Hi All!
What was your most memorable experience of a subaru swim?
Well, not _quite_ the same thing, but . . .
Last summer, coming home after a 5 day backpack trip, I decided to
continue north along the Forest Service dirt road I had driven in on,
rather than backtrack 30 miles into Basalt. According to my map, this
would eventually take me to Eagle. Not particularly closer or
anything, but I had never driven this stretch of road before; all the
excuse I ever need.
On this outing, I was driving my '90 AWD Legacy Wagon. The road was a
bit rough in spots, but easily within the capabilities of the Legacy.
Unknown to me, however, the thunderstorm that dampened the last mile
or so of my hike out had reached epic proportions north of me, causing
a flash flood across the road, and depositing knee-deep mud, rocks,
and sundry vegetable debris in it's wake.
When I approached this section of road, there was a Forest Service
Ranger just turning her small truck around at the top of the mud
slide. There were two jeeps that had attempted to cross stuck in
chassis deep mud off to one side, and the jeep drivers were standing
beside their vehicles, knee deep in red slime.
The Ranger paused long enough to inform me that the road was closed
until they could get a loader from Eagle to come clean up the mess;
several hours, anyway.
Sigh. Now it looked like I would _really_ have to back-track a long
way, and tummy was telling me that it was well past lunch time. I
hopped out to snap a couple fotos (sorry, don't have 'em available to
post), and noticed that the jeep guys were trying to coax the driver
of this huge 4X4 truck into wading out into the muck to rescue them.
To my surprise, he actually started in, slipping, sliding, and
bouncing over the random log. About mid way thru, he realized that he
wasn't gonna be able to get close to the jeeps, at least not and still
be able to drive out, and so with a mighty burst of diesel, he
continued on across, managing to stay mostly on the crown of the road.
About this point, I noticed that his heavy truck had left a nice clear
set of ruts thru the worst of the mud, and further down it didn't
appear to be as deep; perhaps 4-6 inches; passible if you could
arrange to miss the logs and larger rocks. The ruts were filling in
fairly rapidly, tho, and without much thought beyond "Well, if I get
stuck, they'll have to pull me out, too.", I hopped back in my car,
gunned the trusty 2.2, and nailed it. I don't think the jeep guys
really figured I was gonna try to cross; they were waving frantically
and yelling something as I blasted by, throwing mud from all four
wheels. Thanks to the trucks passage, and a fair bit of momentum, I
was able to sleaze thru the worst of the mud before hydroplaning
(mudroplaning ?) set in and the car started to get sideways.
What I should have done, most likely _would_ have done if I'd have
thought about it ("if" . . . "thought" . . .) would have been lift
off, and let the car settle into the mud; probably immobile, but safe
and sound in the middle of the road. What I _did_ do, was mash the gas
pedal to the floor and countersteer, which left me heading directly
into what appeared to be a raft of sticks and small logs; obviously
what had spurred the truck driver into greater efforts on his passage
thru. To my unending surprise, the Soobie, still kinda sideways at
this point, responded by actually climbing up on the debris, finding
some traction, and leaping off, conveniently pointing in the direction
I wanted to go. Bonk, clonk across a couple more logs, and I was
cruising thru the last of the mud on the downhill side of the slide. I
don't know who was more shocked; me, the jeepsters, or the ranger
setting up a barricade at the bottom. The Legacy was covered with mud,
and as I hadn't thought to roll up my side window (thought . . .?), so
was I.
Grinning like a madman as I motored past the speechless ranger, I
waved, and shouted "The Beauty of All Wheel Drive!".
Somewhere it is written that all good backpacking trips must end up
with burgers and beer. Too late by now for anything but a
burger-on-the-run at the Wendys in Eagle, but at least home for a
real-food dinner.
Soobie sez: "All in a days work!"
I'm _still_ washing gobs of that
red mud from the undercarriage, tho!
ByeBye! S.
Steve Jernigan KG0MB
Laboratory Manager
Microelectronics Research
University of Colorado
(719) 262-3101
