It’s an old adage that having four wheel drive in your vehicle only gets you stuck further away from help.
I experienced this first hand when I was in high school and owned a surplus World War II Jeep (made by Ford) and did my best to prove it could go anywhere.
Unfortunately it didn’t always work out that way.
I remember one such foray onto an old logging road in the Upper Canyon area of my home town in Ruidoso. As I was moving slowly along the long abandoned road, the right side of the roadway began slipping away, thanks to some recent rains and my inattention to exactly where I had pointed my front wheels.
The Jeep suddenly slipped sideways on the road and left me hanging in suspension between the front and rear axles. I managed to get out of the vehicle without tipping it further over to its right side, then took a humiliating four mile hike back to town to let my father know about my predicament.
A heavy duty tow truck (also of World War II vintage and with four-wheel drive) managed to get close enough to my stranded Jeep that it was able to snatch it from its precarious position with a long cable. In the end there was no damage to the Jeep — only to my ego.
I mention this because of the car I spotted last week while taking a load of trash to our landfill on the East Mesa. The driver apparently figured he could turn off the paved road and park on a flat spot adjacent to it. I’m not sure if his (or her) intention was to start going on a hike or perhaps find a secret spot just off the highway where the driver could spend a few amorous moments with his or her partner.
The turn out ended up being covered with very soft sand and left the vehicle stranded without any way to gain traction once the rear wheels had spun out any sand that might have provided the footing needed for a slow retreat.
I’m sure the owner was able to find someone with a stout winch or tow rope to extricate the vehicle, but I suspect they’ll give a second thought to where they park in the future.
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