Starbrightsteve
Senior Member
- Joined
- May 5, 2015
- Messages
- 173
I'll give you all just a piece of our trip. We are open up newbies traveling in a Hallmark Guanella overlander on a 2021 F350 Crew cab with an 8' bed. I love the prairie reserve inMontana and so on our trip home from Alaska we stopped at the Buffalo camp in the reserve. I love it . Sitting and watching Buffalo and marsh hawks hunting. Clear sky, no jet trails and quiet. Lots of grouse, prairie dogs and coyotes calling.
My wife and I decided to head south to the charlie Russel. Wildlife refuge. We had no maps except Google maps and a paper map that showed a road to a place on the refuge called UL bend NWF. We thought we could connect with that road and then connect to route 191. What an
adventure! About 5 miles south of Buffalo Camp we crossed into to refuge. We were on a two track that wandered back and forth across the prairie. Now I'm not sure when it had rained last but here and there there were some wet spots. We had not seen any other people for miles and miles. I was rolling in two wheel drive and things were going good. We got to a spot that was wet and tracks went around the wet spot. I stopped and scouted and decided on a route but left it in two wheel. Big mistake like I said I'm a newbie. Anyway I plowed across and almost made it but got stuck. 3 wheels in the mud .
So I put it in 4 wheel but no go. My wife suggested we use our leveling blocks so I started digging them in. It worked and I pulled onto dry land. The blocks were almost invisible but we dug them out and are hauling them back to PA to blast the adobe out and reuse them. So on we go and eventually got to UL bend and the road just ENDED. So we reversed and ended up taking a trail we passed that had a road name other than a number. That road headed west and when I say road I mean it was a two track to where we eventually reached 191. When we got down to the Missouri on 191 we found out that the road we were shooting for was closed due to a washed out bridge and we would not have been able to reach191 by about 2 miles. So our diversion worked out and we were good.
We will not get into something like this again without. Maps! We survived.
My wife and I decided to head south to the charlie Russel. Wildlife refuge. We had no maps except Google maps and a paper map that showed a road to a place on the refuge called UL bend NWF. We thought we could connect with that road and then connect to route 191. What an
adventure! About 5 miles south of Buffalo Camp we crossed into to refuge. We were on a two track that wandered back and forth across the prairie. Now I'm not sure when it had rained last but here and there there were some wet spots. We had not seen any other people for miles and miles. I was rolling in two wheel drive and things were going good. We got to a spot that was wet and tracks went around the wet spot. I stopped and scouted and decided on a route but left it in two wheel. Big mistake like I said I'm a newbie. Anyway I plowed across and almost made it but got stuck. 3 wheels in the mud .
So I put it in 4 wheel but no go. My wife suggested we use our leveling blocks so I started digging them in. It worked and I pulled onto dry land. The blocks were almost invisible but we dug them out and are hauling them back to PA to blast the adobe out and reuse them. So on we go and eventually got to UL bend and the road just ENDED. So we reversed and ended up taking a trail we passed that had a road name other than a number. That road headed west and when I say road I mean it was a two track to where we eventually reached 191. When we got down to the Missouri on 191 we found out that the road we were shooting for was closed due to a washed out bridge and we would not have been able to reach191 by about 2 miles. So our diversion worked out and we were good.
We will not get into something like this again without. Maps! We survived.
