If you're going to get stuck, Canyon de Chelly, AZ is a beautiful place for it to happen. It wasn't our vehicle that needed to be pulled out of the rushing stream, that sprang a leak in the oil pan....and as tourists we didn't have any place to be, so really the delay it added to our tour just meant we had more of an interesting story about our adventure! I was sitting in the second row of seats and Terry in the back of the Suburban when I saw the water flying up over Terry's window as the wheels spun and the vehicle jerked and sank. On the opposite side of the car, my side, the back tire sank the lowest. Our tour guide, Howard, continued to grind gears and spin wheels as we all quickly realized we couldn't go forward or backward. A fellow passenger (Keith who is also from VT) suggested we get out and help. (Frankly, I wasn't sure what we could do because we certainly couldn't get behind the car in the stream and push. The angle of the car was severe and looked like it could dangerously roll back if we tried that. And certainly from my seat, all I saw was about a foot of water at my door, so getting out that door, we would all get wet - I should mention the sandstone and igneous rock here is red, so the flowing stream was churning red, muddy water.) |
But on Keith and Terry's side, we could actually get out on the bank. So we did, and while Keith and Terry took turns shoveling sand under the tires, Howard got his straps connected to the back of the Suburban and radioed his nephew who had other tourists in his Jeep not far behind us. The first strap broke when Howard's nephew drove on his side of the wash, pulling the Suburban back the way we came. Howard opened the back door of the vehicle, retrieved another strap, left the door open - to my horror (my camera and binoculars were on the second row of seats) - and his nephew tried again. This time, the vehicle lurched backward into the stream, stayed tethered to the Jeep, and no water came spilling in the open back door! The rest of our group (5 tourists total) stood on the bank and clapped as Howard drove the right path across and collected us. Now to be fair, this crossing of the wash had been well traveled by lots of Jeeps, water was moving and deeper here than other parts of the canyon, and the guides here come prepared to get out of snags, so Howard just chose the wrong path on his approach the first time, giving us a story for our tour while sacrificing his oil pan. |