Wednesday, May 15th, 2024, at 9:57 p.m. (MT), we received a request for help with an offroad recovery in Idaho. The requester, Randy Holland, submitted the following information: “I’m up on the 1575. Just off Beauty Creek Rd and before Beauty Creek camping ground. Just before campground is the 1575. Heads uphill. I’m approx 7 miles up. I’ve broken cables, straps, you name it. My Jeep has been here since January. I slid off the road in the snow and ice. Now that it’s dry, people are driving by, and it’s just a matter of time before somebody claims it. It may take two wrenches. I desperately need it out. I will send pics and the GPS location. It doesn’t have to be tonight, but I’m stuck here anyway till I can get it out. / I’m with the vehicle.”
We verified the requester’s contact information, location of the vehicle, and situation before sending it to local volunteers within a 30-mile radius.
By looking at the photos provided by Randy, we could see this was a pretty complicated recovery, not just the angle, but it required a team working in tandem for this to work.
From the group of volunteers contacted, we got two teaming up, Christopher Watson and Aaron Mickels. They agreed to attempt the recovery the following day.
Unfortunately, they were not able to pull the vehicle out. They reported back later, the front of the vehicle was stuck on a rut and it made it impossible to pull it up safely.
Chris and Aaron sent us a note, photos, and video. They felt bad for not being able to finish the recovery, but they really tried hard, and we appreciate that! Thank you both. (offroad recovery in Idaho)
From Aaron
That was a tough one. The pictures didn’t really do justice to how vertical that jeep was and how little room there was to work with. A zoomed out, big picture, picture might have been helpful to get that perspective. After talking to Chris, I opted to bring my F250 powerstroke for the extra weight and torque. I was almost able to pull it out but needed help from Chris’s winch. The winch was not working half the time so that really hampered things. I think more snatch blocks and a few more vehicles could get it out but at what cost? The stuck jeep is probably not worth more than $1500. And the front end is probably totaled. I get why he didn’t want to spend $2000 for a wrecker to come up there.
I’m frustrated to have failed in recovering the vehicle but what can you do. We brought knives to a gun fight. I was still fun, just not successful.
From Chris
Overall, this Jeep needed more lift than we were able to provide through our rigs. It was caught on a culvert somewhere on the front end that you can hear in the video. We managed to get it moved about a foot in one direction, but just didn’t have the lifting power to make it happen.
I’m reallly sorry we couldn’t do more for the guy, but it was in an incredibly tough situation that left us scratching our heads on if there was anything that could be done without a wrecker. Eventually we gave up after a couple hours of trying and that’s when we had reached back out to you.
We are always looking to increase our presence around the country, If you would like to receive a text message when we get a request near you, create your account here: offroadportal.org/signup