The one time I was hopelessly stranded was when I was 18. I was working for my uncle, who was a land surveyor, in a remote part of NE Oregon. I was taking a different route to our job site after a weekend off. I hit snowdrifts, and tried to power through. Had I known to air down my tires, I might have made it. As it was, I buried my S10 Blazer.
I had no idea how far back to the closest town it was. I guessed it was closer to walk to our job site than go back. I was wrong. I walked all afternoon and into the night. I realized I had taken a wrong fork in the road when I could see the north star, and I was clearly going the wrong direction. I had no Firestarter, and I was wearing Wranglers and a flannel shirt. I spent a very cold night, waking up slightly hypothermic. I was able to gain a bearing and cut cross country to the right road. I stumbled in around 8 AM the next day.
I took a hot shower, ate some soup, and slept for about 18 hours. I was fortunate. Things could have very easily gone differently. I've been very stuck a number of times since then, but I go about things a little differently after that.
Another NE Oregon story.
My work took me from Walla Walla, WA to Enterprise, OR one spring day about 20 years ago. I was in my own long WB 3/4 Ton GMC. I had taken the I-84 to Lostine route to Enterprise, but decided to take the Rattlesnake grade home through Clarkston, WA, even though it was listed "Local Traffic Only".
Long story short, came around a corner at about 50 and buried that truck in a hard spring drift. It went completely across the road so I figured the choices as a roll-over in the ditch or busting through. I stopped so hard I had a bruise from the shoulder strap.
No shovel, no boots, no jacket. "Business Casual", they call it. No cell coverage out there.
I hunted around and found a broken branch about 4" around and started digging at the snow. I dug, cold and wet for almost 4 hours. It was dark when I finally powered forward through the drift.
I had just got clear when a Wallowa County Deputy came around the corner. He laughed at me soaking wet and told me momma had called them out to look for me. He strongly recommended I turn around and take the long way home.
He then said, "If you get stuck coming back through the drift, I can call a tow for you, but I can't winch you out. It's policy."
I got turned around and back over the dug-out drift without incident. Then came a very long go around back through Walla Walla. I got home in time to take a shower, get breakfast, and go back to work.
A hard lessen. All my rigs have emergency gear now. Pop taught me that you wanna get stuck in 2WD and unstuck in 4WD. When you get stuck in 4WD you are REALLY stuck. Even though it took 4 hours, I can still say it worked that day.
-Mark
That sounds like a rough experience, glad you ended up making it safely.
