When off-roading goes wrong it can mean a whole lot of damage and sometimes serious injuries. In the case of one RAM TRX driver, his bad day off-road included both. Thankfully, he and his dog survived and escaped the mangled crash. Now, this video chronicles the effort it took to get the truck itself out of the wilderness.
This RAM fell off of Hurrah Pass in Moab, Utah and appears to have dropped around 100 feet into the valley floor below. In the process, it damaged just about every single panel on the truck and seemed to have cracked the frame in at least one place. Amazingly, the driver and his dog both survived with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.
Retrieving the truck required multiple vehicles and incredibly skillful work by the folks over at the YouTube channel Trail Mater. Before they could even set off to take the truck out of the area they had to get permission from the Sheriff’s Department, the Bureau of Land Management, and the State Trust Lands Alliance.
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Cutting through that red tape was vital as Utah has recently shut down many off-road trails. Pulling the TRX out required going completely off of the trail so it was important to the team that they reduced the potential risk to the environment in the pursuit of their goal. The damage to the truck made things even harder since it wasn’t steerable. Sure enough though, they manage to reach the TRX and inch by inch, pull it out of the area and back to the normal trail.
At that stage, an off-road tow truck made life a little easier by hauling the RAM around with its front tires up in the air. Despite that, this wasn’t just a stroll in the park. The team ended up popping two TRX tires during the recovery which made life just a bit harder. Replacing one with the spare helped the cause but nothing about this mission was easy.
Ultimately, the crew ended up successful and put on a clinic in recovery and salvage during the process. They also think that after a season of rainfall, their tracks will be long gone leaving no evidence that they’d ever been there. That’s about the very best-case scenario when something this gnarly happens.