Well july 3rd i was asked to go out to a glacier out in a place called knik, i was supposed to town back a nissan pickup that fried its clutch trying to get unstuck. there are several water crossings along the way. This place is a hell hole, picture this place like mad max era autralia . Burnt cars and a whole bunch of crazy drunk people. Ive been posting stuff on the local boards and i thought it was time for you guys to find out were i have been. Sorry for the write up i did is so jacked up grammer wise, i havnt edited it and i did it shortly after i got my truck out the fourth. My truck is out... the jeep and nissan are still in the river, and my rig is totaled with the whole drive train destroyed from silt. it will be back...eventually
also i will have some pic posted in a little and im working on getting the video of the jeep floating down river up on the net, crazy thing is, i got the whole thing...
Quote:Day One:
A couple days before it had been asked if any one can go out and recover this stock Nissan truck that had made it out to the glacier and had gotten stuck in the crazy silt mud. This stuff is solid when you first drive over it, once you agitate it turns to a Jello like state. Its some very deceiving stuff but that was least of out worries.
Thursday morning I wake up in a cold sweat after having a nightmare that I cannot recall and I go take a shower and start preparing my stuff and loading it up into my truck. I grab all my tools, spare parts, 2 sets a clothes and a sleeping bag. I would rather be over prepared and look like I’m paranoid that not be prepared and have to pay for it.
After every thing is loaded up I head out to the grocery store to get food and water. On my way to the store a friend of mine Justin calls me up and says he would like to come along since he doesn’t have to go to work. I pick him up and head back to the grocery store for supplies.
After leaving the store we take New Seward to 5th and drive to the Williams gas station next to Merrill field. The meeting time was 9 am I arrive early so I can fill up on gas and grab what ever I forgot to get at the grocery store. I wait around for a while looking for a black TJ and a guy in a extended cab Dodge pulls up next to me rolls down his window and asks about my truck and so on. I talk with the guy about lift kits, winches and stuff for the next couple minutes then he leaves. Wait a little longer and a black jeep on 33’s rolls up and a$$ume it must be them. They get out and introduce themselves and we talk about how hard it is going to be to get it out and that the winch should be able to handle the load plus the Nissans clutch is fried from the previous day were they flew out there to dig it out. They drive to the pump and get gas and food.
Justin and I sitting and waiting listening to the radio, that “wake me up inside” song is playing and he jokingly mentions that what would happened if this whole thing is a plot to kill us and steal my truck. We joke around some more and they come over and talk some more, I ask if there are any more trucks coming I was under the a$$umption that a huge ford was going with us, Aaron (jeep owner) says that he got called out to fly some were.
We leave town headed out town on the Glenn Highway, were doing about 60-65 since I guess jeeps have a problem with speed wobble when their running disconnects. We pass the first Eagle River exit and another friend of mine drives by headed to work at the airport. I call him up on his cell and tell him were I’m going and what is going on.
We pull in on the road that the drag track is on and I proceed to fallow him down the road and into what looks like a neiborhood about ready to be built. We stop in a cleared lot and talk some more and get ready for the trail. I hook up my winch controller and open up my cutout. We head out on the trail and fallow down it for a while till it gets really rutted up and we pass by a newer Chevy that some got high centered and left only to come back to have it burnt to the ground.
We emerge from the woods out into Jims creek were every body is running around on 4 wheelers and camping out. We drive by a couple more burnt up cars and cross the first water crossing with ease. We head out on the first riverbed having fun with all the whoops and stuff going along at a semi fast pace. We cut off towards the mountains to fallow another riverbed, cross another river and enter the woods again which are called the “beaver ponds”. We weave around the woods crossing threw numerous other water holes. We come out of the woods and came upon another creek (Friday creek?). We crossed it and I hit the opposing bank with some speed and got my front end off the ground, remembering it was crap like that how I originally messed up my front end and I slowed down.
Again we drive along the riverbed and finally come upon Metal creek. Metal Creek is a bad name for this body of water. Creek is misleading Metal River is better name for it since it is about a quarter mile wide and can flow very fast. We had been warned as to the danger of this place and that it will try to kill you and will try to steal you vehicle. We got out and discussed the best plan to cross, we talk for a while looking for the best place to start the crossing, I suggest that the jeep go first since they crossed it the day their friend got stuck. They enter the water and make their way to the first bank and I fallow. We do this across the creek with out incident. Finally we are across and drive along a trail that winds along to the glacier. We come upon the Nissan and we look around a little and figure out as to how we are going to do this. I hook up my winch and pull it outg far enough to were we can figure out what we are going to need to do to get this thing out. The wheels are locked up from the silt creeping in between the wheels and brakes/hub and drying out and basically turning to cement. We jack up the truck to pull the wheels off and clean them out. We deal with the truck falling off the jacks and them sinking into the mud.
