4WC Owners: A Cautionary Tale

[ColoradoGuy]

Last week I got myself into a nasty situation that resulted in me being stranded in the Colorado wilderness for three days. During that time, my truck and camper suffered some significant damage. I accept the blame for this, even if there were extenuating circumstances.

But that's not the point of this thread.

The damage to my '06 Tacoma was put at around $10,000, all cosmetic, none mechanical. The body shop needed the Eagle shell removed from the truck, so I called Stockton, learned of a Denver shop that handles 4WC repairs, and headed out there. I'd blown out the back door and done some nasty damage to the roof, or so it appeared.

While stranded, I'd spent two normal nights in the camper, sleeping in the fold-out bed, not the overhead queen. It of course never occurred to me that I was sleeping in a doomed camper.

My truck had endured a sideways blow to the passenger door while sliding sideways down a hill, into a tree. Apparently the blow caught a critical joint in the camper's superstructure, one that can't be fixed. Today I'll find out if the insurance adjuster agrees.

My point is this: We travel in wild territory, but the equipment we take there is extremely fragile. I probably won't be replacing my camper, but Becky and I gave it lots of love over the past two years. It was by far our favorite and most expensive toy.

Be careful out there, mates.

 

[keith]

So sorry to hear this. Hope you and your's are safe and unharmed. Can you post pic's of what happened. More details of how you slid into the tree? Were you driving? Hard to believe the camper can't be repaired. I'm sure you talked to the guys in Woodland but if you haven't, you might give that a try.

 

[CJ8Rockcrawler]

Sorry to hear of your camper's untimely demise. Glad you made it out okay though! If you don't mind sharing, I too would be interested in hearing and seeing more of what happened.

 

[mtn-high]

Sorry to hear this news...but glad you made it out AOK.

I'm guessing snow/ice...or the fabled "gumbo" mud was the culprit...'cus this time of year yer gonna encounter both just about anywhere/everywhere you go off-road.

I also wonder about the details of the wreck, but I wonder more why you are thinking about passing on replacing your FWC.

good luck whatever you decide.

mtn

 

[DLN]

Sorry to hear of your bad luck but glad you are ok, the rest is repairable. I'd get another opinion on the camper fix, we've seen people repair some very trashed campers here on forum and I'll bet it can be fixed in some fashion. Keep us posted.

 

[Darryla]

Fix your camper

Have you talked to Marty at ATC? They tell me they can fix anything on these campers. When I purchased mine from them they were working on one that fell off a truck. Check it out, you never know. Good luck. I hate to see someone loose their camper.

Darryl

 

[chnlisle]

Call MARTY!!!!

 

[EdoHart]

At the risk of sounding like a parrot, I'm sorry to hear about your accident. At least you lived to talk about it.

 

[ColoradoGuy]

Here's how it went down

Thanks for the sympathy, all. Probably shouldn't have said the camper can't be fixed. It's just that fixing it will be as expensive as replacing it, or that's the way it looks so far.

Here's some more detail on how this fiasco happened:

I ate lunch last Tuesday at a restaurant located on a nearby trout stream. Hot-link sandwich and a beer. Although I'd told my wife I was merely going to lunch, I got a wild hair and started scouting the river for some likely spots.

A couple hours later, headed home, I stopped at a liquor store and bought a 12-pack of Killians and a pack of smokes. Then I headed home on a back road that I knew well and had driven often.

At this point I became aware of some acute gastrointestinal problems. Bad hot links? I needed privacy, fast, and I turned off the road and up a side road. After taking care of my business, I decided that I had put the truck in a position that I couldn't back it up, and would have to continue forward.

For a couple miles, the road seemed totally reasonable. It was headed in the right direction and Tuesday was a beautiful Colorado spring day. So I continued on. After all, I had four-wheel drive! For reasons I can't really explain, I continued up this road even when it became more difficult. And then another wave of nausea hit, and I blindly kept going up this road. Why I can't really say, except that my judgment was clouded by illness.

