Sketchy Road Stories

[idahohikker]

Post up the times when you’ve driven on roads that made you pucker or would make a sane person.

I’m fascinated by the lengths we go to travel to hunting grounds.

I’m fairly conservative about roads these days. On one occasion I was driving on a narrow one lane road that was really rough and rocky, with a drop off. I came upon a truck who decided to try up on the side of the mountain to try to give me enough room to pass. I should’ve backed up but caved to his pressure and waving. I went inches from his truck and the edge of the road. I felt my front right tire leave the road. Luckily there was enough shoulder to keep it on the road. My passengers decided to stay but I told them to hop out. We got her back on and made it out. The good thing about the road is that it was tough enough to keep some people out. The day before we shot a buck not twenty feet from the road.

 

[idahohikker]

@Customweld you have any stories? The rough road to your property reminded me of this.

I always enjoy these stories for some reason.

I also wonder what would happen if someone is driving on a bad road with snow or ice that isn’t flat and meets someone. There are places where that would seem to create a real situation.

 

[Customweld]

@Customweld you have any stories? The rough road to your property reminded me of this.

I always enjoy these stories for some reason.

I also wonder what would happen if someone is driving on a bad road with snow or ice that isn’t flat and meets someone. There are places where that would seem to create a real situation.

I can't really think of any. I'm sure that if I woud've been old enough at the time to realize what was going on, I woud've been stressed out trying to get out of Big Creek in the middlle of the night. Nothing like being woke up at 0200 with "get up, we got to go right now". Pulling horse trailers over Profile in a blinding snowstorm didn't look like much fun.

 

[wytx]

I-80 , trying to get home to Laramie after a Christmas trip down south.
Give the 18 wheelers plenty of room on a snowy road, they'll use it all and then some.
We plan our travels around the storms now.

 

[87TT]

Tell me about it. We were on I15 southbound into Utah last year in a snowstorm in my RV. I was driving in the slow lane and big rigs were blowing by. Well one jackknifed and blocked the whole freeway. I was going downhill and no way to stop without sliding. I ended up steering over an embankment into a ditch to keep from rear ending the stopped trucks. Would have got away with no damage but I clipped a delineator post. Had to be towed back up on the road before I could continue.

 

[Poser]

Avalanche terrain in winter is always interesting.

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[jonathond]

That gives me a puckering, to be sure.

 

[Squamch]

This was a little dicey. Road on the other side of the lake washed away and a log truck driver went into the hole and died. Had to bring a dive team in to recover his body.

Was heading out snow wheeling, towing my buddy's samurai on a flatdeck behind my 91 f250, trailer swung a little on an icy corner beside the river, then stepped right out and turned the truck. I managed to get the whole works sorted out and pointed in the right direction, and looked in the mirror to see how the guy following us in a toyota with welded diffs would fare.
"Jeff's into the corner...Jeff's sideways....Jeff's backwards...he's sideways again...ok, he's ok, wait he's still spinning...he's in the ditch...he's out of the ditch in the bush...back in the ditch...back on the road! He's gooood!"

Later that night he broke through the ice on a lake in the same truck.



Same guy was driving down a trail behind me, we were moving at a good clip, I kicked up a little pecker pole, 3" round pine, he ran onto it like a lance. Punched through the wheel well under his girlfriend's feet, up between her legs, scratched her shoulder, and broke the back window. That was exciting.

 

[Azone]

There was one road in Colorado in unit 35 that should have killed me a few years back, I'm shaking my head as I type this thinking of that one. "Ah hell we can make it. Well your gonna drive right?" Tires off the edge a couple times and then sliding on rocks in a few spots. I'm surprised the seat cushion in my old truck didnt have a crease in it from my ass clinching on that one. I did kill a buck two days later on this trip.

There was another road in X9A in California when I was 20 that should have a cross on one side with my name on it. That one was hands down the worst driving situation I have ever been in. According to a local that came up on a quad behind me and my friend, I was the only person he ever seen make it that far up the road. My friend had to get out and guide me up the last 400 or so yards. Driving back down it the following day was just as bad, 4 low in 1st gear sliding on rocks and loose soil the whole way down. The pucker factor on that was so hard I'm surprised I didn't turn part of the seat cushion into a diamond. Passed a few small bucks on that trip, Mr. Big never came out to play.

There's several other honorable mentions, but those two sucked the most hands down.

 

[missjordan]

I feel like it’s the story of my life being on sketchy roads every winter or during hunting season. But these are the best memories

The scariest was our family was coming back from the Missouri Breaks on hwy 2 outside of Malta. Roads were so slick that every time our truck tried to shift gears it sent our truck and trailer combo sliding sideways. We babied it to Great Falls and like magic the roads were nice and dry all the way home

Hunting in the snow we always chain the truck up and go full send on roads that are open. Had multiple times where we’ve started sliding semi-uncontrolled and you just point it in a good direction and work yourself down the mountain as best as you can.

