Sunday at 5:44 p.m., Mike submitted a recovery request. He had his Vanagon Syncro 4wd stuck in the snow.
He was next to the Barnhouse Trailhead in the Ochoco Forest. We exchanged a few messages, confirmed the location, and prepared the ticket for the volunteers. Mike was ready to spend the night in there if no volunteers were available that night.
At 5:50 p.m., I assigned the tickets to Crook and Jefferson county’s volunteers since we have none in Wheeler County. By 5:57 p.m., we had Kanan engaging in this recovery.
Here is a note Kanan shared about the recovery:
“Today RJ, Jenna (My gf and co-driver) and I went on a 6 mile hike though snow to a waterfall after camping out in the Sisters Wilderness. Jenna and I had just gotten home when we got the call to go out to the Ochocos. We contacted the customer, Mike, and checked on their gas, location, physical health, and any other complications so that we could bring the right supplies. Jenna and I outfitted the FJ Cruiser with the appropriate straps, recovery gear, and 5 gallons of gas. I called RJ to see if he wanted to go on this recovery as we didn’t know how stuck the customers vehicle was. We all met up in Prineville after getting gas and got on the same radio channels then headed out. When we arrived at the road where the customer was stuck we aired both vehicles down to 18psi and check all the 4wd systems before heading up trail. When we got on scene we found that the customer had tried to back down the road after realizing that the snow was too deep for their rig and had slid off to the drivers side and inside of the corner. We broke out the Kinetic 20ft rope and two soft shackles as to not damage either my rig or the customers vehicle and within 5 pulls had it fully out of the ditch and turned around facing back down the road. I lead the way back down to where we could air up and refilled mine and the customers tires before sending them on their way. The recovery was about 2 hours from home and we got there just in time. As we started airing up large snow flakes started falling and the road back was a white out for the first 10-20 miles.”
By 10:05 p.m., Kanan closed the lobby ticket, and the requester drove back home safe and sound.
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