Note: I'm not quite sure what to title this piece. I'm torn between these titles:
"Shitbox Shenanigans"
"Just Jeep Things"
"A Wild Jeep in its Natural Habitat"
"That's not Our Tow Strap, Is It?"
"That's not the Clutch, is it?"
"Snow Wheelin"
"Whose Bad Idea Was This?"
"Where the hell even are we?"
Under the roof of my front porch, I sat cross-legged with a mug of hot green tea (sweetened with lots of honey) in my hands and my phone in my lap blaring out the local news, a warming sun burning off the morning dew from the foliage. Nearby, in the giant blue spruce guarding my driveway, a small red-headed house finch was perched on a limb, chirping occasionally. A handful of bees zipped across my lawn, busily pollinating the damn dandelions I couldn’t get rid of, instead of paying any attention to my scraggly apple tree just feet away. Across the road, groups of tennis players loudly practiced in the courts, disrupting the otherwise quiet ambience of the early summer morning. Every now and then, a car would quietly pass by.
But, the familiar distant rumble of an engine caught my ears long before I saw it. Almost immediately, I finished the last of my tea, leaving the blue ceramic mug on the small glass table next to me (I’d already locked the front door, so I figured it would be safe to leave the mug outside, under a roof, till I returned hours later), and stood up with my essential things.
“Phone? Check. Wallet? Check. Charger pack? Check. Snacks? Check…” I listed in my mind just as my dad’s weathered 1992 YJ came barrelling around the corner, coming a little too close to my Xterra for comfort.
I approached the vehicle with a cheerful grin and threw open the passenger-side door to get in.
“Ya ready to break this thing in?” my dad asked with a shit-eating grin stretched across his face.
“Of course!” I answered as I clambered into the jeep and tossed my stuff into the backseat.
I expected us to speed off, but my dad instead got out of the idling jeep. I watched him through the rear-view mirror as he ducked behind my Xterra, and emerged a moment later with my D-ring hitch, which he then installed on the jeep. Dad got back into the jeep announcing that he was stealing my hitch until further notice, and I just shrugged.
“As long as I get it back in the winter, I’m cool with that.” I said.
With that, we headed off. Unlike last time I rode in the jeep, it was much less shaky, but still louder than someone ripping ass in the middle of an exam.
“Ya like how smooth it is now?” my dad shouted over the rumbling.
“Yeah, it feels great!”
“I should’ve done this sooner! Y’know, before the tire fell off...” My dad rambled.
Indeed, just a couple weeks before, the front passenger’s side tire fell off while my dad was driving through his neighborhood. I wasn’t with him, but it turns out the vibrations of the unstable jeep shook out all of the lug nuts from that one tire, and loosened the others. My dad managed to find just enough of the fallen nuts to make it home in one piece. Miraculously, almost no damage was dealt to the jeep despite it riding on the rotor for a good twenty feet or so.
Of course, my dad got to work right away to fix the tire and resolve the unnecessary vibrations. He did an impressive job doing so! But, I’ll admit, I was a little more nervous than usual in the jeep knowing that story, especially when we merged onto the highway and followed it into the mountains. That jeep wasn’t built for speed, but we were still hauling ass. I was amazed as the speedometer ticked all the way up to 75 mph and we hadn't started death wobbling. Of course, by then it was far too loud to talk. So, dad and I just rode without speaking, nervous excitement hanging in the air between us. Much like the scent of dust, oil, gasoline, and pine trees.
I really had no idea what lay ahead of us that day. All I knew was my dad rounded up a friend or two, and we were going to do some early-season off-roading. Based on that, I figured we’d ride near and/or above the tree line, hitting waist-high snowdrifts, washed-out and/or entirely wiped out trails, fallen trees, and all sorts of hazards and death-traps. I supposed someone had a winch (we didn’t), but wasn’t entirely sure. We didn’t really have any recovery equipment ourselves. We forgot the tow straps in my Xterra. All we really had besides D-rings was a shovel and a hi-jack, and perhaps a quarter can of WD40. Nothing very useful without tow straps when it came to getting ourselves unstuck (getting stuck was inevitable).
