Last weekend I spent an day with the TLCA chapter Colorado Land Cruisers. Every Christmas holiday this club volunteers with the forest service to help patrol and recover stuck vehicles in the Pike National Forest during the Christmas tree cutting season.
My Toyota FJ Cruiser Chained and ready to roll
It was a cold morning with highs expected to be in the low teens and new snow on the ground. We all gathered a temporary the Forest Service office near Woodland Park. After a short briefing from the FS we broke up into groups of 4 and headed off to look for stranded tree cutters.
Lunch break
We stopped a few miles up the road and installed chains. Chains were going to be needed on the north end of the area that we were covering and also needed for recovery activities.
Once chained we headed north on Rampart Range Road and once to our section we started driving the side roads looking for stuck vehicles. With no action by noon we found a nice side road and pulled out for a lunch break.
After lunch we headed to the end of the road (closed gate) to check out road 327. We had some fun in the deep snow, over 2 feet, and then headed back south.
Of course we had to pay for our fun by doing a little work. We got a call on the radio about a stuck SUV on road 323 so away we went to see what we could find.
We found a BIG mess. We drove through 323 (a designated one way route) and then 324. About 1/2 mile from the end of 324 we drove up on a line of trucks. We could not see the end of them. Out of the vehicles we walk a bit and came across a Honda SUV with street tires that could not make the final climb back to the 2 way section. The Honda had slid to this inside of a corner and could not go forward. There was an unchained 80 that had a snatch strap on him and was confidant that he could pull him out. Even though I new he would fail it was easiest to let him give it a go. Once the 80 was unhooked and sent on his was we backed the Honda up and out of the way on the outside of the corner.
With the Honda out of the way we then had each one of the queued up trucks make there own run up and through the turn. We directed them all to take a wide line and directed them through. It must have take 20 minutes to get all the backed up traffic cleared.
With the traffic cleared we put a strap on the Honda and pulled it up the last hill. We were more like traffic cops getting all the bystanders cleared, half of which wanted to giving a try at pulling the Honda up.
What a way to finish the day. Had we come into 324 from the top we would have save at least an hour.