So up the road I went...
KA-CHUNK. "Uh-oh."

Okay...so I got these 34x9.50 Super Swampers on my rig. So on the way home from work I decide to test them on some dirt. So, near my house there's a road I hadn't explored yet. I'll take the long way home and see how they act on gravel.

"Lo! A turnoff with largish humps (25 feet up the road)designed to keep people out, but no sign. Hmmm...powerlines. I guess it's a right-of-way." So up the road I went after shifting into low 2WD.

Now these four-foot speed bumps looked just like the kind that a dumptruck leaves, and I've gone over them many times. These were a little overgrown with weeds, but....

ka-CHUNK! "Uh oh." So...they weren't put there by a dumptruck. They were dug out from the other side by a front loader, leaving a DEEP HOLE with a vertical side (on the side with my front tires against it) which the weeds had filled. It looked solid from above, but nooooooo. I'm good and high-centered, and my tilt meter is reading 40 degrees pointed straight down. Everything loose in my truck had scooted suddenly forward against the floorboards in front. Nifty!

And me without hi-lift, winch control (winch was buried in the sloping wall of the other side of the hole, anyway), or shovel. "This could suck" says I. As I got out to ponder my plight, a pickup drove by on this lonely road. The driver gawked a bit as he sped past. Helpful fellow. I'd have thought that my rear-mounted spare sticking straight up in the air would be enough of an indicator that I might be in trouble. Perhaps he thought I was perfecting a new mining method, and wanted privacy.

Well, I let the ARB compressor pump up, got out and locked the hubs, and went to gather debris. Fortunately, there had been some cutting done in the past, and there were thigh-sized trunks and smaller around. I wedged them in as best I could, placing them strategically: a couple of them lengthwise behind the rear tires, and some more perpendicular to the front ones.

Then I stared rocking. The truck, that is. I dug the winch mount into the opposite wall a few inches, backed up, then repeated the process a few times. Then I moved forward, put it in the stock low range, and gunned it. The rear tires grabbed the trunks, and the front tires made contact with the wall of the hole and started digging. Three seconds later, I'm out!

"Thanks for the push, God."

As I pulled back onto the road, a tow truck rounded the corner, glanced at me, glanced up the trail from which I had come, and looked back at me. I grinned and drove away.

So: the pickup driver *had* seen the situation. "Better call my brother, 'Towin' Tim.' Tim? Yeah, it's me. There's some idiot stuck in the pit we put up on Flanker Trail. Got some business for ya...."

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