Camping trip stuck

[DirtyLarry]

So a buddy of mine made it out from Michigan for our annual camping, fishing, and trail riding trip up to this mountains this past weekend and we decided to hit a lake where we went 2 years ago. The trail over to the lake is usually a pretty easy one but this past winter was a tough one up in the high country that apparently took its toll on what is usually a very easy part of the trail that leads to the summit of the pass.

While the freshly installed 8.1L ran like a top, the stinking frame mounted fuel pump kept getting hot and would not immediately pump fuel after restarting the engine after driving on the trail at a low speeds for a few hours. It delayed us twice on the trail after I shut off the engine so the rest of the weekend it never got shut off anywhere on the trails during photo opporunties or beer breaks.

So, there we are right smack in the middle of the smoothest part of the trail stuck in a bottomless truck eating mud hole (That we slide into while trying to squeak around) with an overheated fuel pump. Lockers and Super Swampers couldn’t get me out of this one so we had to recruit the winch. This is where things got crazy. First, the 1 year old Optima deep cycle battery that runs the camper and winch was deader than hell (it had been charging all during the 6 hour road trip to this spot to boot and overnight in the garage before we left...I am not too sure about these over priced Optimas!) and nearest tree to winch to be what seemed to be a mile away.

As we strung the winch cable to that far away tree the end of the cable popped out of the spool. That was a PITA to put back in. Oh, yeah….I forgot my gloves at home and got poked a few times in the fingers by winch cable hairs! With the cable stretched as far as it would go we were still about 20 feet short of the only solid tree around. On top of that all of my recovery straps were in the topper under the sleeping platform and the truck was twisted so bad the tailgate wouldn’t open plus the 300 lbs of wood on the back of the truck wouldn’t have allowed the gate to come down anyway. Luckily, a few ATV’ers came down the trail with a couple decent size straps they let us use. By then the fuel pump cooled off and we were able to winch it out rather quickly. Note to self...leave the recovery gear behind the seat!

Actually, the funniest part of the whole trip was getting stuck. Hopefully, I will get the video’s from my buddy soon as well. The video turned out pretty cool.
Here are a few pictures.