Finally got my roof rack re-installed yesterday, took much longer than it should have to prep it, and also too long to just plain get it installed. Sharp drill bits work much better than dull drill bits.  Drilling 1/4" steel is time consuming, even with sharp bits, especially when you mis-measure 6 of 12 holes and have to redo them. Jocelyn was a super star, lifting sun-heated metal overhead on a hot day is unpleasant work but she helped immensely, taking the rack back off, then re-drilling, then putting back on was a drag.

With the rack finally in place, we figured "hey, lets take a spin over to the hill behind the estuary to snap a photo and enjoy an afternoon beverage".   The hill is only about a mile away, nice n easy, no worries.

As this is the very beginning of the dry season, there are many wildflowers on the roadside, choking  the roadway... no worries, just stay in the middle and drive on up.  Sure, the road has a few little ruts, 4wd, onward and upward...   we jog this road all the time, nothing to see here.

Um...

Why did we suddenly shift 2 feet to the right and are now sitting at 45 degrees with two wheels spinning in the air?   This isn't the way it is supposed to work.

Stuck.   Totally and completely.  What we couldn't see for the shrubbery is that along the right side of the road, a ditch very suddenly forms-  within a car length it goes from 12" deep and 36" wide, to suddenly 4 or 5 feet deep (no exaggeration) and 18" wide.    I was resting on both axles, the front passenger side fender, and one rear tire.  Nothing else.   Great.

I tried reversing out, you never know, right?  But didn't even have enough traction to notice a change.  Ok.   So be it.   I jumped (literally) down out of the driver's seat and finally convinced Jocelyn to climb over and jump out too.  She was (not without some reason) worried that climbing around might upset the balance of the truck and topple it.  I *said* it was impossible, but truth is that I was wondering how much further the truck could tip without flopping.  At least it fell into the ditch on the uphill part of the road.  I guess that's good.  Still, I preferred it didn't flop all the way onto its side.  That would complicate the extraction.

For sure it was good that we were less than a mile from home.  We trotted back and borrowed a neighbor's 4Runner, grabbed my hilift out of the garage, and a 5ftx8" log that was in the garage as well.  

To minimize potential damage to the 4Runner's IFS front end, I reversed up to where we were stuck.  That alone would have been nearly impossible without Jocelyn's very able spotting. 

Remember, I was in 4wd on the lifted Cruiser on 33's to get to where we were stuck, driving up in reverse in a stock 4runner on 31s was....  slow.  Of course I was also hyper-aware of not getting near the sides of the road (and potential invisible ditches).

Got to the Cruiser and wedged the log under the rear tire to act as a ramp out of the ditch. Hooked up the strap (factory tow points on the 4runner could be improved) and Jocelyn jumped behind the wheel.  I clambored up into the Cruiser thinking, "Ok, this'll be over quickly."

She starts driving down hill, in low, reaches the end of the strap, I'm ready for the jolt....

Nothing.  Just spinning tires on the 4Runner.  Not even so much as a shudder on the Cruiser.  Not so good.    "Ok, back it up, try it again, give it a little gusto!"   She hits the end of the strap going .... 5mph?  ...  Nothing.  I can barely feel the Cruiser move when she hits the end.  No chance that we are pulling it out this way.   We did try two or three more times, but didn't want to hit it hard because the front fender was resting on the bank and I didn't want to leave it there.

Jocelyn (wisely) suggested that we dig out the bank a little bit, so I broke out the shovel and the Max-Ax (with shovel) and started digging.  Side note:  the Max is super-versatile, but like most "does everything" tools, it is not the ideal solution for any given job, in this case, digging.  It is very heavy and the ax head is unwieldy. But it sure beats using branches or bare hands.

We dug for a while, and realized the extent of how badly stuck the truck really was.  It was pretty bad.  Front tire was in midair in a 4-5ft ditch, back tire was hitting dirt, but it was pretty crumbly dirt.  Driver's front was on dirt, solidly, but I don't have lockers in front, so that didn't help us any, driver's rear was in the air.  Great.

Eventually my approach evolved into digging out the sides of the ditches to basically fill the ditch, also digging out the dirt from under the driver's front tire, to lower that corner of the truck and level it out a little.   As much as I could reach without crawling under the truck (no sense killing myself) I also dug out the dirt under the axles, further leveling the truck.

The real improvement was strapping the axle to the frame, dropping the hilift into the ditch, and lifting the front corner, to lift the front tire, to fill underneath it with stones and dirt.

I think that the hilift is both one of the best and scariest recovery tools made.  I'm impressed as all get-out that you can lift a ton or three.  That's amazing to me.  Even more impressed that you can lower the same weight in a controlled way.  Awesome machine.

But standing within a foot or two of a ton or two of Land Cruiser being held up by only a 1" x 2" perforated steel bar....  makes me nervous.   Especially when weight is sitting just about near the end of the 60" hilift.    I felt a little better for being uphill, I guess that meant that at least I wouldn't be crushed by a rolling vehicle after being impaled by steel from a failed jack.  There's that. Gotta look on the bright side.

