Sunday, July 21st, 2024, at 4:47 p.m. (ET), we received a request for help with an offroad recovery in North Carolina. The requester, Jonathan Gonzalez, submitted the following information: “I’m in church hill ln. I came down to the property and didn’t realize how wet it was. It was a 2015 f350, and dually, I was stuck in slippery clay at the bottom of a hill. The front of the property is a new house built at the end of the culdesac / I’m with the vehicle.“
We received the request, and within a few minutes, we contacted Jonathan and verified his contact information, GPS location, and situation. Once everything had checked out, we sent it to local volunteers within a 30-mile radius.
Within the first 5 minutes of having the tickets sent to volunteers, we got Chris Sholar, and a few minutes later, Mark Shirk took over the request.
They made contact with the requester. Within the hour, they met with the requester. Both volunteers were about 50 miles away. Chris later sent us great notes and photos we shared below. (offroad recovery in North Carolina)
Notes from Chris:
I arrived about 5:30pm, and Mark arrived about 15 minutes later. Jonathan’s truck was about 300 feet down a muddy trail cut through the trees at the edge of the property where his father is building a house. I was concerned that I would not be able to get my own vehicle up the muddy trail if I drove down to winch him out.
The trail was not straight through the woods, so there wasn’t a way for me to stay on solid ground and winch him up the hill.
When Mark arrived he drove his jeep down the trail and anchored to a tree from his receiver in the rear, he then winched the truck up the hill to the first turn.
Then, we attached a snatch block to a tree to pull Jonathan at the correct angle to avoid hitting any trees. Mark then backed his Jeep up the hill to the next turn and pulled Jonathan’s truck up as far as we could. Mark then backed around the corner, and we used a snatch block to pull Jonathan’s truck to the corner.
At that point there was some solid surface for Jonathan to drive a short distance up the hill. Next, Mark tried to turn around but wasn’t able to get up the hill to setup the next winch point. So he hooked to my truck that was on the pavement and pulled himself up the hill using his winch attached to my front tow hooks. After getting up the hill, Mark turned around to face Jonathan’s truck again and winched him further up. Mark was anchored to my truck at this point because there were no more trees to use.
With this setup Mark and I proceeded to reverse our vehicles while playing out the winch line, and then apply the brakes while Mark engaged the winch. After 2.5 hours we had Jonathan out of the mud and up the hill onto pavement. He was very grateful for the help and expressed his gratitude for the hard work we put in.
Mark is the real hero. Without his vehicle, we would not have gotten Jonathan’s truck out of the mud. Mark was very helpful and explained everything as we worked. I had a lot of questions as this was my first recovery and he was very informative.
In the last picture, the shape of the trail went downhill about 75 feet and then made almost a 90 degree right turn, then at the bottom where Jonathan’s truck was, the road turned 90 degrees left. You can just see the top of Jonathan’s truck down the hill from Mark’s jeep.
If we had not responded, I believe it would have taken something with tracks to retrieve Jonathan’s truck. It was a fun recovery and I learned a lot from the experience and from Mark.
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We want to thank both Chris and Mark for a great job getting this heavy truck out of the mud. These guys are amazing.
In North Carolina, we are looking to increase our presence, If you would like to receive a text message when we get a request near you, create your account here: offroadportal.org/signup
