Sunday, April 21st, 2024, at 8:19 a.m. (ET), we received a request for help with an offroad recovery in New York. The requester, Andrew Ross, submitted the following information: “Truck is a 2005 Dodge Dakota. 4×4 basically stock. Buried to the frame in soft mud. Maybe 70 feet away from harder-packed gravel. On one of the trails in the state forest up there. We can’t get to the truck from the CCC road off Cheese Hill rd. Got stuck where logging had been done recently. The trail looked ok, but the bottom was super soft. Buried deep on the passenger side. The truck is listed hard to the right. Something might be broken in the driveline. W3W is for the truck’s approximate location, within a couple hundred feet.
There isn’t much to hook to on the front of the truck. We may need to be dragged 180 from the rear bumper unless someone can get to the back and pull that way. / I’m not with the vehicle.”
Brandon Brooks, one of our general administrators, organized this request. He checked the contact information, location, and situation before sending the request to local volunteers within a 35-mile radius.
Of the volunteers who responded to the call, we had four who marked themselves as engaging. Brendon Brown, Liam Quackenbush, Patrick Negus and Steve Ryder.
By 11:00 a.m., the volunteers were at the scene, and by 11:40 a.m., the recovery was completed. Later, Brendon sent us a few photos of the recovery.
A few days later, we received a bit more info from Steve and some more photos:
This recovery was about 150 feet out of our reach. The vehicle was down to the frame in deep mud caused by recent rain and ruts from a log skidder. We were fortunate to have 2 vehicles and 3 people performing the recovery.
The vehicle had also lost 4WD. We were able to hook onto the frame and used a snatch block with a good amount of winch line and a length of spare winch line. The primary recovery vehicle had to be anchored to a secondary vehicle for the weight. We were able to pull the vehicle and use less of the rope as it got closer. The snatch block was secured to a tree and used to pull the vehicle on to a drier area where the ground was stable enough to get traction in 2wd.
We want to thank all the volunteers involved. You guys are amazing. (offroad recovery in New York)
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