- Joined
- February 8, 1999
- Messages
- 35,785
- Reaction score
- 3,926
- City, State
- Wayoutin, Aridzona
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- '93 XL '20 ST
- Callsign
- AB7FH
I went out today with a friend of mine who just lifted his '99 TJ. He asked if his son could come along in his stock Wrangler. I said that he could because there were bypasses for all the tough obstacles and his son could either watch us do the tough obstacles or just wait for us.
Anyway, we got to the first obstacle, where his son said he would drive ahead on the bypass trail and meet us about 100 yards away where the 2 trails met. It took the TJ and I about 20 -30 minutes to negotiate 100 yards of boulders. When we emerged from the "rock garden" his son was no where to be found, not where we left him and not where the trails met.
His son was gone for 3 hours in an area he had never been before. The area covers thousands of acres with loads of trails and no clear exit back to civilization. He had a CB in his truck, but never answered our calls even when we drove up onto a ridge which overlooked the Valley in which we had last seen him.
His father was about to give up, figuring he had got upset that we asked him to wait for us and that he probably just drove home.
With one more try on the CB his son finally answered. He had driven down a trail and got himself stuck. He couldn't tell us how to get to him so we had to DF (direction find) him using the radios. When we finally found him we couldn't believe our eyes. He was WAY off camber and about 4" from rolling his Wrangler off of a 10 foot ledge. If he hadn't got himself stuck he would have definately rolled. The reason we couldn't get him on the CB was that he was in a very narrow canyon. He couldn't have found a worse spot for radio propagation.
Anyway, I thought this guys kid was about brain dead. #1 he broke away from the group and got himself lost, #2 he put himself in a situation which he may not have walked away from because he didn't walk the trail to check it's difficulty. #3 this kid almost spent the night out there, had he not answered our last call we may have left thinking that he had driven home on his own.
Hopefully he learned something from all of this, but for some reason, I doubt it.
------------------
Rick Horwitz
Editor
explorer@4x4central.com
Editor
www.4x4central.com
Anyway, we got to the first obstacle, where his son said he would drive ahead on the bypass trail and meet us about 100 yards away where the 2 trails met. It took the TJ and I about 20 -30 minutes to negotiate 100 yards of boulders. When we emerged from the "rock garden" his son was no where to be found, not where we left him and not where the trails met.
His son was gone for 3 hours in an area he had never been before. The area covers thousands of acres with loads of trails and no clear exit back to civilization. He had a CB in his truck, but never answered our calls even when we drove up onto a ridge which overlooked the Valley in which we had last seen him.
His father was about to give up, figuring he had got upset that we asked him to wait for us and that he probably just drove home.
With one more try on the CB his son finally answered. He had driven down a trail and got himself stuck. He couldn't tell us how to get to him so we had to DF (direction find) him using the radios. When we finally found him we couldn't believe our eyes. He was WAY off camber and about 4" from rolling his Wrangler off of a 10 foot ledge. If he hadn't got himself stuck he would have definately rolled. The reason we couldn't get him on the CB was that he was in a very narrow canyon. He couldn't have found a worse spot for radio propagation.
Anyway, I thought this guys kid was about brain dead. #1 he broke away from the group and got himself lost, #2 he put himself in a situation which he may not have walked away from because he didn't walk the trail to check it's difficulty. #3 this kid almost spent the night out there, had he not answered our last call we may have left thinking that he had driven home on his own.
Hopefully he learned something from all of this, but for some reason, I doubt it.
------------------
Rick Horwitz
Editor
explorer@4x4central.com
Editor
www.4x4central.com