Friday, May 10th, 2024, at 8:54 p.m. (PT), we received a request for help with an offroad recovery in Washington. The requester, David Hoel, submitted the following information: “Driver front wheel off edge. Need an anchored winch pull or tow. Forest road is passable to this point from hwy 508. I’m in a F150. If we need to wait for morning light, that’s okay. I have some food, water, and a blanket. / I’m with the vehicle.“
We received the request pretty late, and after verifying the GPS coordinates and situation, we submitted the request to local volunteers within a 35-mile radius. We also contacted our recovery friends at WORN, who always help us when we get a request in WA.
We asked David to send us a few more pictures to show around the vehicle while trying to figure out what could be used to get him back on the trail.
Within a few minutes, we got Wes Lucas and some other WORN members getting together to help. By 10:20 p.m., Wes got a team together, and they headed toward David. The recovery was finished around 2:15 a.m.
Later Wes sent us a quick report after the recovery:
This was a pretty simple recovery. Once we got to it, the trail was overgrown and very narrow in some spots, surprised that Guy even made it that far. There was literally no way to winch or get around the vehicle so we opted to put a strap around the rear axle on the right side and had him air down as low as he could go and just slowly pulled the vehicle back until it was up on the ground. There were two huge stumps that we did not see in the picture that were on the drivers side that would have prevented him from sliding down the hill farther. We then had to back up about a quarter mile to get to a turnaround.
Didn’t get a chance to take any pictures because everyone was actively ground guiding or driving to get us back up the hill to a turnaround point.
We want to thank Wes and all WORN volunteers involved. Awesome job. (offroad recovery in Washington)
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