Monday, February 19th, 2024, at 7:12 p.m. (PT), we received a request for help with an offroad recovery in California. The requester, Vincent Tang, submitted the following information: “On military pass road in Shasta-trinity. Double cab Toyota Tacoma 4×4 loaded. Roughly 4 feet of snow. Currently bogged down with no traction. / I’m with the vehicle.“
By 7:19 p.m., we had confirmed the location, verified the current situation with the requester, Vincent, and submitted the request to local volunteers.
A few minutes later, more than 20 local volunteers looked at the lobby notes and started to work on a solution. We stayed in contact with Vincent the entire time. We also invited the requester to our chatroom (Lobby) to help stay updated and be part of coordinating efforts.
By 9:30 p.m., volunteers already had a plan. In the morning, the following day, by noon, we received word that the vehicle had been recovered at around 10:45 a.m.
From Glenn: “We found Vincent to be a bright young man who is actually a Gunners Mate with the Coast Guard. He had a good looking rig, Toyota Tacoma with roof top tent. He seemed knowledgeable and well equipped too.
We found him in about 4’ deep snow, 6” of fresh snow overnight! As a Nurse I wanted to ensure he was safe to drive and gave him a brief look to make sure he was okay! He was alert, oriented, and appropriate.
Once we got our four rigs turned around we worked to free his ride and did so fairly quickly with a kinetic pull! We put him in the middle of everyone to see he got down the trail safely. It was snowing consistently at his location.
He offered stickers of his CG ship logo and a challenge coin. We did the same with a coin from our affiliate SAR team when we are on duty.
The storm was pretty severe and was the second of two storms to hit. He camped out but things got worse causing him to rethink his plan. It all worked out since we were in the area with plans of our own.
The mistakes involved were lack of weather foresight and traveling alone in back country. Mount Shasta wilderness is serious backcountry and should be considered as such. The rescue was flawless by a extremely experienced team with highly equipped rigs. No pics.”
We want to thank L. Glenn Neese and Tim King from the group Redding Rescue Rangers. They were awesome. (Offroad recovery in California)
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