We get every thing cleaned out and the wheels roll so I strap up to the Nissan since the clutch is fried and we make our way back to the river. Once we arrive at the river we realize the water had risen. We talk some about how to do this and the jeep enters the water and makes its way to the first bank and I fallow with the Nissan still attached to me. We hop from bank to bank once more and just as the jeep starts to cross the widest part of the river it hits a drop off in the middle and starts floating away.
This is one of those times were time slows down, way down. As we watch helpless as the jeep keeps on floating away. About 300 feet down stream the jeep stops as it hits a under water sand bar. Immediately I jump out unhook the Nissan, the driver hops in with us (sorry I don’t remember his name) I haul a$$ up stream along the bar we were on and cross diagonally down stream towards the sand bar that was adjacent to us. I enter the water and realize this was a bad spot to cross. I go off a drop off and water crashes over my hood, I proceed to power of out it and the engine starts to bog down I come out onto the sand bar. I haul a$$ down the sand bar next to were they are stuck at. By this time they are on the top of the jeep. I back up into the water with and they try to too us their tow strap, after many tries we realize the strap wont reach. I again run up stream and drive down in the water so I am about 10 feet away from them and we try to throw the strap. Were I am positioned is very silty and I can feel the ground from under my truck eroding away. I hold that position as long as I can till I’m about stuck, I get out of it and make my way to the bank ingesting more water.
They finally abandon the jeep and swim off to were I am. Glad every one is still alive and no one lost their life it is discussed as to if we can get the jeep out and we decide that at this point in time that we need to get the hell out of there and trying to recover the jeep is not worth us getting stranded out in there if my truck got sucked away with the jeep still attached. We all load up into the Dodge and I make my way up the up the river and start another crossing. All is fine in the part of the river it is about level with the top of my 35’s and I am making it along fine until I hit a raise in the bottom of the river. Forward momentum stops and my tires start to dig in. I try to reverse and go forward again with no luck I got my boggers dug in to deep and cant climb out of the whole they have made for them selves. If I would have made it 1 or 2 more feet I could have made it out of that part of the river.
I realize I am not going any were and that I need to get my truck out as soon as possible since were my air box is located is now level with the water. I have Justin keep my truck from dieing. I grab my hi-lift and wade around to the back of the truck to try and get the back up and push the jack over to get out of the hole. With no luck since the jack just sinks into the silt I pull it off and loose the handle in the water. I open up my tool box and grab my breaker bar for a handle and move up to the front of the truck and try to jack it up and again no luck.
My last chance is my winch and with nothing to hookup I decide to try and use my tire as an anchor and berry it in the ground. We move the tire out of the back and dig a whole for it. We throw the tire in the hole with a strap attached to it and hook up the winch. I run back to my truck to find Justin has to floor my truck just to get it to stay alive at 1500 rpm. My engine is not running well it all I open my hood and find that a gray oily substance is coming out of my intake. I hope in look at my gauges and notice that my battery isn’t charging any more. I start to winch and realize that I didn’t engage it and it was still in free spool. I run out and engage it and start to winch again only to have wasted the little bit of my battery left. The tire pulls out of the ground. And the line speed is so slow with it only pulling the tire the battery must be dead. I shut down my truck.
We strip every thing from my truck that will can use. We grab the sleeping bag, dry clothes (both in garbage bags lucky) food and water and leave the truck. We make our way across the river on foot with every thing over out heads so we dont get them wet. This water is near freezing and we needed dry clothes so we don’t get hypothermia. We cross the other half of the river and finally we get the shore. Thankful to god no one was injured or died.
Part Two:
We meet up with the guy that was driving the Nissan who had made his way across the river on foot when I got stuck to go call for help. He was able to get a hold of his wife by hiking part way up a ridge were it was a strait shot to the closest cell phone tower. She was trying to get a group of people to come out and pick us up.