We had crappy highway tires on a brand new truck we purchased once and chained up to work ourselves into an area and ended up getting stuck in deep snow. We broke 3 of the 4 trying to get out and turned around. It was an absolute nightmare in a crappy spot and that next season we got good tires and V bar chains and never had an issue after that.

Last story was we had our power steering pump go out of our Suburban also in a steep and crappy spot. The steering pump also took out the ABS so we had to work it down the mountain very slowly in low gear with no breaks. It was less than ideal


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[idahohikker]

Now we’re talking with the stories.

One of my favorite quotes on the site:
“I'm surprised the seat cushion in my old truck didnt have a crease in it from my ass clinching on that one.” Azone

 

[MCR]

My son and I were headed up on a coues hunting trip in our Polaris Ranger. I had just put a spare tire holder on the back. One that fits in where the ball hitch would go. The metal base hung down several inches and I was going to cut it off before the trip but didn't have time. We headed up a very steep rock slope which was part of the road. We had the bed loaded down pretty good with gear. The front of the Ranger came up off the ground and I was looking up at the sky. The metal base of the spare tire carrier hit the ground and kicked the front end back down. If I had cut off the base of the spare tire holder we would have flipped backwards. I'll never go there again although it is a great coues spot. Just not worth it.

 

[Azone]

Now we’re talking with the stories.

One of my favorite quotes on the site:
“I'm surprised the seat cushion in my old truck didnt have a crease in it from my ass clinching on that one.” Azone

I swear under oath they are both true and I have witnesses who were in, or next to the vehicle when they happened. Its amazing what a stock Z71 can accomplish when you mix in a little bravery or stupidity depending how you look at it. I now have no problem parking and walking a extra half mile to mile anymore after some of my stunts from my early 20's.
I had to get winched back on to a road on the same X9A hunt a couple days before the road I mentioned in the story. Nothing stupid about that one I was just driving along to get up to a trail head and the edge of the road gave out and I ended up high centered with my truck leaning down hill with most of the truck off the road. The tow company got me out, for 350 dollars! Being 20 and one step above broke most of the time back then (dead end job and some wild friends and weekends back then) I almost fell over when they handed me the bill.
I could write a novel about the crap I watched my dad and his friends do with vehicles when I was a kid.

 

[CorbLand]

Drove over the pass from swan valley to Jackson hole one year in March. They closed it five minutes after we went passed the gate. It was an interesting trip. We had four heads sticking out each window watching for a snow bank or a line on the road. Never again will I do that. It was a tough one going fast enough to keep momentum but slow enough we didn’t end up in the ditch.


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[slick]

Blizzard in SD, near miss with a semi. Interstate’s closed, so of course took the backroads. Wound up in the ditch, didn’t have mittens accessible so used wool socks as gloves and randomly had ski goggles the back of the drivers seat, chained up the fronts and got more stuck. Long cold night sleeping there. Called the sheriff’s to let them know. Randomly wake up at 2am, dig my pipe out, start the truck to get the phone charged up. I see head lights approaching (still snowing and rippin’ wind). I stand on the road, turns out to be two fellas from south of the border driving to Denver to pick up a low rider wearing nothing but wife beaters, grabbed the dog and jumped in the truck with them. Split a hotel room in some small town in eastern SD with the fellas and crashed on the floor. They watched dumb and dumber all night, speaking in Spanish and laughing to each other. They left early the next morning, I dug out the motel. Owner gave me $200 and called a guy to pull my truck out. Made money on the deal!


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[5MilesBack]

Back in 1997 I took my wife all over the West on a trip in late June early July. We left Glacier NP and started heading for Portland to visit my wife's mother. Well, I wanted to go over Thompson Pass to intersect with I-90 into Idaho. But when we got close there was a "Road Closed" sign as they were doing construction on top of the pass. With my trusty road atlas I could see some secondary road coming off that road that made its way down to Wallace, ID and I-90. But driving back and forth we couldn't find it.

I finally narrowed down where it should be and saw what appeared to be a very faint 2-track covered over at the road in trees grown together. I got out, walked through, and saw the road........so we drove through the overgrown trees onto that road and started up toward Cooper Pass. On the way up there were 1/2 dozen or so trees downed across the road so I cleared them while my wife was secretly videotaping me and making comments negative to my forging ahead.

