Stuck!

STUCK!

We had quite a fiasco last weekend! Mike and John took John's truck up where we go mtn biking. They started off doing some nice, easy rock crawling.










As John's confidence grew, they decided to take it down next to the lake.










John got a little cocky and bit off a little(lot) more than he could chew, getting stuck next to the lake at about 1600. After it was stuck Mike (who has more mudding experience) can be heard on the video saying, "Do you want me to try? We don't want to dig to China!" If only he knew! And John's smile wouldn't be quite as big!







They tried to dig it out for an hour...











with no luck and called me at 1700 to bring out a tow rope to pull them out. I ended up going to the M1 Mall in Adana to buy a chain, shovel, and flashlight because the base didn't have any tow ropes/chains. It was an interesting challenge trying to explain to a Turk that I needed 15m of chain, getting the right hook on it and finding the rest of my supplies. About $250 later (the chain wasn't cheap) I was off to the lake. I finally made it out to them at about 1900.










It was dark, but we tried digging it out and then using my truck to pull it out. It was right next to the water and the water rose a couple feet to where the left side of the truck was in a couple of feet of water.








We finally gave that up at about 2100...



















but as we were leaving, a Turk pulled up on a motorcycle/moped and I asked if he could get a tractor from the village tonight. He agreed and took off to the village. He finally came back about an hour later. In the meantime, a lightning storm was coming our way which made for some cool pictures, but we really didn't need any more rain to soften the dirt/mud.










He came back and said he had a guy that would do it for 20 TL ($15) (a steal we would have paid $100). So we went for it. Once again, more pictures of the looming lightning storm.







Two guys pulled up an hour later. One held a spotlight, the other a over/under shotgun (not sure if the purpose was security or hunting, but he put it down once he saw that the truck was buried.)







So now its about 2300. We gave it a try with the tractor, but we kept snapping the rope that they brought (They added their rope to our chain to get the tractor onto better ground.) Even though the rope was breaking, the one guy stood right next to the front of John's truck, pretty much in line for the snap of the rope. After about an hour, his 87 Toyota truck with a 6 in lift and 35's was in water up to the rear bumper

















Finally they quadrupled the rope and one of the Turks took his pants off and started pulling the mud out from under the truck. At about 0100 the tractor pulled it out. John ended up paying them 90 TL for their efforts which was a steal.

















So we got back to the base at about 0200 which was past our curfew of 0100. The SFS guys were going to let us on without incident, but the Turks wouldn't let his truck on because it was completely covered in mud. Here are some pictures from the next day.



















After the Turks made the stink, the US gate guards had to write us up for the curfew violation which ended up in the blotter. Plus they called our commanders at 0300. It ended up that we should have called our commanders when we knew we weren't going to make it, but we didn't get in any trouble.

What craziness! 3 Americans, 3 Turks, a Tacoma, a Tractor,a chain, 6 ropes, a shovel, and a flashlight and 9 hours later we were out!