Were all on the bank of the river trying to realize as to what just happened. We start to ring out our wet clothes and change into dry ones and get situated as to what are next plan of action is. Then we notice something shining in the woods about a mile away.
We start to hike over to see what it is and as we get closer we notice that there is a cabin to the right on a ridge but doesn’t look like we can hike to it. We keep on hiking to the glimmer and see that it is another cabin, if you can call it that. This thing has been trashed and there is beer cans and broken glass all over the place. We split up and some stay to start a fire and a couple of us hike up to use cell phones and call people.
I call my mom and tell her what’s up and to let her know I’m safe. After that I try and call some friends to try and get a hold of another friend with a lifted Toyota. During this time the other guys are calling their wives back to see if any one is going to come out. They relay the info that their friends are going to come out as soon as the guy with the Ford lands.
*We hike back down and by then they have started a fire and started setting up camp and we start to wait. A couple hours go by as we wait. We decide to hike back up and try to call out again and see what the progress is with getting us out of there. They guy with the ford just landed I guess and started getting stuff ready and the same for the guy with the jeep and they would be out to use in a couple hours.
*A couple hours have passed and it starts to rain so we spend the next couple minutes trying to make a shelter out of a tarp we found up at one of the cabins. As soon as we get it up the rain lets up so only it’s a little sprinkle. Shortly after this we can hear the drone of an exhaust. Soon we can see headlights a couple miles away and we call up our rescue party up on the radio. They brought food water and extra clothes and most importantly a ride out.
Day Two, July 4:
I wake up later than I intended since I couldn’t get to sleep the night before for obvious reasons. I call around trying to find a wrecker that will go out to metal creek but no one will. Finally we get a hold of a guy that says he has a friend that will do it for 3 thousand but he wont be able to leave till he is done with parade at 12. My dad and I leave the house at 11:30 so I can pick up a set of waiters since mine were in the back of my truck. We head out of town and get on the highway towards Knik.
*We eventually get out to Knik and are waiting by the racetrack for the guy at happy hooker towing to give us a call as to when he is going to arrive. We were supposed to leave about the same time and meet up at the racetrack at the same time. We ended up waiting for 3 hours. During this time I see Curtis and the Winigers drive by but I don’t even think about waving them down.
*Its about 4pm now and the tow truck guys finally show up, they say there is only enough room for one so I hop in and leave my dad to wait. We make it about half way before we see a train of jeeps headed out along the trail. Luckily I had my frs set to the same channel as them and I could hear them talking to immediately got on and started talking to them. Told them the dodge was mine and that I was on my way out to get it.
*We make our way threw the wooded part of the trail trying to keep up with the jeeps and along the way some were we popped a tire but we were able to keep on moving since it was dually. We lost site of the jeeps and followed along the trail till we came out onto the river again. We came out of the woods ahead of the jeeps so we got out and inspected the tire. We talked for a little then headed out towards the river again.
*When we finally made it to the river one of the first things I hear the driver of the wrecker say was that this is going to be cake. When we go closer his tune changed and said that we weren’t going to be able to get it out.
A couple minutes have passed and it is decided that the jeeps can get closes enough to pull the dodge out. Curtis went to the first bar and had water come over the hood of his XJ. So he was going to wait till some one could walk in front of him to make sure the path in the water didn’t have any drop offs that he would slip into. By this time Dan and I had put on our waiters and started crossing the river over to Curtis and Jerry made his way over to use as well.
*We started the second crossing and the water got to the top of our waiters but was still no problem. We both ended stumbling on a few large unstable rocks during this crossing but still no problem. We make our way down the river hoping from sand bar to sand bar, reading the river for the shallowest crossings till we come upon my truck.
We position the jeeps so they can pull me from the front out of the hole I dug for my self. At this time I throw my transfercase in to neutral and we start to winch. I’m moving about a half foot per pull and then they have to reposition them selves. Then Dan asks me if I put my trani neutral as well. Well I feel like a jackass no wonder the tires weren’t moving. After this it is easy to winch my truck farther. We jack up the truck using my ammo can box for a base to even out the load so it doesn’t sink into the ground and change my tire that we knocked off the bead.
