It was a Sunday night, I had settled into the TV watching position, cup of Decaf, dog on my feet and my favorite blanky, and then my phone beeped. One word… “Stuck”. Well shit… next email was a picture of his dash with GPS coordinates. Then finally a call from the 1 person who had some cell reception, we need help snow is deep we are not moving, and some better coordinates. Thing was it was an area I knew but had been a long time since I had been in there. Well time to pack up, get some warm clothes on, gas up the CJK8 and toss all my extra recovery gear inside just in case.

 

Now I have never been a follow-the-GPS bouncing ball guy but here is a good reason to have some knowledge on these systems. I’ve been playing around with the free version of GAIA, and its been tracking pretty good. Punched in the coordinates and it gave me a trail marker to go find.

 

What I didn’t know was they put it out on a Facebook recovery site, and a few others decided to go as well. A group, who knew what they were in for including Bruce Cook were working their way in from the way the group went in, while I was on route to the way they were trying to come out.

 

After leaving my route and the GPS coordinate with my wife, I headed out into the night. Once aired down and heading up the plowed portion of the road I hit the snow bank where the plowing ends and came upon a local who was pulling two other “rescuers” out of the 3 feet of snow that started from that point on. Nothing short of big tires and low air pressure was going to get anyone any further. As it turns out the local knew the area better than I did and was game to jump in and come along.

Continued...

 

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