Had to choose between mudding a trail or turning back around a fallen tree

Last Saturday I was out on the Pine Ridge trail and came up on this massive oak that had come down overnight. I could either try to plow through the thick mud around it or backtrack 3 miles to the truck. Went for the mud route, sank my front tires up to the rims, and spent 20 minutes winching out with a tree stump. Got caked in mud head to toe but made it through. Anyone else ever take a gamble on a sketchy bypass and regret it?

2 comments

2 Comments

troykim5d agoMost Upvoted

...and that's exactly why I don't even bother trying to bypass stuff like that anymore. I did the same thing last spring on a wet section of the Ridgeway Loop. Tried to skirt around a downed pine by going through what looked like solid ground on the edge of a bog. Turned out it was just a thin layer of grass over two feet of slop. Sank my back axle in thirty seconds. Took me an hour and a half with a come-along and every piece of dead wood I could find to get free. Mud was up past my knees by the time I was done. Now I just turn around. Sucks to lose time backtracking but it beats freezing your ass off in the dark while you're caked in mud and nothing's working right.

leor374d ago

Oh man I did the exact same thing last month on the Hickory Creek trail and spent an hour digging my truck out of a hidden mud pit.