Wildest rescue ever...

I received a call from a good friend on Tuesday night around 9 pm....and needed help. His Jeep became disabled. I remember my friend saying they (girlfriend) were going up to northwestern Wyoming to do a lot of hiking and scenic off-road trails. They were on Morrison Jeep Trail. In my opinion, a scenic trail that most short wheel base 4wds can do with very little difficulty. The trail is 22 miles long, has some sporty switchbacks in the first 5 miles of the trail, and some steep climbs. However, the Beartooth mountains are no joke, and just so happens this is where the “troubled” grizzly bears are re-homed. Perfect.

Normally, this is a very self sufficient individual and “figuring things out” comes very naturally for him and has been very successful in his career doing just that.

A rather large branch pierced his passenger side inner fender well and tore up a bunch of wiring. He repaired all the wiring, but the Jeep still wouldn’t start. He assumed it was maybe faulty electrical repair or the fuel pump went out. He just couldn’t troubleshoot anymore without additional tools.

So I was on a timeline to help my friends and be effective:

- 10 hours away, and that with no traffic or road construction.

-They planned on camping for a couple nights already, so supplies were good if used wisely. One night has already passed.

- Cell service isn’t sketchy at best, battery life on the Jeep was about done, so conserving phone battery was key.

- I called a few tow companies, but they wouldn’t go in there. Rightfully so, I wouldn’t either. My friend needed a vehicle that was capable enough to get him out of there on the first attempt.

I just told him that I would be at his location by the next day, sometime in the afternoon. I went out, hooked the trailer, made a repair tool box of splices, Digital multimeter, tools, and other supplies. Loaded my Jeep up, and texted him I would leave in the early morning (4-5ish). Went to bed around 11:20 PM. I woke up around 1:30 AM on Wednesday morning and stated thinking about this timeline...and I figured leaving early would be a better choice. 2 AM I left for NE Wyoming.

To be continued....

 

I was making pretty good time. Night construction was minimal in Colorado and Wyoming is wide open.

In life when it really matters, does it ever seem that if something can go wrong it does? Around 9 AM, in the middle of nowhere Wyoming my trailer just jumped. Now I’m tired, did I just hit something? Did I miss something in the road? I look back in the tow mirrors and see something flopping around. As I coast to a stop I wonder what happened? I’ve blown trailer tires before, and normally you just feel a drop and debris flying everywhere.
This is what nowhere Wyoming looks like....


Sure as hell, I lost the tread on my passenger front axle of the trailer. That’s what was flopping around in the road.



This is why we have spare tires right? Right. No big deal. I get after it and get the trailer up in the air, change the tire out. While changing to the spare I hear some hissing. Well crap....the passenger rear axle tire had a few pin holes in the in the tire. So I do some quick quantum math in my head....5-2=3. Pretty sure that’s right. Recalculated and verified that in fact 5-2= you’re @!?$:
As the saying goes, when life gives you lemons...make lemonade.
I have an off-road vehicle in tow and come prepared for the most part. What do I have to make it “work?”

Sometimes the stars do line up in life to help you out in troubled times. A little back story, but this year I have had a few issues with my tires on the rock crawler to say the least. I finally had to break down and purchase 4 new 39/13.50/17 tires and two used spares due to this small hole in my sidewall...



I had in my possession some tire plugs, tire slime, and CO2 tank for airing up tires.



Soap box time:

***Disclaimer

I do not recommend plugging sidewalls...ever. I also don’t recommend driving under speed and load after plugging the sidewall of a radial tire that I just recommended not to do.

Disclaimer over *** Steps off soapbox.

You damn right I plugged the sidewall in several places, put slime inside tire, put 80 psi to the tire. Holy crap the tire held pressure. Now would it hold load and speed? One way to find out.

I fire up the ol’ trusty tow rig, tow/haul mode on, exhaust brake on...time to rock in roll. Take off and it was doing just fine.

“Siri, closest tire store near me.”

