Badger Mountain Truck Recovery Report

[iaccocca]

Well the deed is done and it went very well. Project Badger Mountain truck recovery was done first and foremost, safely. No one was hurt nor was anyone ever at risk. I believe there was no damage to vehicles or equipment. The job was performed with a minimal impact on the environment. The representative from Friends of Badger Mountain, Jim Langdon commented as much and I think he saw that we were conscientious in minimizing the impact. At the beginning of the day, and more importantly, at the end of the day Adam Fyall, the representative for the county was thankful for our help.
The first important thing that was learned first by those that hiked up to the stuck truck and secondly by those of us that drove to the top of the exit route hill when they relayed the information to us was that the top end of the engine was missing. Carb, intake, valve covers(?), etc. The truck was not going to help in its recovery. The owner had not seen the truck in a month and assumed that it was still in running shape.
A hi-lift jack and some shovels were put to work and then Tim winched it back a few feet (Tim’s Bronco moving as much forward at first as the Chevy was moving back.) From there Tim’s CO2 tank was put to work and the flat front tire was aired back up. After a bit more double line winching, Tim was able to pull the Chevy out with a strap as far as the flat ‘pull out point’ in the ravine.





From there we were able to run a double line from the 8274 on the nose of Lee’s (yours truly) LJ down to the Chevy. Rich drove his YJ down to the trail to run a cable down to help Tim’s Bronco up with minimal impact, but Tim was able to drive up without help nor spinning a tire, so we ran a double line form Rich’s rig to the Chevy and used both winches to pull it most of the way up to the hiking trail. We finished this part of the recovery by winching the Chevy over the hiking trail and then hooking Ryan’s ‘Yota and Rich’s YJ in a wagon train to pull the Chevy up, again with minimal impact.




Once atop the hill Rich pulled the Chevy down while Jose attached his YJ with a tow strap on the rear to be the brakes. The Chevy was brought down and parked on the street just below the water tanks.

The owner left with a friend to get a truck and rent a trailer to remove the non-running, no longer stuck Chevy.
All in all, I think this effort is going to reflect positively on the Peak Putters in the community and hopefully send out a positive image of our sport to counteract the negative image created by some.

[TJDave]

Here's the few photos I shot. I can't believe someone jacked all those parts out of that Chebby stuck way up there. Makes you wonder.

[oddball]

Great job by all. After seeing it come out you wonder why he wanted it out. It was a good day to be a Putter. Thanks to everyone.

[OldGreen]

You guys are awesome. Sorry I couldn't be there.

[Grumpy]

The truck that was stranded on Badger Mountain was removed this morning quickly and without incident, hopefully bringing this chapter to its end.

As you may have noticed, Sunday morning did not bring with it the most comfortable of weather, but conditions were good for the work that was being done on the hill. Despite the soft rain and sleet, the ground remained relatively hard with decent traction, providing good footing and a minimum of ground disturbance given the activity. Next time I will wear more Gore-Tex.

The weather probably helped to keep hikers away at an otherwise popular time to be on the trail. We also posted signs during the week noting the trail closure, and sent emails out through many mailing lists. This morning, four intrepid Friends of Badger Volunteers stood sentry two at the top, two at the bottom to turn-back any would be hikers. Only four patrons had to be rebuffed.

The Peak Putters, a local 4x4 club, offered to help remove the vehicle and to them we are grateful. They came prepared with an excellent plan of strategy and tactics that was safe, and effective in limiting damage to both the vehicles and the park. A total of four Peak Putters' vehicles were used for the extraction, with several more available if needed. About 20 volunteers took time out of their Sunday morning to assist. The guys were prepared, adaptable, and very efficient in their execution.

As for impacts to the park, of course these were unavoidable; but considering what we were doing today, I find the adverse impacts remarkably minor and contained. Yes, it's obvious that cars were driving around out there, but the Putters kept their footprint as small as possible. The relatively hard ground, and larger, under-inflated tires on the rigs kept tracks to a minimum. I was particularly pleased at how well the trail held-up, as it was crossed three times by vehicles, yet the uphill wall did not blow out. With a little rake work and a good growing season, this ingress should be all but forgotten by next winter.

I took a number of photos and will provide those on a website somewhere for you to see in a few days.

Thanks to everyone for the patience and participation, whichever the case may be. Particular thanks to Jim Langdon from Friends of Badger for organizing the sentries, standing out there in the cold with me today, and for all of his work on those trails.

