Everybody is Doing It

I was on my way out to this little bristlecone forest on the Markagunt.  I came around a corner in the road and found a half-ton Dodge in the ditch.  There was a middle-aged woman, a teen-aged girl, and two idiot dogs.  I stopped and got out.  The woman was on her knees at the front passenger wheel digging in the mud with her bare hands.  The girl was at the back wheel doing the same.  They had, of course, no shovel.  They were both covered in mud from head to toe.  By way of explanation, the woman said that her 4-wheel-drive had gone out and she'd not had time to fix it.

The real explanation was that the road was dry and the ditch did not appear to be particularly wet or soft.  She had put the passenger side along the edge of the road thinking that it was relatively firm and the truck had dropped into a hole up to the running board—it was, in fact, resting on the running board.  Honestly, anybody could have done it.  For all the dumb things I've seen (and done) in the woods, this was not the worst of them.  (Now driving around on the mountain without a shovel, that is another story.)

I suggested that if I hooked up to the front of the Dodge and just gave a little boost, she might be able to drive it out of the hole.  She agreed.  So, I got the Chev into 4-wheel, turned it around, backed up, and dropped my tow strap over her bumper.  She asked me what I wanted her to do.  I told her to get in, put it in gear, and try to ease it forward as she felt the pull of the Chev.  She replied that her Dodge had a standard transmission and that she wasn't sure she'd do a very good job.  I told her to just very gently ease the clutch out and give it a little gas—like you're starting out slowly on a hill.  The last thing I told her before I got in the Chev was, "Don't run me over."

In the event, she did a beautiful job.  As I steadily increased the pressure, and before my tires slipped in the gravel, she gently slipped the clutch and crawled slowly back onto the road.  No gunning it, no wheels spinning, no gravel flying.  Very nice.  Much better than most people, who think that you have to step on the gas to get out of the ditch and end up making things worse.  When she was high and dry, I backed up six-inches, pulled my tow strap, and wished her luck.  She offered to pay me, but I told her that I'd recently been stuck for two hours with six people helping me—nobody owes me anything.