So we finally get near the top and there's snow......lots of snow. So what does every self-respecting man do? He throws on chains so we can keep "forging ahead". When I got to the top I asked my wife what she thought we should do. She says "I think we should turn around". I quickly scolded her and said "who asked you.......we're forging ahead". But first I got out and walked down the snowy trail to see what was ahead. Well about 200-300 yards ahead, the snow stopped........I'm thinking, it's all downhill.....no problem.

All was well until there was a tree down on the right side of the road. Instead of getting out and clearing the tree and then hugging the high side, I just drove to the low side to get past the tree. Big mistake. The back end slid into a giant tree well and that was all she wrote. We were stuck.

But luckily we had our mountain bikes with us. So we road them down the pass to Wallace, ID and stopped in at the first place we came to........the Sheriff's Office, to see what we could do to find help. It was Friday afternoon of 4th of July weekend. The Sheriff said he'd see what he could do but most likely it would be Saturday before anything would happen. I told him we saw a big front end loader on the way down the pass, wasn't sure if they could help or not. So we got a room and stayed the night. Everybody we talked to that night said "Cooper Pass? That don't open until September". Well, it might be open early this year, thanks to me.

The next day the Sheriff said he found out who owned the front end loader and he was headed up to dig us out........at $60/hour. That's a deal. A forest service guy was heading up as well and he gave us a ride. The truck was sitting on top of 5 feet of snow, and the loader angled it and pulled us out. $120, and the insurance paid it as a tow. My wife will never let me live that one down.

 

[idahohikker]

I feel like it’s the story of my life being on sketchy roads every winter or during hunting season. But these are the best memories

The scariest was our family was coming back from the Missouri Breaks on hwy 2 outside of Malta. Roads were so slick that every time our truck tried to shift gears it sent our truck and trailer combo sliding sideways. We babied it to Great Falls and like magic the roads were nice and dry all the way home

Hunting in the snow we always chain the truck up and go full send on roads that are open. Had multiple times where we’ve started sliding semi-uncontrolled and you just point it in a good direction and work yourself down the mountain as best as you can.

We had crappy highway tires on a brand new truck we purchased once and chained up to work ourselves into an area and ended up getting stuck in deep snow. We broke 3 of the 4 trying to get out and turned around. It was an absolute nightmare in a crappy spot and that next season we got good tires and V bar chains and never had an issue after that.

Last story was we had our power steering pump go out of our Suburban also in a steep and crappy spot. The steering pump also took out the ABS so we had to work it down the mountain very slowly in low gear with no breaks. It was less than ideal


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Thanks. Can you walk us through your technique of starting to slid "semi-uncontrolled and you just point it in a good direction and work yourself down the mountain as bast as you can"? I have my own method but I'm sure it's not the best and I feel like this is a good thing to know. You seem to have expertise.

 

[87TT]

I went turkey hunting one spring in a 4x4 Suzuki Sidekick. I was at 7500 feet and there was about a foot of snow on the ground on the FS road. The place I wanted to go was quite a bit lower so I figured the snow would be gone or a little less anyway. Wrong! The farther I went the deeper it got. I guess I should have got a clue when I passed an abandoned 2 WD truck with chains that was stuck in the snow, but no. I kept going for about another mile before I was really stuck in the deepening snow. This was before cell phones and I had planned on being out for a few days so no one was going to miss me for a while. I dug and worked for a few hours with no luck. I finally started walking out. When I got back to the abandoned truck, an idea hit me. I "borrowed" the chains from the truck and walked back to my rig. I got the chains on and was able to get unstuck. I returned the chains on my way back out of my canceled hunting trip.

 

[idahohikker]

I went turkey hunting one spring in a 4x4 Suzuki Sidekick. I was at 7500 feet and there was about a foot of snow on the ground on the FS road. The place I wanted to go was quite a bit lower so I figured the snow would be gone or a little less anyway. Wrong! The farther I went the deeper it got. I guess I should have got a clue when I passed an abandoned 2 WD truck with chains that was stuck in the snow, but no. I kept going for about another mile before I was really stuck in the deepening snow. This was before cell phones and I had planned on being out for a few days so no one was going to miss me for a while. I dug and worked for a few hours with no luck. I finally started walking out. When I got back to the abandoned truck, an idea hit me. I "borrowed" the chains from the truck and walked back to my rig. I got the chains on and was able to get unstuck. I returned the chains on my way back out of my canceled hunting trip.

Good thinking. Nowadays not sure people would be as understanding with that kind of thing but before cell phones I don't think anyone would have cared. My grandpa had to dismantle a fence a time or two to get out of places. He always put it back and no one made his ears ring.

 

[Nick Muche]

The Haul Rd in the winter is always fun.