I was one of the final recovery members of the Metal Cr Jeep. Your story is somewhat blind of what really happened. We don’t hold this against any at all; it’s hard to get a story 8-50 times down the road after everyone’s added a little here and a little there and have it still resemble the original.
There were 3 attempts at recovery of the vehicles. The following was the original loss of the vehicles before the Jeep got lost.
Murdock (Aaron)
10:00 am Saturday/June 28, 2003
My TJ, a 1970 ¾ ton Ford, and a stock Nissan left Anchorage, heading for Knik Glacier. None of us had been there before but we’d heard it wasn’t a bad trip.
2:30 pm Saturday
We reached the braided river just before the glacier. Crossed the river without too much trouble, although I thought the Nissan was going to float away a couple times.
3:00pm Saturday
On the glacier, got some great pictures, haven’t had any problems so far. Driving off the glacier, the Nissan was following Ford and I. We were just off the glacier, and hadn’t found any mud yet. Suddenly the Nissan (following our path) sunk to its axles in glacial silt/mud. We backed up the Ford and hooked up to the Nissan to pull it out. The Ford is on firm ground (we thought) and gives a pull, spinning its tires. Next thing we know the Ford has sunk up to its Frame in the freaky silt/mud! What is going on here?! That stuff goes from completely solid (we barely made tire tracks in it) to bottomless goop instantly!
To quote Bill Paxton in Aliens “Game over, man! Game Over!” Were all SCREWED
6:00pm Saturday
Our cell phones work 1 out of 100 attempts there on the glacier. Finally get a hold of some friends. They are bringing an F250 with 37” Swampers, a new Rubicon with an 8000# winch, and a cooler of beer. We figure they will arrive around 10:30pm.
7:00pm Saturday
We had spent 4 hours of digging with one freaking shovel and one mini army shovel that looks like it was made by Tyco for toddlers. The shovel didn’t do much, but it agitated the mud and made it flow like a slow mudslide. In four hours the Ford went from sitting on its frame in the mud, to having its tires in only a few inches of mud! My brother set up a video camera on time delay, taking 2 sec of video every 30 sec. We will post a link to the video soon. Its crazy, that mud flows out from the truck like a river!
We hook up the jeep, break a few tow straps (I’m never buying a tow strap from Wal-Mart again) tie the pieces together and finally pull out the ford with the TJ.
12:00am Sunday
We’ve been shoveling the Nissan for hours and trying to pull it out with the Ford and TJ at the same time. It budges but we can’t get it out. Our friends arrive at the river crossing and try to cross. The F250 gets stuck, Rubicon pulls him out, the Rubicon gets stuck F250 pulls him out, they finally get across the river – a little water got into the jeep but we won’t get into that.
1:00am Sunday
Everyone is freezing cold (wind off the glacier) and hungry, but we’ve got beer! We hook up the Rubicon’s winch to the Nissan and begin to winch. I should back up. The winch was installed by my not-so-bright friend driving the Rubicon. He hooked it up backwards somehow but he said it still worked. So we start winching and BAM the cable breaks. He had the winch cable running over the top of the spool and dropping down under the roller. This caused the cable to fold at about 90 degrees over a steel plate which of course cut the cable when it came under tension.
3:00 am Sunday
Everyone is pissed and nothing has worked. Our straps are broke and we abandon the Nissan. We hit the river and find it is deeper and moving faster than it did when we last went through. Must have been the sun shining on the glacier late in the afternoon. We got across finally and headed back to town (after I filled up the TJ’s tank with a gas can – why do they make those gas tanks so small?)
6:00am Sunday
Finally get home and try to explain to the wife why I was just a little late.
Soooo, I’m heading out in my TJ on Thursday (July 3) morning with my friend in a F250 on 37s. Neither of us have winches, although I’m working on getting one. We are bringing high lift jacks, 2x12s, and hopefully a pump. Below the mud there is ice so we are going to try and wash away the mud (or help it flow) by pumping a bunch of water around the truck
This next little part was the last ditch efforts by Josh (dodge) to recover his own vehicle from the Cr.
I’ve tried calling helicopter companies and wrecking companies no one will be able to get it out and I need suggestions on how to get my truck out. We lost the other guys Nissan and jeep and my truck is buried up to its frame rails half way across. We tried burying a spare tire down but it kept pulling out i tried to high lift out of the hole but no good. Does any one know any companies/people that will go out there with a winch that can pull my heavy truck out of the river? Were lucky to be alive lucky we brought extra food, cloths and sleeping bags. Can any one help I have about 2500 in my bank account so I can pay for the recovery of my truck. Please reply.
There was another attempt at recovering the Dodge that consisted of Dan, Curtis, Jerry, Chaz, and Josh (owner). This attempt was successful but was deemed to dangerous to attempt the recovery of the Jeep.
On Sep 20, 2003
Mike & Steve (Green Dodge)
Brian & Dad (Red TJ) AKEX
Phillip & Dad (Bronco) LF4W
Chaz (Green TJ) AKEX
Matt (TJ)
Chris (Blue Yota)
We mounted up in Anchorage and headed out to “attempt” to recover the Jeep from its grave. This was a joint effort from existing and prospective Alaska Extreme 4x4 and Last Frontier Club members.
We all arrived at the Jeep around 10 am on Saturday, and started to assess the damage. We immediately started to dig. We kept digging for the next 8 hours. When we had enough of the Jeep exposed we started to winch on it. We had Phills 12k Warn, my k Warn, and Matts 9.5k Warn. Due to the suction of the silt that we have in Alaska it took another couple hours to brake it free. When we finally got it free we towed it to the trail head and took what we could to keep it from being vandalized, this wasn’t over until around 10 pm that night. The next day Myself, Chaz, and Mike headed back to the trailhead and took what was considered salvageable by us off the truck, axles, drive train etc. The plan was to trailer it to the junkyard. A good friend of both clubs, Frank and Cole Winegar (tuff truck challenge “Monstro”), came in from Wasilla and decided a rebuild was in order for the Jeep. The Jeep currently resides with Cole and Frank, the engine has been flushed and does actually run again.
Brian Thomas
Red 02’ TJ
AKExtreme4x4
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