Adam

-----

Adam J. Fyall
Benton County Commissioners' Office
7122 West Okanogan Place, Building A
Kennewick, Washington 99336-2359
509-736-3053

[Grumpy]

Very well done, Lee! Thank you. 3 hours. Wow! I think there may be some rescue outfits that could take lessons from you guys!

[Grumpy]

So, got the call from the Herald...

[TJDave]

So, got the call from the Herald...

Just read the on-line version. Very nice, Dave! Interested to see what kind of additional comments (possitive and negative) show up from the community in the response section. None as of yet.

Going to have to run out and buy today's copy of the Tricycle Herald!

[RONMOSS]

Great job everyone. It makes one proud to be a Peak Putter.

Ron, The Big Dude, Poppy

[commando14]

Great job guys! We had two new users sign up on the forum today... we're probably being googled by people reading the article in the paper.

[commando14]

Dale sent me these pics to post...

[Grumpy]

Let me know when everyone is okay with cross posting some of this to PNW, etc.

[Grumpy]

Seems Ceg is doing the PR for us

[colemancooler]

Keep up the good work.

[Peanut]

Lee just let me know this was here.

Here is the write up I put on the ORV Trail Watch site and Timbercrawler.

Here's some pictures from that day. Trashy and I, along with Reco Very, Reco's gurl, FRANKENYOTA91's girlfriend, bobracing were there along with the Peak Putters members for a total of about 20 of us. We arrived around 7ish at the park, got unloaded and gathered our thoughts before we headed up the back side of the hill. Dave W was in the lead of the pack and luckily we were able to follow tracks that had already been there for a while to get to the top. Of course in the true standard of Washington weather as soon as we got started..... it started sleeting and hailing....and then it turned to rain, and to top it off....a nice cold breeze blowing through to make sure we weren't warm unless we were moving!! By 8am Lurch's early bronco was in the ravine working on tugging the truck backwards to where it could be turned and directed up the hill. Of course we had to hit a snag at some point - and it came early on. Thieves had raided the truck and removed the carburetor, intake, distributor and started to remove the headers. When they found they couldn't get the drivers side header out they unbolted the master cylinder and moved it out of the way. So, the truck wouldn't run and had only the emergency brake. But nothing we couldn't work around right?!?! It took some digging to get the truck dislodged from where it's been sitting for 5 months. But after that things went smooth as silk.

Here's the pics....

This is where we came in at. Just to the left of that water tank is the hill we were headed over (the shorter one).


Parked on top of the hill




Trashy heading down


Lurch in the ravine






Trashy on stand by




It was decided that Ioccocca's jeep would be a winch rig, and Trashy's would be the anchor


While Lurch was tugging the truck down the ravine it was decided we needed another built jeep to be a winch rig, so rjff and his jeep were called in.


Ioccocca getting the winchline set up and Trashy in place for anchor. rjff setting up next to Ioccocca.


They had to pull the truck back far enough and then start pulling it out of the ravine so Lurch could get the bronco by.


Then Lurch took his place as anchor for rjff




a little closer look


Then it was dual winches with snatch blocks tugging the truck up the hill to the pathway.


Here you can see the truck just coming into sight out of the ravine


Lots of rigging and re-rigging of the winches




And it's finally up where we can pull it over the hill


Roman manning the winch cable. He did a great job keeping every one synced together and things moving smoothly.


Trashy repositioning to set up for heading back over the hill


Trashy and rjff for the hard pull up the hill.


Another change in the line up to go down the backside, Roman took up the rear in his jeep to provide brakes for the chevy on the way down


All in all it only took us 2 hours to remove the truck. Great job Peak Putters and friends!!

[iaccocca]

Excellent.

Thanks Peanut.

[TJDave]

Just a FYI for anyone interested. We had my sister and bro-in law over last night to check out the new house. They live in the Country Ridge area and my sister is friends with a woman that is part of FOBM. Anyway, we were in the garage looking at the Jeep and my sister started talking about this recovery and if I knew anything about it! Why yes I do!, and I showed her all of our pics. She was VERY impressed. She said she was up on the trail last week and her friend pointed out where the truck was lodged. My sister said you can not even tell anyone was up there, let alone dragged a big truck out of that ravine. She said her friend was very happy and thankful to the Peak Putters.

I thought I would pass that info along to you guys.

[Grumpy]

Very cool, Dave! I think it would be great, if the opportunity where to present itself, to work with them again on something.

[oddball]

I hiked the trail with my wife Saturday morning and same thing. I had to explain what we did and how because no trace was left behind. In fact, you could no longer see how he came down the hill to where he got stuck.