In other words, I was about to be in my element. After over fourteen months of abstinence from danger and adrenaline, I was back to doing one of my most cherished activities; stupid redneck shit in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, enduring misery and anxiety with loved ones, hardly assured by the fact that the adventure would be enjoyable only when I returned home safe and sound. Until then, I’d be grinding my teeth and cussing like an ox driver, not entirely sure if I’d make it home before dusk unscathed.
While we were charging up the highway, fighting traffic caused by a herd of bighorn sheep hugging the granite mountainside just feet above the road, my dad bragged about how his wife was convinced we would get hopelessly lost in the wilderness, and/or get clobbered to death by an angry mama moose. On the surface, I laughed. But, deep down inside, I was starting to freak out a bit (as I do before anything slightly sketchy or dangerous).
I was haunted by images and stories of off-roading, hiking, and hunting gone horrifically wrong, as well as the worry that I might actually run into an angry mama moose. It was calving season after all. Our off-road shitbox wouldn’t protect us much from 800 pounds of raging retribution. Let alone whatever the hell we were about to do that day.
Nevertheless, it was far too late for me to back out of our adventure. We were now venturing deeper and deeper into the wilderness, heading to an off-road trail that supposedly lead us from Idaho Springs to Central City. I say supposedly, because the friend who would meet us at the trailhead hadn’t been on that trail for over five years, and he simply referred to satellite imagery, which may or may not have been recently updated.
Twenty minutes or so out of Idaho Springs, we arrived to the trailhead above the treeline. Standing next to a brand new forest green Jeep Rubicon was our buddy, who's name I've unfortunately forgotten. For the sake of this story, I'll call our buddy, well, Buddy.
Buddy's jeep was equipped with all of the bells and whistles short of a CB radio. I felt relieved that we had a brand new winch and enough tow straps to hitch up a mule train, as well as an SOS button in case both jeeps got hopelessly stuck. But, I was assured that wouldn't happen. If we got stuck, we could get unstuck. Probably. Maybe...
We parked our YJ next to Buddy's and got out. Just above the treeline, there was still plenty of snow and ice cold mud. A fresh breeze was rushing down the leeside of a nearby snowy peak, bringing the temperature down to a comfortable fifty or sixty degrees (in Denver, it would get to be around ninety that day), as well as a wonderful scent I've yet to name (though, I assume it was a mixture of pine trees and snowmelt, sweetened slightly with the scent of wildflowers and fresh prairie grass). Snow and quartz-riddled granite shimmered in the sunlight. There was not a single cloud in the ocean-blue sky. We could see nearly every famous fourteener from our viewpoint on the crest of a mountain plateau. If I had a pair of binoculars, I probably could've picked out Denver and possibly Loveland or Longmont. Perhaps, a few elk grazing in a meadow peppered with colorful wildflowers far below us, or a bald eagle perched in a Douglas Fir. I heard a few marmots barking a good distance away from us, as well as the very distant ring-ding-ding of a two-stroke dirtbike. There was also a constant low rumble of jeeps and side-by-sides emanating from the wilderness all around us.
I reveled in the view while the men stood by the jeeps, discussing the day's ride. I completely tuned them out, partly because I was so enchanted by the natural landscape. Partly because I wasn't concerned about any of the adventure's details. I was just along for the ride.
Moments later, I heard the jeeps start up, so I sprinted over and sprung into the YJ. Buddy would take the lead, as he knew the trail way better than we did. We'd rove along behind, taking to the boulders and snow much more slowly than Buddy's jeep. We didn't know what our jeep was actually capable of. We had plenty of sort-of scientific theories. Lots of if-thens and shoulds, not a lot of we-knows. But, we were going to find out that day. Either we'd emerge from the wilderness several hours later triumphant, or we'd have to get CPW to come rescue our asses. Based on how rickety the jeep still was, I was betting on the latter. I hoped I was wrong.