The jack held, I got some dirt and rock under the tire. No damage to me and no additional damage to the truck.

At some point while I was doing my excavation project, I managed to raise another friend on the phone.  I told Jon that I was stuck and asked if he wouldn't mind stopping off at my house to grab Jocelyn (who had returned the 4Runner) and bringing his Discovery up to help me get out. Not only did he bring Jocelyn and the disco, he brought his gal and their 3 (4?) month old baby, Benno.   It was like a pleasant Sunday picnic, only no delicious food, no wicker basket, and a very stuck Land Cruiser.  I guess it wasn't much like a picnic at all.

The girls took a walk up the hill while I continued digging with Jon's help.  I don't think I would have been able to keep going without someone pitching in, I was pretty beat already after two hours of hacking away at the rocky dirt in the 90 degree heat. Jon's enthusiasm was at least as welcome as his digging (which was very welcome).

I should take a brief moment to be thankful that we were in the shade, on a hillside with some breeze.  It could have been much hotter.   We also had (have) a can of Off! in the truck.  Were it not for that, this would have been a much itchier story.

So as the darkness descended, and with an awful lot of dirt moved from under the truck into the ditch, Jocelyn made the executive decision to either pull the truck now or give up for the night and back the disco down the trail.  See, we hadn't planned quite as well when driving the disco up, and while backing down the trail was going to be a hassle in the fading daylight, it was going to be borderline dangerous (ok, maybe not so borderline) to do it in the dark.

So we hooked up the trucks again (side note:  factory tow points on the front the discovery are very robust, but also very small and difficult to access.  Probably ideal for some shipping device that is used in transport, but tired hands and a tow strap and shackle... required patience.)  and gave it a little tug.  First try=nothing.   2nd try, with a very little bit of force, and the Cruiser got both back tires on the ground and backed right out, as if from a parking space.  Free!!  At last!

I did leave about 6" of fender flare on the ground, for which I'm a little bummed because going flare-less here isn't really an option due to the Revision Tecnica (road safety test).  But one damaged flare is a small price to pay vs. a flopped Cruiser.  The front bumper may have gotten some damage in the process.  Hard to tell- my bumper is pretty trashed already.  If it is further damaged, I may never know and certainly don't mind.   I will be designing easy hi-lift attachment points into whatever bumper I build in the future.  And whatever repair work is needed on the flare, I'll get it done when I eventually repair the marker light on the other side.  Still brightsiding here- at least I hadn't just repaired/replaced the factory bumper right before busting it again.  There's that.

I detached the strap and jumped behind the wheel of Jon's truck to back him down the hill.  He ran ahead (behind) with a small maglite (better than the flashlight I didn't have in my truck, bad planning!) and did a fine job of spotting.  I was tired and more tired, so his conservative spotting was probably a very good thing.  Driving an automatic in reverse down rough terrain is not as pleasant to me as using a manual transmission.  By a large margin.  I wonder if the disco doesn't have some of those fancy features where it should moderate speed/braking automatically, but at night with an exhausted driver was not the time to find out. 

The trail widened just enough to do an 8 point turn to get the truck pointed straight, then we drove  down a little further to where Jon and I decided that he would be fine completing the road on his own (and I would have less dark and bumpy uphill to jog back to my own truck).

I borrowed his light (again, must remember to put a few in my truck, bad planning on my behalf) and started jogging uphill again.  For about the first time I realized that 36 really isn't 26.  I couldn't jog.  I wanted to jog.  My mind was jogging.  My arms were swinging in a jogging-like style.  My legs, on the other hand, were walking.  I know I'm no shining example of physical fitness, but usually that just means feeling more sore in the morning, not "unable to continue at my desired pace".   It was humbling.  But walking up didn't take that much longer and while I was walking Jocelyn had stowed all the recovery gear and generally prepped the cruiser for our return.   So I handed over the light, she spotted me down (much less conservatively than Jon had, which was also fine) to where we could turn around, and then we headed off down the hill. 

Defeated, but triumphant.  Somehow.

Jon and Philine (and Benno) were waiting for us at the bottom with two cold beers.  That sure tasted good!  We thanked them profusely and inadequately for their help, then returned home for a much needed hot shower then headed over to our neighbor's house for a delicious bbq and some more liquid therapy.

All in all, not the quick jaunt that we expected, but it was a pretty fun day anyway and we impressed ourselves at how well we work together in a situation like this.  I'm very grateful to Camilla for loaning us the 4Runner, and to Jon and Philine who spent their Sunday afternoon helping us out.  Of course I'm also very impressed by my lovely wife, as I don't think that most wives would have come back to help dig more and spot and generally participate in the extraction.

Oh, and the roof rack performed flawlessly, but I still don't have a decent picture of it.

Labels: 4wd, 4x4, Costa Rica, day trip, food, land cruiser, photo, tamarindo