She gives me three options and I called all of them. First two didn’t have anything that would work. Last tire shop did have what I needed. 65 miles away. This part of the story has a happy ending. I arrived at this location and gave me some sound advice. This tire shop doesn’t even offer a 10 ply trailer tire in my size anymore due to all the blowouts. They offer 12 or 14 ply. I chose two the 12 ply tires. They installed them on the forward axle and put the extra tire for the spare.

Back in business. Let’s get this rescue on!



I texted my buddy in the hopes he would receive the message that I would be a little later. At this point, I wasn’t sure if he had service or battery life left. I did have a round about general location.

Always utilize the resources you have. Well I just so happen to get some really good intel from @MTgirl. You may have seen my intro in adding her to the staff on Tundras.com. She is an outdoorsWOman (see, I got it right this time!!) and gave me heads up about the trail and some key locations. She also offered up assistance if needed.
If we ever do get a meet up MTGirl, beers and a steak dinner are on me.

Road repair/construction is ongoing in MT/WY in the summers. That’s just life. So this took even more time to get up on location to find my friends.

Every state has beautiful parts, and Wyoming is no exception.







I arrived at the end of the trailhead to backtrack around 1:30 PM on Wednesday afternoon. 11.5 hours of driving and not stopping except for fuel. On the way up an hour or so earlier I ended up getting a call from my friend. Service was sketchy and he informed me his GF was hiking back the 5-7 miles to the tow rig and trailer, and would drive the 90 miles around to my location where we would come out. In the end, this was a good call on their part since we were running out of daylight. Not my call, and thankfully it wasn’t.

Search and rescue...game on. Start time 2:00 PM.


I worked the King Shocks and kept a pretty good pace. For some reason I was under the impression they were only 5 miles back. This was going to be easy.

Remember what I said earlier about things that could go wrong when it matters? I will refer back to that a few more times...

I seen some people on ATVs coming my way and stopped to ask them some questions and if they had seen my friends. THEY HAD and talked with them!!! I was in the right place and on the right trail. Now for the not so good news. Their location was estimated distance back in was between 17 miles, 15 at best back in. He did say ATV odometers are not as accurate. Well, from my experience they sure in the hell are. 16.8 miles back in. He reset his odometer when they stopped and talked with my friends. The ATV’rs also wondered how I was going to pull the Jeep up the steep inclines. Between the 17 miles back and the terrain, this had me concerned a bit. Jeep Wranglers are not known for awesome fuel economy, and my Little Rock pig is definitely not easy on the fuel.

I have a 19 gallon fuel cell that was 3/4 full by the time I chatted with the ATV group. This concerned me a bit. I pressed on since I know my friend always carries his Rotopax fuel tanks. His Jeep Wrangler has a very healthy LS3 motor that came out of his Corvette, so it just makes sense to carry extra fuel. I did however slow down a bit to conserve fuel and try and keep a timeline.
At 14.5 miles in, I was at a half tank of fuel. Do I stop and return to get more fuel? This would mean my friend would be out all alone another night. Did his GF make it out? Is she ok? Lots of moving parts in this game plan. I chose to move forward and was “all in” at this point. No turning back.

 

The steep grades going down really helped me on the fuel. When I did reach my friend, I was at a half tank of fuel. On the flip side, how in the hell am I going to pull him up these grades?

My buddy was surprised I got back to him so quickly. He didn't expect me until after 4 PM at the earliest. I was there at 3:20 PM. I was right, he had his Rotopaks and we put 4 gallons of fuel in my Jeep. We knew this wouldn't be enough fuel, so we had to get some out of his Jeep...and the fuel pump wasn't working. Have you ever had that one part that you never would need, can't throw it away, but in the end totally saves your ass? This object was rubber air line for a factory Jeep Wrangler Rubicon. Not sure why I kept it these past 9 years, but it worked for siphoning fuel. It took a few minutes to siphon 4 gallons of fuel with such a small diameter hose, so we had time for quick troubleshooting, rigging up winch line and attempting to get ahold of his GF. He hiked up to a spot known to get him a bar or two of service at times. He called a couple times and didn't get through. The last time he tried, she answered and had just reached the tow rig and trailer. She was safe. Big weight off our shoulders.

