Saturday, June 6th, 2026, at 9:47 p.m. (AKT), we received a request for help with an offroad recovery in Alaska. The requester, Nathan Wong, submitted the following information: “Blue Toyota Rav4 is bottomed out on snow. Trail is rocky but a regular unmodified suv did fine until it bottom out on snow. Had to hike to the lodge at black rapids / I’m not with the vehicle / I can help cover the cost of fuel.”
Our administrator, David Mrak, the following morning 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 305-mile radius.
Alaska is one of those places where we are just beginning to recruit volunteers, and this was our first recovery operation. We had other requests, but this one was completed entirely.
From the volunteers we reached out to, we learned that Thane Adams would be taking over the recovery. Thane was approximately 90 minutes away from Nathan. He marked himself as engaging and promptly headed over to assist in the recovery process.
The recovery was on his way to be completed mid morning. It was closed early in the afternoon. We later received a note and a couple photos from Thane we share below.
From Thane
I don’t have any real tips or tricks outside of giving my whole simple mechanics and leverage class I compiled. As for the recovery, very straight forward, his car was frame deep in a snow drift, simple hookup and ease backwards. I attached a couple photos, 1 of his rig recovered and 1 of my truck.
We want to thank Thane for going out of his way to help in this recovery. We also want to thank all other volunteers who responded and offered help as well. You guys are incredible.
In places like Alaska we still need to grow, If you would like to receive a text message when we get an offroad recovery request near you, create your account here: offroadportal.org/signup