Okay, everybody mark you calendars now for next year's big event.  In case you haven't heard, August 2nd has officially been deemed, "National Get a Jeep Stuck Day."  I already can't wait until next year!  Both our boys did their part this year and it was much fun.  But I'm getting ahead of myself so let's back up shall we?

Jared went up this past weekend to Strawberry on a family camping trip.  We expected him back Monday night, but instead we got the phone call every parent fears, but every friend can't stop laughing about.  "Mike, I need you guys.  I slipped off the trail and am dangling on the edge of a ravine." (see, just brings a smile to one's face)

Well, we let him sweat for a while, and plus, we were installing Chris's new stereo in his Jeep and couldn't leave on a two hour trip without a radio...I mean with a dash opened up and dangerous wires exposed.  We got moving soon after that, with a new stereo blaring and plenty of CD's and other helpful recovery tools.

Now, Jared's dad has an H2, and all Jared said when he called was that they couldn't reach his Jeep with it and we were thinking maybe they just didn't want to scratch it up.  But when we got there we saw that the road J had chosen was indeed too narrow with the hill going up on one side and the slope on the other.  So once again, we had to go where no Hummer has gone before.  When we got to where J was we found his Jeep off the trail and pointed nose up on the slope with the back itching to finish it's slide down the ravine.  A winch would have done the trick, but being without we put Plan B in to action.

We aired his tires down a little and tied his Jeep off on a tree in front of him in case he should continue his descent.  Then we tied him off on Chris's front bumper and Chris started backing up.  With Jared on the gas and the extra pull, he was able to slide around and get back topside first try, no problems.  In fact, we were still doing the "That was too easy talk," when Chris's Jeep lost one wheels's footing while backing up.  Here we go again; second verse, same as the first.

To understand the problem, you need to know how narrow this trail actually was, and that the dirt was just as mulchy as (insert something clever here).  So now we got to see how Jared ended up in this perdicament in the first place.  Like quicksand, every time the Jeep moved and tried to get back up, the dirt and slope would just suck him down further until his Jeep was just like J's, but nose down and now it was him we were tying off for safety.  It was quite funny because he couldn't get his seatbelt on because of the angle he was at, and my sister who was riding shotgun, couldn't get out because she had hers on and it was locked as well.

We finally got out the chainsaw (I think it comes stock in one of the Hummer's many compartments), and hacked away at the trees actually still left standing from Chris's attempts to get back up.  This did the trick and got him free enough to spin his way to the top.  He looked around for damage from the trees and found none, but had a few more leveled with the saw to widen the rest of the road, and a few it seemed, just to show them who's boss.

It turned out to be more fun with all the action we got ourselves into and plus it was great to get up to the trees, cooler weather, and see the scores of deer and elk just hanging out until hunting season.  I'm sure the most important thing here that Chris would have me tell is that he was able to get back up without any help from another vehicle.  Plus the score is tied now, because J made the trip up to Sunflower about this same time last year to pull Chris out of a nice jam.  Unfortunately for our busted parts page, nothing got broken this go 'round, but there's always next year's NGAJSD.