Wednesday, April 22, 2026, at 9:43 a.m. (PT), we received a request for help with an offroad recovery in Oregon. The requester, Cooper Smith, submitted the following information: “Ford ranger, 2 wheel drive. Down off the main diet road a little ways, tried to turn around and found lots of sand. / I’m with the vehicle”
Our administrator, Al Fontan, 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 25-mile radius.
From the group of volunteers we contacted, we got David West taking over this recovery. He marked himself as engaging in our lobby and proceeded to contact the requester to coordinate the recovery.
We later contacted David and he shared a bunch of great photos a video and a complete description of the event with tons of details and tips we share below.
From David:
April 22, 2026 – Cave Mountain, Chiloquin, OR
On April 22, 2026 I received a notification from Off-Road Porta that someone was stuck in a two-wheel drive Ford Ranger a few miles outside of Chiloquin, OR. I was about 45 minutes away in Klamath Falls. Unfortunately, while the driver could make calls OK, he had barely any data connection and only one of the four pictures he tried to send me actually came through, and even that one only came through as a blurry thumbnail, which led to a bit of a miscommunication. That one picture just showed his rear wheels buried up to the axle in loose, sandy dirt, so coupled with his description that he was, “About 25 feet from a good road,” I assumed he’d just kept driving down a road he shouldn’t have and got stuck. Sounded like an easy recovery; I figured I wouldn’t even use my winch and I’d just pull right up behind him, throw a kinetic rope on his hitch, and pull him right out. This was not the case at all.
In reality, when I got out there, I realized that the truck was NOT twenty-five feet past the end of a good road, but more like 50 feet BELOW the road and stuck parallel to it. I was pretty confused as to how he got there at first, but as I looked around and talked to the driver, Cooper, I started to put everything together. As I understood it, he’d tried to make a multi-point turn-around in the middle of a narrow road, started spinning his rear wheels in the extremely soft dirt on the shoulder (the joys of 2wd and open differentials), and when he couldn’t get out, decided to just back down the hill and try to sidehill his way to a little dirt bike trail that looked solid enough to maybe drive back up to the actual road on, only to end up thoroughly stuck in loose dirt again before he ever reached the trail. And even when he got unstuck from there, he still had a steep (I’d guess around 15 degree slope) hill covered in loose dirt that he had to make it up, so it was DEFINITELY going to be a more complicated recovery than I’d initially anticipated. Fortunately, I had more than enough tackle in my truck to get the recovery done safely and easily.
With 4WD and TrueTracs front and back, my truck wouldn’t have gotten stuck where he did, but there just wasn’t really room to get down there and pull him out with a rope, so the easiest thing to do was to stay on the road myself and winch him. First, redirected off a tree so that while parked parallel to him I could pull him forward past the dirt bike trail he’d been trying to get to. Then, with the downhill slope helping him, he’d be able to back onto the trail, at which point he’d either drive up the hill or I’d turn my nose uphill and use another tree to redirect my line and pull him up the hill. Since the truck had no front recovery points, I used a V-bridle that I keep on hand for use with cars and other vehicles that don’t have good front recovery points to hook around its front control arms. Once everything was set up, I handed Cooper a simple walkie talkie I keep in my truck to give him directions instead of trying to yell everything out the window. Once I’d successfully pulled him forward, I explained how I wanted him to crank his wheel all the way to the left and back down the hill to get in line with the trail and attempt driving out. Unsurprisingly, he got stuck again almost immediately, so I pointed my nose uphill, redirected off a tree, and pulled him out with my winch. I didn’t quite have enough line to reach him, so I had to use an extension. I carry a number of ways to extend my line, but in this case I used a 30’ tow strap doubled over to give me enough line to reach his truck without creating a situation where the end of my actual winch line would reach the recovery ring redirect and force me to stop before he was all the way on the road.
Once I got him on the road, I let him follow me out until we reached a nice, maintained gravel road again. Everything worked really well and I got him out no problem. I took a number of videos along the way that I put together that do a better job showing how I did it than I can describe in writing.
A few tips from this recovery:
1) Communicate as clearly as possible with the person you’re recovering before heading out. Get as much information as you can. Get good pictures, if possible. If you can’t get pictures, ask for as clear a description as possible of the situation so you know what you’re getting into. I made some assumptions on this one that were dead wrong, and the actual situation was a lot harder than I had assumed.
2) Always carry lots of tackle. Tree savers, recovery rings, lots of soft shackles, and multiple ways to extend your line are musts. I’m always surprised how many people I meet who have a winch but almost no tackle beyond the hook at the end of it. This simple recovery would not have been possible without the right gear.
3) A cheap, easy to use set of rechargeable walkie talkies make communication extremely easy. I use USB-C rechargeable Baofeng MP31 GMRS radios. I can keep them charged with the same car charger I use for my phone so dead batteries are never a problem and their interface is stupid simple: just an on/volume knob, a PTT button, and up and down buttons to cycle through channels, which are audibly announced when changing. They’re very inexpensive and perfect for handing to someone who may not have ever used a radio.
4) It’s not always trucks and SUVs with tow hitches and good recovery points that get stuck; have a plan for hooking up to any vehicle. I could have used tree savers to rig up a harness that would have allowed me to safely pull this truck, but the V-bridle I used was significantly easier and didn’t tie up gear I could use elsewhere. I paid less than $30 for it on Amazon and have used it 3 times in the last year since I got it despite getting almost no snow this winter, so I think it’s well worth having.
We want to thank David for such great job and for taking the time to document the recovery with such level of detail. Thank you!
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