Following Buddy, we turned and drove back down into the tree-line, only slightly. Most of those trees were red cedars. Some had fallen over the trail during the winter, but the jeeps had no problem crawling over them. However, the farther we ventured into the trees, the deeper the snow became, and the trail narrowed. The trail now seemed more suited for dirtbikes than for full-sized jeeps. It weaved through the cedars and didn't seem to have a set direction other than down, and the trees and snow were only growing thicker. The distant echoes of off-road toys had died down completely. We were alone. Just us and Buddy.
I exchanged a nervous glance with my dad. Had we taken a wrong turn? As we crawled slowly along, the wilderness was only growing more dense, the snow deeper and more hard-packed. Neither of us had cell service, and Buddy's jeep occasionally disappeared from view within the trees. In my mind, I was wondering if we were about to get hopelessly lost and stuck after all.
Despite this, we pressed on for a good twenty minutes or so, through tall snowdrifts, over fallen trees, across snowmelt creeks, and up and around large boulders, until Buddy abruptly stopped at a waist-tall snowdrift blocking the hardly-existent trail.
"Aw, shit..." Dad sighed.
"Turn back!" Buddy shouted.
"Alright!" Dad answered.
"And get stuck in the snowdrift? Yeah, that's a good idea..." I sarcastically mumbled.
Carefully, Dad negotiated the trees and snow to turn around, narrowly avoiding getting us stuck between two Douglas Firs Austin Powers style. Miraculously, we got the jeep turned around, but there was a major problem: one of those damn hard-packed snow drifts.
For a couple of minutes and with Buddy's guidance, we did our best to ram through the snow pack, grinding gears, tires spinning, engine roaring. I did my best to encourage our jeep by shouting to it, "C'mon! Ya got this!" But, it soon became apparent that we couldn't just ram ourselves out when we more or less high-centered the jeep on the snowdrift. Buddy would have to winch us out.
Dad and I got out of the YJ to help guide Buddy out of the snow and ahead of the high-centered vehicle. Buddy had a much easier time turning around and getting through the first snowdrift than we did, as he used a fallen cedar log to keep at least one or two tires on hard ground, and utilized a slight clearing to his advantage. But, there was a second snowdrift up ahead that stopped Buddy in his tracks. He too, was spinning tires.
At this point, I could feel my anxiety beginning to skyrocket. If both jeeps were stuck, and we were at least a nine mile hike away from anyone who could help us, and we had no cell service, how were we ever gonna get out of that wilderness alive? To rein in my anxiety before I went into panic mode, I figured going for a short walk around the wilderness, never losing sight or sound of the jeeps, would do me good. Perhaps, I'd find some pinecones or cool rocks to take back with me. Maybe, I'd get lucky and find a leftover antler shed, or a sun-bleached animal skull. Hopefully, I wouldn't cross paths with anything more sinister, like Old Slewfoot, a frozen dead guy, or an angry mama moose and her calf.
Except, as I plodded and slipped through the snowdrifts while keeping an ear on the men and their jeeps, I noticed fresh scat in one of the snow drifts, accompanied by a suspicious yet unidentifiable single track planted deep in some nearby mud, and a freshly fallen (or more accurately, pushed over) cedar log, its inner base still moist and crawling with insects. Upon closer inspection, I realized that what I was looking at were obvious signs that a moose had wandered through there not long before.
Thoroughly spooked, I charged back the way I came, bounding through the snow and mud as gracefully as a dog with cerebellar hypoplasia. Meanwhile, my dad's voice echoed through the conifers, shouting my name. He and Buddy needed my help to successfully get the jeep pulled out of the snow. My job: make sure the winch cord didn't get stuck under a tire or a log. Now, soaking wet from the waist down, struggling to catch my breath, I stood with a tree between me and the jeeps, shouting out commands to the men.
