Forgive me for I have sinned

Yesterday I broke one of the four wheel driving commandments:

thou shalt not attempt to cross an obstacle without first performing an inspection.

In short, we got stuck in the mud! My confession follows.

Having just ascended 1000m of steep and rocky track we were feeling quite pleased with ourselves; the car was still in one piece, the views were amazing and we were well on our way down the other side.

First we came to one patch of mud and cruised through with ease. It was the next patch that posed the problem. Bigger than the first, it was about 4m long, and looked a bit sloppy as we approached. “Will Totty be OK?” asked Clare. The road was still pretty steep and I remember replying; “No problem. Even if it is muddy, gravity will pull us through.” At no point did I consider stopping for an inspection. My reply proved to be entirely incorrect as I piled into the bog only to grind to a complete halt after 2.5m.

In these situations, the best solution is to not be an idiot and get stuck in the first place! The next best solution is to be travelling as part of a team so one member can rescue another. Failing that, you’re into the realms of self-recovery. The go-to device in this situation is usually a winch attached to the front of the car: wind out the cable, hook it up to a nearby tree and start winding the cable back in – in theory you’ll then pull yourself out (or the tree over.) We don’t have a winch (too heavy) and 2200m up a Mongolian mountain there wasn’t anything in sight to winch from even if we did.

However, we are prepared for this very situation, so the first course of action was to shimmy along the car running board and dig out the wellies from the back of the car. Wellies on, next came the shovel from the roof rack. A quick inspection revealed that a) the mud was extremely deep and sticky, attempting to consume my wellies with each step, b) we were ‘axle-deep’ and c) self-recovery wasn’t going to be a 5 minute job.

So I set to digging…. After 15 minutes I’d managed to remove some of the gloopy mud from in front of each wheel and over-optimistically gave driving out another go – no luck of course. The driver’s side rear wheel was spinning whilst the passenger side wasn’t. If we had locking differentials I would have engaged them, but we don’t. At that point I knew the solution lay in getting traction to the spinning wheel. The first idea was to slide one of our cheap plastic snow tracks under the spinning wheel. The first attempt was not a success. The next plan was to jack the wheel up, pack it out underneath, and lower it, but…..

….At that point a fellow Landcruiser appeared coming up the hill and Clare flagged them down (we were blocking the track so they had no choice other than to stop!) From here recovery was a cinch. The Landcruiser did a quick three point turn as I dug out the recovery strap we’d bought in preparation for this very situation (that £80 was worth it after all!) With the two vehicles connected the Landcruiser gently eased forward as I gave it a bit of gas in Totty and on the first pull we were free! I was quite surprised, but grateful, this went as easily as it did (there are plenty of youtube videos where it doesn’t.)

With the rescue complete and everyone back on-board, rather than take on the muddy patch the Landcruiser swung out wide on the steep grassy bank and went around the godforesaken mud. At one point, after a failed attempt at one slope, I saw them sliding backwards, with brakes locked up, down the wet slope and thought we might have to return the favour and rescue them. However, they didn’t slide into anything hard and were eventually able to pick their way upwards to the other side of the mud.

On reflection, the first thing I should say is that I’m am very grateful to our rescuers. But at the same time, for my own self confidence in this kind of situation, I would have liked to complete our own self-rescue – not least because Clare says it couldn’t been done. It would’ve taken another hour or two, been tiring and I would’ve got muddy and annoyed but we would’ve eventually got free. Actually, on second thoughts, getting pulled out was the way to go!