Sunday, January 18th, 2026, at 2:35 p.m. (PT), we received a request for help with an offroad recovery in Washington. The requester, Randy Holland, submitted the following information: “Motorhome stuck in mud, been stuck 6 days, Motorhome is for sale have a list of buyers but cant show in this situation, once it’s sold I can pay fuel and extra this next week. Out of heat, fuel, food etc.might need a couple riggs / I’m with the vehicle”
Our administrator, David Mrak, contacted the requester and verified the contact information provided, GPS location, and current situation before sending the request to local volunteers. In this particular recovery, we contacted volunteers within a 50-mile radius.
From the group of contacted volunteers, we had Jim Adams, and Zachary J. taking over the recovery. Jim was 30 miles away and Zachary was about 90 miles away.
The recovery extended for a couple days, we had WORN also looking into finding volunteers. But by the second day Jim and Zachary coordinated and joined efforts to help the requester.
A few days later, Zachary sent us an email with some details about the recovery efforts.
From Zachary
I wasn’t sure whether we’d be able to complete this recovery. The other volunteer was able to have his daughter bring her 1500 along, which ended up being very necessary for my gladiator to have as an anchor. We used two winches, each through a snatch block. We passed tree savers through the leaf spring mounts, as those were the best accessible sturdy points. It took about 6 pulls, as the route we selected to get back to the road was very soggy. The RV ended up getting stuck several times, which necessitated digging out the rear tires and careful placement of traction boards to try to get the tires back on the top of the soil. The RP had destroyed at least one tire (worn down to the steel bands and fraying them), spinning trying to get out. We ended up not using the engine of the RV much.
Thankfully, the RP was understanding about potential damage that would inevitably occur during the recovery. I think we minimized it as much as possible, but it definitely has a few spots that were damaged.
Tips:
- Traction boards are useful, but not magical.
- Spool your line out. A winch that has 4 layers of line on the drum has significantly less pulling power than one that only has one. Never go below 6 wraps, as the friction on the drum is what transfers the load, but only spooling out a minimum seriously degrades the winch’s performance below what it’s rated for.
- More gear = more options = better chance of success
We want to express our deepest gratitude to our volunteers. Your efforts and dedication have truly made a significant impact.
If you would like to receive a text message when we get a request near you, create your account here: https://offroadportal.org/signup