The Rotopaks filled up and filled up my tank, then refilled one of the rotopaks to get us all the way out. We just didn't have time to fill the other one. Time was 4:15 PM. The day before a Toyota Tacoma with a couple guys helped them move the Jeep off the trail so they could pass. The guys did offer to help and tried, but it was just the wrong vehicle for the job. Hopefully I can find those guys on TacomaWorld and thank them as well.

We figured my Warn Winch would get a workout...and that it did. We teamed up running rope and rigging gear to get up the steep grade with loose rock and dirt. We finally got to a spot were we could get traction and we were able to get enough momentum to keep us going.



I had to stop a few times to make sure my engine and transmission stayed cool and reliable. We didn't need any more issues. The pictures above were spot that were not as steep and I could get moving again.

I'm not really a Jeep guy, but the 4.0L motor worked like a champ. Maybe it was the permium fuel I took from the other TJ...LOL. This is the last thing except the tub that isn't GM on my Jeep.

We made it out of the trail around 7:45.



We winched his Jeep up on his trailer and sat back and enjoyed the view and some celebratory beers.



I wish this was the end of this story......

 

While at the parking lot, we started chatting with a retired couple from MN. They were really nice and offered up their ATV's to locate us while she waited.

As we were about to leave, they asked which way we planned on going. We really had a long day, and needed a little luck. Nope. The road we came up closed for the rest of the evening and would open at 8 AM on Thursday. Remember what I said earlier....if it could go wrong, it did.

We had to come up with a different plan. We found one place in Cody, WY that had a couple rooms, but that meant with the road closure we would have to go north into Montana and drop back down into WY. Another couple hours of driving. High Five myself. We arrived in Cody and was crashed out by 11 PM, Wednesday evening.

Thursday morning 7 AM. We got up and started our day. Looked for a local breakfast diner that could also accommodate two 45' truck and trailers. We found the perfect spot, and I have to say one of the best breakfast burritos I have ever had. The restaurant was closed for inside dining, but the owners brought the food out to us and also gave us a place to eat. They got a huge tip.

The trip from Cody, WY to Colorado Springs was 8 hours and some change. Easy enough. The hard part was behind us.

Get this, on the same road as before, 70 mph, I lost another trailer tire. This time it blew and cause some damage. I couldn't believe it.



You can see the tire ripped out my side marker light, the wiring, and almost removed my tail lights. In addition it bent the steel by the side marker light. To top it all off with a cherry, part of the tread wrapped around the axle and was a joy getting out. We fixed the brake magnet wiring, nothing I could do about the side marker light since it was in one thousand pieces, put the spare on and keep going into Casper, WY.

Hey Siri...tire shop near my location.

I had a few pop up and called them. I went to the top rated tire shop.

To be honest, it takes a lot for me to bash a company, but this tire shop was just wow....

They had no 12 ply trailer tires in a ST235/80/16 or Load Range J. They did have 10 ply and 14 ply. At this point, I'm for sure just going to remove the rest of the original tires from the trailer when I get home, and at least 12 ply tires going on. Since the 10 ply and 14 ply were close in price, I just went with the 14 ply. Why waste money on the 10 ply. The owner actually said it would be ok to run a 10 ply with a 14 ply on the same axle. I about passed out.

Back up on my soapbox***

Let's chat about this for a moment shall we? Never....ever ever ever run a different load rated tire on the same trailer axle. You will overload the lower load rated tire and most likely have another blow out. What this tire shop owner said was flat out wrong.

Steps off my soapbox****

Now I am a proud owner of a 14 ply, regroovable tire. This is quite the tire. I didn't even bother with putting the spare on the trailer mount...tossed it in the bed of my truck. At this point, chances are I will be doing another. We have two brand new 12 ply trailer tires on the forward axle and still have two 10 ply tires on the rear axle.

