Colorado 4x4 Rescue and Recovery - Christmas Eve 2018 Pickle Gulch TJ Recovery

Late in the evening December 22nd 2018 a call came into dispatch of a Jeep TJ stuck on a steep hill north of Central City, Colorado. The trail in question was Pickle Gulch, a local favorite for winter snow wheeling. Due to the nature of the call and the complexity of the uphill pulls, it was decided to do a person extraction only and come back for the jeep on a later date.

Sunday the 23rd a scout team went up during the daylight hours to gather intel on how complicated this recovery would be. Given the weather expected to move in the night of Christmas Eve, and steady snow expected the rest of the week, it was decided to put together a team for a Christmas Eve Day recovery.

With team members coming from as far away as Sterling, Colorado, we met at the trailhead about 9:15 AM, aired down, and began making our way up the trail. It was very icy in spots and I personally slid uncontrollably downhill about 3 vehicle lengths toward the rig behind me. Luckily he stopped fast and backed up a bit, otherwise I would have hit him!

All in all, this 30 minute video is an edit of approximately 3 hours of gopro footage and drone footage, trying to not cut out how complicated this operation was. Make no mistake... it was steep. It was complicated. We rigged and re-rigged, and re-rigged over and over and over and over.

The video does not make it look steep, but this almost 700 foot pull (a lot of winching and some driving under own power) took from about 10 AM to 2 PM to complete.

The Volunteers of Colorado 4x4 Rescue and Recovery are nothing short of amazing! Giving up their Christmas Eve to get a complete stranger's property back in his possession, and him (presumably) on a flight to see family for Christmas after having to cancel travel plans after getting stuck.

Colorado 4x4 Rescue and Recovery is a 501c3 non profit funded by donations and volunteer hours by the 200+ membership team.

"We Recover the Rockies!"

Видео Colorado 4x4 Rescue and Recovery - Christmas Eve 2018 Pickle Gulch TJ Recovery канала Justin King