We spent the night stuck

Thursday, September 19th, 2024, at 1:44 a.m. (PT), we received a request for help with an offroad recovery in California. The requester, Rick Moya, submitted the following information: “Yukon Denali green buried to the floorboards needs help. I will drive; I’ve been here for over five hours. Hungry, thirsty, tired, cold, no service, no service, so please hurry and help please / I’m with the vehicle.”

This request was received late after midnight; we were able to respond at around 7:00 a.m. The requester verified their GPS location and sent us some photos to share with volunteers. Once all the information was checked out, we submitted the request to local volunteers within a 30-mile radius.

A few minutes later, we had Robert Mashburn engaging, and thirty minutes later, Debi Oconnell also engaged as a backup. In this area, we always try to have teams working on requests due to safety issues.

Robert and Debi worked for a few hours on this recovery. Robert later sent us a detailed note, which we shared below, and a couple of photos.

From Robert:

This was a typical disaster of a recovery in the sand dunes. The vehicle was stuck in a narrow passage down in a bowl. The sand was a mix of sugar and blow. The vehicle was not 4×4 and was low on gas. I ended up getting stuck after I got the vehicle pulled out.

The dune I was pulling the vehicle up was steep. I ended up getting bogged down and couldn’t go any further. Joe Ventura hooked up to me and assisted me out of the bowl. Together we were able to get the now out gas vehicle up the dune and started pulling it down the next. The only thing in our way was another steep climb to the main road.  I disconnected and Joe took over the pull out.

Debi Lynn and I were positioned at the top of the hill to assist with winching both vehicles out. We ended up only using Debi for the winching. She made quick work of that, Joe flat towed the vehicle to a safer location. Joe then left to get gas for the now stranded vehicle. Once that vehicle was given gas, we left to recover the vehicle they had originally went to recover.

That recovery was taken care of by Debi using a kinetic rope!  3 1/2 hours later both vehicles were free and left the area. It was a fantastic experience for us!  Lots of winching and lots of kinetic pulling. No injuries or damage were sustained by anyone at the location. Our team worked fantastic together!  I can’t wait for the next one! 

The request was completed by 11:00 a.m. We want to thank both Robert and Debi, you both are always awesome. (offroad recovery in California)

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