD.

Several times during the years owning this truck, I inadvertently hit the 4WD button while vacuuming, tossing my lunchbox to the passenger seat, etcetera, to find on the road elsewhere that I did. But I never had any drivetrain issues with the truck.

 

[craig333]

You got lucky. Fortunately all my vehicles have very manual shifters.

 

[craig333]

We're human. We will make mistakes. My best advice is to stop. Get out and look around. Maybe eat something while assessing the situation. Don't be in a hurry. You can easily make things worse by being in a hurry.

 

[AWG_Pics]

Too many to write about. Most from my teens and twenties, with decreasing frequency since. I am lucky, really, to be alive and in one piece. Stupid hardly describes it.