*We throw a strap around my front bumper so it doesn’t fall off while we are towing across the rest of the river. We hop to the next bar across from us and drive down it till we realize that this one is going to be hard to cross so we head up it again and cross if a different spot. We wade out into the river again to check the depth and determine it to be fine, we repeat this process till we are on the last bar from the bank of the river. This one we have to watch out since there is a drop off were the river flows around the side of the bank. We walk out and fine the line that would be best but there was a small but steep incline in the riverbed. I hop in my truck and get ready to be towed across the final part of the river. Curtis makes it over the incline fine but we encounter a slight problem pulling my truck over it and required a few jerks to pull me over it.
Finally I’m on the bank and relived that my truck is out of that damned river. Curtis pulls me over to where every one else is parked and I change clothes. It had been discussed if I was going to be charged the full 3k even though the towing people had done nothing except watch. I go over to them and offer that I pay for their popped tire, their diesel and their time and not charge me 3k since they didn’t do much except go out there and watch. They said no and I said what ever and walked away. There was a lengthy discussion between Curtis and the guy and he said he would drop it to 2k (Thanks Curtis).
We wait for the happy hooker guy to leave then we head out back to the world. Along the way, Curtis still towing me behind his XJ he starts to over heat and his radiator drain valve thing broke off some how. He did a trail repair using the piece still in the radiator, a screw and some silicon. It worked perfect and I unhooked from Curtis and hooked up to Jerry. Again on our way again we cross another smaller creek and enter the woods. All was mostly uneventful except when I couldn’t turn fast enough (no power steering sucks!) and got my tire hung up on the side of a water hole and had to be pulled out backwards.
Were finally out to Jims creek and we have to deal with many drunk a$$ people running around on 4 wheelers. We see some kid whose truck looks like it was attacked by a tiger with about 20 people in the bed of his truck all screaming. Then some one peals off on 4 wheeler and comes up behind Curtis were he cant see him and cuts him off. We are finally out to the road. Were I see my dad we stop and talk and I thank every one and there off to see were the Winigers went. My dad tows me to a store down the road and we leave my truck there till I can return with a flatbed and pick it up the next day.
I need to add some stuff in certain places to add to the story but I just wanted to get the basic story out. Ill have it edited and rewritten eventually
this picture is after i got pulled out of the hole i was in, also this is in the middle of the river, the {expletive}er is wide! ...the water was up to the hood...
heres the jeep right after they swam off...
and here it is a couple days later when a friend of theirs flew out in his helicopter to look at it...
Holy [censored], that must've been a nice week end. Time for bigger meats and a snorkel. That was sorta stupid of the tow truck guys. I'm sure glad I got contacts with people who have bull dozers down in Waipio. Well, the Jeep looks pretty wasted, probably can salvage it. Anyways, can't wait for the video and good luck fixin it.
its not going to be coming out of the river. it is way to dangerous to get out there i was lucky that we chose a good like to make it across hoping from sand bar to sand bar and the water wasnt to high or to fast altho i did get nocked off my feet once. i guess people went out again and the water had risen a foot and was way faster. Glacier rivers can be crazy and that one chages every day it is never the same in the way it fans out. Late Josh
Yeah, I hate when the river changes every single day. And when unknowing people try to cross it. Since seeing this, i'm going to make an effort to find pics of when a guy went around army personal into a big flash flood that closed ALL highways, and floated a mile or so down stream into the nice big pacific ocean outside of Wailea. Drowned in 30 ft. of water and insurance didn't claim it. And I think the guy was trying to get it to run. Anyways, I guess ya gotta carry a spare battery and all.
Home
Forums
Photos and Video
Tech
Classifieds
Our Members
Extras
FAQ
. Burnt cars and a whole bunch of crazy drunk people. Ive been posting stuff on the local boards and i thought it was time for you guys to find out were i have been. Sorry for the write up i did is so jacked up grammer wise, i havnt edited it and i did it shortly after i got my truck out the fourth. My truck is out... the jeep and nissan are still in the river, and my rig is totaled with the whole drive train destroyed from silt. it will be back...eventually
![[Image: post-1-24236-Cnv0112.jpg]](http://www.wheelingadventures.com/Northern4x4/iB_html/uploads/post-1-24236-Cnv0112.jpg)
![[Image: post-1-99402-stuck_medium.jpg]](http://www.wheelingadventures.com/Northern4x4/iB_html/uploads/post-1-99402-stuck_medium.jpg)
![[Image: sunk%20jeep%20medium.jpg]](http://myhome.spu.edu/bhuey/Glacier_Run/sunk%20jeep%20medium.jpg)
![[-]](images/cleancut/collapse.gif "[-]")