I'm not a 4-wheeling kind of guy. I have it on my truck for snowstorms, mud season and for the occasional trip over a rough road. But performing tricks on hazardous mountain roads has never appealed to me. I'd rather die by sliding off a barstool than sliding off a mountain road.

Soon I had hit snow, the terrain became undulating, and I was sliding down the mountain -- skiing in my truck, for chrissakes! I crashed the truck several times, but couldn't turn around. Then more nausea. Finally I came to a place where I couldn't continue. I was utterly off the road and lost as hell. And physically and emotionally exhausted. I keep camping gear in my truck, as I always do, and collapsed in my bag. Don't believe I ever slept that night because I was still dealing with nausea and, of course, fright.

At 5 a.m. Wednesday, I got up and started a fire. Plenty of fuel to be had, and soon it was blazing high. I got in my truck, turned on my flashing lights and began belting out S.O.S. on my horn. Surely someone would notice.

Then I began to wonder whether today's Internet savvy kids even recognize Morse Code. Would they think I was some crank just amusing myself? S.O.S.? What's that?

When the sun came up fully, I started throwing fresh pine boughs and rotten wood on the fire, to create as much smoke as possible. I was pretty certain that the authorities would be looking for me by now. And I surveyed the position of my truck and decided it would be suicidal to drive off this mountain.

I still was feeling weak and still nauseous with no hunger. Good things, because my emergency cans of chili had disappeared from my camping box. (Probably got hungry one night at home and fixed myself a pot, only to forget to replace it.)

So I finished off my 12 pack and thanked God for the Irish and their devotion to good beverage. I longed for a shot or three of Jameson, but that was futile. Actually I was longing for a lot of things. Finally I collapsed in my bag and had a solid night's sleep. The next morning, I was damn certain, help would arrive.

The next morning, help never arrived, even though I'd repeated the signaling with the truck lights and the bonfire. I listened intently to KOA radio, hoping to hear that a search had been launched. Turns out, it had been, but KOA never reported it. Had they done so, I would have stayed put.

By noon, I was convinced that no human had ever encountered the terrain where I was stuck. If I wanted to survive this ordeal, I'd have to save myself. And that, I feared, could prove fatal. By now I was hungry and wondering what kind of greul I could brew up with some fresh pine needles). Just driving up this mountain had damn near killed me. Driving down in a weakened state? Through deep snow with no road underneath? Unthinkable, yet I had to do it.

I knew from my trip odometer that I was 14.3 miles into the woods from the highway. That was too far to tackle on foot and almost surely I'd get lost trying to do it. At least with my truck, I had a survival system in case I got stuck again.

So I found a ballpoint pen and began writing a note to Becky, explaining why I might not be around for our 35th anniversary later this year. In a very perfect metaphor for the whole damn trip, the pen ran out of ink after two sentences.

Further discouraged, I screwed up my courage and headed down the mountain. The first mile took more than an hour. After a couple miles, I was certain I would make it, and finally I did.

If there's a moral to this story, I suppose it is this: Beware of hot links sandwiches anywhere in the West.

 

[pods8]

Did I read right that you were just driving through the woods in the snow without a road what so ever in the end? Wow if so, I'm surprised you didn't get get flat out stuck.

Are their pictures of the aftermath? By the sounds of it you probably were taking damage on all fronts?

Glad to hear you made it out thought. Kinda crazy how innocent situations can snowball on ya.

 

[highz]

What a tale. I'm glad you are here to tell it! After reading it, I went and replaced the batteries in my SPOT. You just never know when or how things can get out of control

 

[EdoHart]

What a horrible chain of events.

By now I was hungry and wondering what kind of greul I could brew up with some fresh pine needles).

Hmm. Turpentine. Bad stuff.

It's amazing how fast an inconvenient situation can go to a bad situation, which can turn into a survival situation.

I'm glad you survived it and were able to tell the tale. Hopefully you'll see your 50th wedding anniversary.

In retrospect, how soon do you think the search parties would have found you?