Crowd sourcing: gumbo nightmare anecdotes

[Hem]

A friend from Havre coerced me to go hunt Bullwacker area.
" Gee, Hem, never seen the gumbo this bad in my entire life here."
We set the wall tent up in 5" of slop.
Have a burrito wiseguy.

 

[mtmuley]

There's a shitty hill out of Killwoman headed toward Fourschette that is nasty. Only place I have ever chained for mud. Played the waiting game for the stuff to freeze too. mtmuley

 

[SixPoint]

Cold temps, wind, and time are all your friend when dealing with it. Surprising how fast conditions can improve if you can wait a bit. During the rain it will be extremely greasy and chains can help get traction. Once it stops raining and it becomes tacky it’s like encasing everything in concrete. I’ve had atvs seize up because their was so much mud in the wheel wells

 

[Ben Long]

Cold temps, wind, and time are all your friend when dealing with it. Surprising how fast conditions can improve if you can wait a bit. During the rain it will be extremely greasy and chains can help get traction. Once it stops raining and it becomes tacky it’s like encasing everything in concrete. I’ve had atvs seize up because their was so much mud in the wheel wells

By "seize up" you mean their wheels wouldn't turn or the engine locked up? Sounds nasty.

 

[SixPoint]

By "seize up" you mean their wheels wouldn't turn or the engine locked up? Sounds nasty.

Yeah wheels wouldn’t turn. Snowmobile clutch and when we stopped the motor didn’t have enough umph to get it rolling again. That was a 500cc Polaris.

 

[Hunting Wife]

There's a shitty hill out of Killwoman headed toward Fourschette that is nasty. Only place I have ever chained for mud. Played the waiting game for the stuff to freeze too. mtmuley

Mine happened not too far from there. I packed in for an overnight to scout for my bull permit. “The weather will be great” said the forecast. It was August, so why wouldn’t it be? So I hiked in with the dog, a bunch of water (it was very dry in there that year), snacks and a bivy.

Woke up about 2 in the morning to raindrops falling on my face. I was 4 miles from the truck. Excellent. Tried to convince myself it was just a few sprinkles. The dog was not impressed. It started coming down harder. I hoped it wouldn’t last too long. The dog protested loudly at this development. I laid there for a couple more hours wondering how bad the road was going to be. Neither of us got any sleep. Hiked straight out as soon as it got light. It was still raining.

I was a couple miles down a very rugged “road” that I would never in a million years choose to drive if I thought it might be even damp. Lots of ups and downs, a sketchy narrow ridge top-not ideal terrain when slick. Ended up having to chain up to get out of there and eventually made it without ending up off the side or in a ditch. One of the sketchiest bits of driving I’ve ever had to do. The truck was covered in gumbo, I was covered in gumbo, the interior was covered in gumbo. It took months to get it all off.

My takeaways from that outing: Never trust the weather forecast in the Breaks, and always have chains in the truck.