"You're good!" I'd call out, "A little to the left! Don't hit that tree! Easy! Give'r hell!"
Under my breath, I mumbled much more discouraging words to myself. Seeing the jeeps making little progress, I seriously began to believe that we'd have to abandon them in the woods and hike back up to the trailhead for help. Worse yet, as it struggled to back up the mountain and through another large snowdrift, Buddy's jeep began to smoke from underneath. It smelled of oil and friction. Lots of friction.
My first thought was that the winch just broke, so I rushed over to check on it. But, the winch was fine. It was Buddy's brakes that were steaming.
"What the hell's going on?!" I shouted as I skidded to Buddy's side of the Jeep.
"The E-brake..." Buddy embarrassingly sighed, "I forgot to disengage the fuckin' E-brake."
I sighed a little relief. The brakes would soon cool off in the snow. But, it would be awhile before Buddy felt it was safe enough to try again, this time without the E-brake engaged.
Stressed the hell out and needing a place to sit, I noticed another dead cedar log sticking up out of the soil. The log was dry, and when I pushed on it, it easily moved. Like the moose that had pushed through the wilderness earlier that day, I shoulder-checked the dead tree, bringing it down with a satisfying crack.
"That's better..." I thought as I sat down on my makeshift bench to watch the brakes cool (they were glowing slightly red still).
The men stood discussing our next steps, though their voices very quickly faded into the background as I began to focus on the sounds of the wilderness surrounding us. Several types of birds were calling, most notably the yelping cries of a nearby bluejay I never spotted, as well as the cute little chirps of Chickadees, and the distant purr of a hummingbird. A tassel-eared squirrel sat high up on an evergreen branch, chewing on a nut of some sort, occasionally twitching his tail and making angry squirrel noises, potentially at another squirrel I could not see. Snowmelt creeks trickled alongside the trail we got ourselves stuck on, filling up sun warmed puddles for waterbugs and worms to call home. Occasionally, a gust of wind would rush down the mountain and cause the evergreens to hiss as their branches tossed. Sometimes, snow would fall off the trees, and I'd jump thinking I was hearing that damn moose plodding up behind me.
Thankfully, after a few minutes of waiting, I was called over to help attach Buddy's winch to my dad's jeep. Buddy had successfully managed to get his jeep onto dry ground, and now we just had to get the YJ onto that same dry ground.
"Alright!" my dad began as he and I slipped and slid down the snowpacked trail to his jeep, winch cable in hand, "Your job is to make sure the winch doesn't get run over. We don't wanna break this cable."
"And, if it does end up under the tire?" I asked.
"Then, tell me and I'll back up while you pull the cable out from under the jeep. Easy enough, right?"
I nodded, a little unsure but fairly confident I could do my job without losing my hand in some horrible freak accident.
Dad got in the jeep and started up the engine, and I stood with my back leaned up against an evergreen tree. Up ahead, Buddy's jeep roared to life, and the winch began to tighten as he drove forward. Soon, my dad gave his jeep some gas. Rooster tails of snow flung out from under all four tires of the YJ, only this time, with the help of Buddy's jeep, the YJ began to move forward. Tediously making its way up the mountain and closer to drier ground.
I stayed nearby, cautiously following the two man convoy up the steep, snowy terrain, making sure to keep a solid tree or boulder between myself and the jeep just in case something went terribly wrong. Only once did I have to run up and remove the winch from under my dad's jeep.
Soon, after several minutes of pushing, pulling, and cussing, the YJ successfully reached its destination. I helped unhitch the winch from the YJ, then Buddy drew it back in, and Dad stood by watching, ready to help if needed. Finally, we could get on with the rest of our journey. Hopefully, without getting stuck again of course. But, we weren't out of the woods yet. Not even close.
