Are you talking about the Azusa OHV area in So Cal casm? lots of asshattery out there
Yup, that's the one. When I was living in Pasadena I used to use it as my proving ground since it was close to home and wouldn't use up too much of my AAA if I broke something as long as I could coast back down the canyon.
I saw a kid flip a brand new yukon denali with paper plates still on it out there. walked over to see if he was OK and he said his mom was going to kill him, he took it without her knowing while she was away for the weekend and it was only 2 weeks old :roflmao:
Okay, you'll appreciate this
Back in about late 2006 / early 2007, a friend of mine wanted to get a 4x4 of some sort. Good guy, but he'd never owned even a pickup before. We were up shooting in Burro Canyon and he asked me about my XJ. Long story short, after a bit of discussion he waz interested in the Cherokee and said he'd cover the entry fee to the OHV area in exchange for a demo.
This was at about 3.45pm; there was maybe 1.5 hours of light left up at the range, so I gave the OK and a couple of us piled on down the hill and into the OHV area. We were just sort of puttering along through the reservoir when I saw a Honda Ridgeline on the other side of the river. Figuring that if it made it over there we could, I nosed down into the water. Further downstream, in maybe 4"-6" of water, was a new-looking WK.
The spot that I chose happened to be a lot deeper than I'd expected with a very soft riverbed; thank God I was already in 4LO. The whole thing was one of those 30-second, "oh,
SHIT" moments where the airbox was below the waterline and I was driving with one hand on the ignition key just in case we really did lose traction and start sucking in water - but we made it across. I won't say that I wasn't sweating at the other side, but it worked. My buddy was sold and bought an XJ a few weeks later.
We got out, checked for any non-obvious problems, breathed a sigh of relief, and wound down with smokes for a bit. That out of the way, we decided to head back the same way we came in - after all, we hadn't seen how the Ridgeline had come in and at least knew that the airbox would be above water on the way out, and while the WK was on our side of the water now, we didn't see exactly where he came across - so we set off back.
Now, here's where it gets dumb: the guy in the WK figures that since we made it across he can too. The problem is that he never made the giant mental leap that the lifted Jeep nearly ate shit on the way over, so perhaps this might not be the best route he could take in his stock WK.
Guess what happened next.
Yep, WK guy followed us on in and hydrolocked it. Hard. Some dude passing in a diesel Excursion ended up towing him out; after he made it to the other bank, his wife (in the front passenger seat) was bailing the interior out with the floormats, but that was the least of his worries at this point. He was just plain screwed. Still had the paper plates on.
We stopped to help with the recovery, though there wasn't much to do beyond tell the guy (in my non-technical Spanish) that he needed to pull the plugs, crank the engine over, and replace fluids when he got home. None of us had tools, so weren't much help there - but two guys on quads pulled up and offered the helpful advice that a) he'd killed his starter and b) that being an automatic, all he needed to do was run it up to 40 and pop it in Drive to get it started. We tried to explain to both them and him that the problem was well past that point, but nobody seemed to want to listen. At this point, we gave up and went back to the range.
I feel sorry for the guy; we could see him from the East Fork bridge a couple of hours later when we headed back down from the range. I forget the name of the towing company that brings the Deuce and a Half up there, but they were loading him up. That right there is a $400 tow twelve miles down to the bottom of the canyon.
The sheer amount of stupidity I've seen up there is just appalling. At least it keeps the tards corralled.