We left, merged on I-25 south heading to Colorado. The speed limit in WY is 80 mph and my tires are rated at load for 81 mph. In my opinion that is a little fast towing 9K lbs, 90*+ on two questionable tires. We set the cruise at 75 mph no worries. We had the treat of coming into Denver Colorado during rush hour traffic. Pretty much stop and go all the way. Denver was 96-97*, so pretty hot. This concerned us a bit, but with not going very fast at all, that probably helped us.

Around 6:15 PM we reached the south end of Denver and traffic opened up. I got the mobile tire shredder up to around 65 mph and I lost another tire tread!!!! This time it was on the drivers side. I had someone tailgating me pretty closely and they probably regret that decision today. This is why I never tailgate trailers or semi's. The tire was still totally aired up...just missing the tire tread like the first time.



This tire tread separation caused a bit of damage as well. It beat the new tire in front of it, ripped off my licence plate, ripped the marker and brake light wiring out. So now I have no functional brake lights or turn signals on the trailer. Awesome.

I'm not sure if everyone can fully appreciate how fun changing a tire out on I-25 in south Denver rush hour traffic, drivers side. I did it in under 10 minutes since having everything ready and plenty of practice. My friend was waiting for me just a mile up the road so he could block for me so I wasn't a hazard to anyone else. He called me Ricky Bobby since the tire was swapped so quickly. Can you believe that?

We needed to get off I-25 and out of the major traffic just in case the last tire I had exploded. All the local tire shops were now closed and we were still 40 miles from being to my home. We took the more scenic route home, and kept it slow.

Remember what I said in bold lettering, but now I had no choice. The 14 ply and 10 ply tires were matched up on the rear axle.

We made it home, but barely. My one last 10 ply tire had a nice bulge in the tire tread too.

Took these pictures this morning of all the carnage:

Bulging like a moose...



Replacement 14 ply tire



Forward axle tire. Look at the wheel and the black rubber marks. It beat the hell out of that new tire. That one is probably gone now as well.



Drivers side damage to rear of trailer:



So what did this cost me? The tires are the cheap part. The first two tires 340.00 out the door. The 14 ply was 190.00. Now I have to decide if I want to buy two 12 ply tires or go with 14 ply and see which ones I like better. The 14 ply are way overkill, but....

Now my trailer is out of commission for a bit. I need to repair the bent medal sections, repair/replace wiring, new LED lighting, may have bent wheels with all the blowouts at higher speeds. Since we have a lot of places shut down due to CV-19, getting a new licence plate should be fun. I have heard up to 6 weeks now. Looks like 2020 is proving to be a total crap year all around. Off-Road season is done for me. Figures...

 

Damn @ColoradoTJ what a rollercoaster of a weekend!
You’re a damn good friend, and I can attest those 4.0s are solid little workhorses. I’ve towed my share of vehicles with them in my day.

 

Good idea, and I like where your thought process is. We have groups like that around here that go out all the time. Pretty awesome to have that resource to use.

We did search for some off-road groups in WY, sent out some messages without any response. My brother lives in MT and hit up Magic City Off-Road Club. Nobody was available. My brother is in quarantine due to several people popping positive for CV-19. His pregnant wife is also in quarantine due to the same issue and works in the medical field. He did offer to come down with his full sized blazer if needed. He would just have to isolate from his wife for 2 weeks. Hummmmm, surprised he didn't jump on that opportunity.

We needed a specific vehicle to get him out. Power wasn't an issue, more so the drivetrain strength. A Toyota Tacoma did try to get him out, but it needed more traction. Front/rear locker and winch was a requirement.

 

It could be....

That is not a fuzzy picture though...can't be.

 

I agree Ron and thank you. My friend retires in November from the military.

He looks forward to a quieter lifestyle in the mountains. This trip was exploring options.

 

Few more random Wyoming pictures:

 

We have a few local 4x4 groups and I was ready to reach out to them to scramble up some help for Chris if he needed it - I would have gone myself but neither of my vehicles are fit for running that trail let alone doing a rescue on it. I have run it before several years ago so I knew what he was up against. The biggest problem for us up here is that the area is so big - takes a long time to get from point A to point B - and very few folks have vehicles capable of doing a rescue in that type of terrain or the experience doing it.